Boost Your Value Teams Productivity by 87% or More!!
Are you ready to build high-performance teams that keep your project managers on track, on budget, and on target to achieve even better and faster results?
If your answer to this question is a NO, you can stop reading this column…now. However, if your answer is YES, keep reading since I’m going to share with you one little known secret of high performance value teams. A secret that will enable you to virtually guarantee successful savings implementation every time, minimize communication gaps, and optimize your team’s time, money and resources.
The secret is for you to invest in project management software that will: (i) expand your ability to manage and control all of your value analysis projects in real-time, (ii) give a tangible structure to your value analysis studies vs. winging it, (iii) expertly apply value analysis concepts to your projects, and (iv) document all projects and savings.
Just the other day I was talking to one of our IDN clients about what’s new in his supply chain world. He told me that he is now is employing project management software to manage all of his savings projects and this has boosted his project manager’s productivity by double digits.
More importantly, this supply chain professional now has piece of mind that his projects are on track, on budget and on target. Before buying the project management software he wasn’t really sure what the factual status of his projects were at any given time. All he had to base his decisions on were verbal project updates along the way.
That’s all changed now he says with just one click of his mouse he can see for himself all of his projects status reports without any filters, miscommunications or misunderstandings that have often crept into his status reports in bygone days. He now believes that only with project management software can healthcare organizations meet their strategic savings objectives each and every year. It just makes sense to do so!
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P..S. Discover the power our Supply Chain Pilot™ can give you in the management and control of ALL of your supply chain and value analysis projects. It just makes sense to do so!
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article, “Stepping Up to the Supply Chain Leadership Challenge”. This blog is all about the supply chain heroes who are making a difference at their healthcare organizations every day.
Stepping Up to the Supply Chain Leadership Challenge
Over the last 27 years that I have been a healthcare consultant I have worked with over 498 hospitals, systems and IDNs to provide our software, training and consulting services. During this time I have seen the quality, integrity and professionalism of supply chain managers jump light years in proficiency.
That’s not all! From what I’m observing after talking to and working with supply chain professionals from all 50 states (and some worldwide) on a daily basis is that the future even holds more promise for these supply chain heroes. These managers are stepping up to supply chain leadership, meeting their challenges head on, mastering the skills they need to succeed and survive in the 21st century.
Just as important I see for the first time that senior management is recognizing supply chain manager’s leadership ability and even given them more responsibility than in past years. Just last week I talked to two supply chain managers that are not only responsible for their hospital’s materials and supplies, but are also accountable for biomed, property management, and building services. This certainly builds confidence and self-esteem in our profession’s future, leadership potential and confidence.
So as I see it, supply chain professionals at every healthcare organization in the U.S. are stepping up to the leadership challenge we all face today: Thinking strategically, acting professionally and leading our hospital, system or IDN senior management in the right direction to more and better systems, savings and productivity in their healthcare organization’s supply chain.
Are your Value Analysis Arteries Clogged?
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – October 23, 2008
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Are your Value Analysis Arteries Clogged?
I have identified a new disease called Grouppurchasingsclerosis that most healthcare organizations that have supply value analysis programs are at risk of developing or are already experiencing serious symptoms. This new disease is clogging or narrowing hospitals, systems and IDNs vital saving arteries with big fat GPO contracts and could be fatal to your healthcare organization’s financial health.
You heard me right, if your healthcare organization has Grouppurchasingsclerosis then very little savings is moving through your Value Analysis funnel® because it’s clogged up with new or renewal GPO contract evaluations. This disease can be silent and deadly for those hospitals, systems and IDNs that don’t pay attention to the warning signs.
Just recently a MM told me that his hospital had several symptoms of this fatal disease. He has personally observed that his two value analysis teams (clinical and surgical) spend 70% of their time evaluating new and renewal GPO contracts and spend very little time investigating the waste and inefficiency in his hospital’s products, services and technology’s value streams where the greatest savings opportunities reside.
I then gave this MM a prescription to stop the pain and suffering he was experiencing. This called for his hospital to establish a new GPO contract team that would be dedicated to evaluating and selecting new and renewal GPO contracts, so that his present two value analysis teams could get down to their real work of performing value analysis studies without being bogged down with their artery clogging GPO contracts.
This is not to say that your GPO contracts aren’t a vital and essential element of your supply chain expense management program. What I am saying is that your GPO contract due diligence process shouldn’t supplant your value analysis efforts if you don’t want to develop this dreaded and hideous disease that I call Grouppurchasingsclerosis.
If you don’t heed this warning you will be putting your hospital, system or IDN at risk of never wringing the towel dry of ALL of your best supply chain savings opportunities since you will be clogging your VA arteries with your GPO contracts that should be analyzed with a separate and distinct contract team. With this said, isn’t it time that you check if you have any symptoms of Grouppurchasingsclerosis at your healthcare organization?
