At the outset, we said that Profit doubling could happen in 100 days. How are your Project Management skills?
Just how long it takes depends on several things:
Project Management and the Profit Makeover
Firstly, and importantly, will be the speed at which you can address the separate activities that are listed in this document. If you can address one every 10 days then it is quite feasible to get it done in 100 days.
Some activities are comparatively fast and others are slow. For example, if you have a lease on a building it might be some time before you can cancel the lease.
Some have a major impact and others not so much.
We can throw all the proposed activities onto a simple matrix like the one that follows:
| Easy to Implement | Difficult to Implement | |
| Major Impact | ||
| Minor Impact |
Throw each of the tasks and sub tasks you have in mind to do in one of the cells in this matrix.
From this table, it would be common sense to do the Major Impact/Easy to Implement activities first and then move increasingly through to the Minor Impact and the most Difficult to Implement. That way you are getting as much of the increase in Profit as possible as fast as possible.
Note that some things may have upstream or downstream implications that you will need to take into consideration when scheduling action on them.
Project Management and Time Management
Another determinant of how long this process takes is how disciplined you are with your time management. If you use a good time management system to free up your time for major projects, you will progress much faster than if you have a poor or non-existent time management system.
To read more on Time Management see the discussion in: C2.6 Advanced Business Growth Techniques.
Business Size
Undoubtedly one of the major impacts on speed will be how many staff your business employs.
If you are small and really it is only you making management decisions, your speed will be the greatest.
If you have a lot of staff to both consult and to win over to the process, and the results which will impact on them, your progress will be slower.
Staff may actively drag their heels which leads us to the next point.
Speed Rules
Experts in this area say it is better to cut deep and fast and then patch up anything that comes unstuck rather than to have a prolonged period of continuous cuts that demoralise staff. Avoid your staff worrying about whether their role, and maybe their job, are going to disappear.
The exception might be staff cuts, don’t remove a person and then find you need them.
Keep in mind that staff are often as much as 60-70% of the costs in a service business, not removing them will have a very significant impact on your Profit gain.