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P..S. Legally, we cannot say our Utilizer™ Dashboard is the worlds best savings finding tool in healthcare today, but our clients thinks so which is all that matters to us.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article, “Supporting Multiple Projects Doesn’t Need to Give You a Big Fat Headache”. This blog will show you how to get more done in less time with less hassle.
Supporting Multiple Projects Doesn’t Need to Give You a Big Fat Headache
As a supply chain professional you have multiple projects with different agendas, priorities, challenges and expectations that are ALL competing simultaneously for your attention and your time. How do you get all this varied and demanding work done effectively, efficiently and on a timely basis without getting a big fact headache? The answer is four fold:
Negotiate to give yourself more time, specifics and leeway
One of my former employees had mastered this technique to get more time, specifics and leeway to do the projects that I assigned him. Whenever I gave him a lengthy or complex task he would ask me which project that he was already working on for me should he re-order to get this new one done (he would then show me his to-do list to get my attention). Next, he would talk about the specifics of the project and then negotiate with me to whittle it down to a reasonable size. Finally, he would ask how I felt about doing the project differently so he could get it done easier and even faster than I had proposed. I always marveled at how this employee managed me on each project I assigned to him, but the results where always equal or better than I thought possible. You can use these same artful and powerful tactics to manage your bosses and your department heads and managers too.
Learn how to say “no” to projects that should go elsewhere
This is hard to do, but not impossible if you look at what is being asked of you by your bosses. Let’s say that you are asked by one of your bosses (if you think about it, we all really have more than one boss) to perform a telecommunications study to determine if there are savings opportunities for your hospital.
The question you should ask your boss, before saying yes to this project is “wouldn’t it be better if our in-house telecommunication expert Joe Smith performed this study since he knows more about this subject than me”. The chance that your boss would say yes to this proposal is very good and then you just got off the hook for this project without really saying no to your boss.
Increase your bosses’ awareness of the challenges you face
Too often we don’t keep our bosses’ informed about our workload, people problems and things that are happening in our hospital that are making our jobs more difficult. So our bosses’ think we always have the time and resources to do just one more project that he or she has just thought up with another important and unreasonable deadline.
Fatal flaw! If we keep our challenges to ourselves then our bosses won’t be aware of the problems we are encountering in getting our jobs done and they will continue to pile on the work at unrelenting speed. To prevent this from occurring, you need to meet with your boss (weekly if possible) to have an ongoing dialog about what’s happening in your department. Then he or she can be more sensitive when they assign you a new project and/or protect you from when other bosses ask you to do something that will be difficult for you to get done on time.
Delegate anything and everything that someone else can do
I know that every time management book will tell you to delegate, delegate, delegate to manage your time and workload. However, from my experience, very few supply chain managers really take this advice and run with it.
Why? They don’t want to lose control over the task or project, so they do it themselves since they think they can do it better than anyone else. Hence they never have enough time or energy to get everything done that is requested of them. Isn’t it about time we really rethink what we are doing about delegation, so that we can get even more done in less time?
Supporting multiple tasks and projects and getting them done in a timely fashion is every supply chain manager’s challenge, not just your problem. The good news is that there are strategies, tactics and techniques to ease your burden and lighten your workload if and when you decide to stop getting headaches over too much work and start managing your workload with new ways to do things.
It’s All About Utilization!
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – October 15, 2008
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Is All About Utilization!
My son and I met for an introductory meeting last week with a new material manager at one of our client hospitals who we have been servicing with software and services for the last five years.
The agenda for the meeting was for us to demonstrate our Utilizer™ Dashboard, Supply Chain Pilot software and to talk about the value analysis coaching and training we had been providing his hospital over the years, but this discussion soon spun off in another direction when this MM stated to us without any prompting that supply chain management today is “all about utilization”, not about price. Naturally, this was music to our ears, so we asked him why he believes this to be true.
He then said that he had found after decades as a material manager that it was a waste of time for him haggle with his vendors to save a few pennies off his expense budget, when his GPO contracts achieve 98% of the savings available to his hospital. On the other hand, if he invested the same amount of time to uncover, investigate and implement his utilization savings, he could save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Here’s the rest of the story! This MM didn’t know us, our products or our services before this meeting, but we found ourselves on the same page with him before our meeting was over. It’s no surprise to us that more and more MMs are thinking and acting the same way as this supply chain professional when it comes to reducing their supply chain expenses. They are letting their GPOs do what they do best – reduce their acquisition costs – thereby freeing up their time so they can focus their energies on their utilization misalignments, where their greatest savings can be achieved.
To survive in these turbulent economic times we ALL need to employ, as this MM affirms, all of the weapons in our supply chain arsenal, not just the ones that are the easiest, ego boosting or handy to use.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P..S. If you are ready to deep-dive into your supply chain why not take a “test drive” of our Utilizer™ Dashboard and we will show you how we do it.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “What’s Ahead for Supply Chain Management? This blog will show your the emerging best practices that will be coming in the near future.
What You Can Learn from Costco in Turbulent Times!
Although my firm’s focus isn’t on price, but instead Savings Beyond Price™, I still look out for new big ideas that can help our clients save on the front end too. One of these new big ideas I came across is how Costco (72 billion dollar deep-discount high-volume warehouse chain) is coping with hyper-inflation in these turbulent times.
It all comes down to this quote from Costco’s CEO James Sinegal, “The biggest concern to me is that we lose our way and…start thinking it doesn’t matter if … (our suppliers) charge another dime or another dollar or another hundred dollars, “ he says, “Without those disciplines, we don’t have anything”. To put this quote into perspective, Costco never accepts a price increase without looking at every alternative possible to hold the line on price.
A great story that is told about Costco’s “take no prisoner philosophy” is how they dropped their banana vendor Benita (who provided 85% of their bananas) when they tried to add an extra $6 fee per case, even though for weeks Costco had very few bananas in its stores. Costco now buys their bananas from five different countries to get the right price for their customers.
That’s not all! Costco is growing their own pumpkins to help preserve the $5.99 price tags on their store-baked pies. And after Procter & Gamble announced a 6% price hike on Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet paper, Costco bought hundreds of truckloads at the old price and stuffed them into storage depots. They also have gotten their suppliers to redesign their packaging to fit more items on pallets, to save on transportation cost. These are just a few examples of Costco’s tactics to keep their prices in check by reshaping the way they do business.
The lesson we can learn from Costco in these turbulent times is that it takes discipline, creativity, resourcefulness and guts to hold back your price increases. More importantly, don’t accept ANY price increase without searching out alternatives even when your suppliers wrongly think you have no other choice but to accept their double-digit price increase without question
Price Is No Longer King
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – October 9, 2008
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Price Is No Longer King!
It’s no secret that rampant raw-materials inflation (9.8%) is driving product prices up for your healthcare organization. One client of ours told me that his trash can liner prices just went up 40%. Ouch!
That’s why you need to take a deep breath and then dig and drill down even deeper into your supply chain to uncover the waste and inefficiencies, misuse, misapplication and value mismatches in your products, services and technologies. It is there you will find as much as 26% in new savings just waiting to be harvested.
What are you waiting for? Too many supply chain professionals are holding back from attacking these huge savings opportunities because they think that somehow their GPO will find a way to hold back these price increases. Don’t let the facts confuse you with this fiction. Price is no longer king, and let’s face it we’re in turbulent economic times that call for new strategies, tactics and techniques to right our boat.
It’s now time for you to take a deep-dive into your supply chain to find your utilization misalignments in order to minimize your healthcare organizations exposure to this broadening predicament that is universal to all businesses. How you beat the market is by finding better ways to do things other than just hope that your GPO will pull a rabbit out of a hat and make your price increases go away.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
800-220-4274
P..S. If you are ready to deep-dive into your supply chain why not take a “test drive” of our Utilizer™ Dashboard and we will show you how we do it.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog article “What’s Ahead for Supply Chain Management? This blog will show your the emerging best practices that will be coming in the near future.
What’s Ahead for Supply Chain Management?
I often tell my CVAL course students that I read (and they should too) more industrial supply chain management periodicals than I do healthcare because I’m always looking for new, different and emerging best practices that I can share with my readers and clients. By the way, almost ALL new healthcare supply chain innovations come from other industries.
With this said, here’s three new industry ideas that will show you what’s ahead for healthcare supply chain management in the very near future:
1. Electronic Payments
Industry is way ahead of healthcare when it comes to paying their vendors electronically with no paper work involved. It generates bigger discounts for customers who agree to make faster payments to their vendors electronically. Everyone wins with this scenario!
2. Lifecycle Management (LM)
LM is all about scientifically managing of your products, services and technologies from birth to death (i.e. design, use, operate, maintain, support, sustain, phase-out, retire, recycle or disposal) to ensure maximum return-on-investment for any and all organizations. It’s just common sense to do so!
3. Demand Management
Demand management, or utilization management as we call it, is a supply chain operational area that we too have been focusing on for eight years. Its focus is on reducing the in-use cost of the products, services and technologies that any organization is buying by identifying waste and inefficiency in value streams, then eliminating them to realize better bottom line savings.
These are just three new industrial supply chain ideas that healthcare organizations can and should adopt to further enhance their supply chain management activities. They are tried, true and safe and have been proven to be best practices for industry for years. That’s what’s ahead for the healthcare supply chain of the future when and if you are ready to move to the next level of supply chain performance.
New Supply Chain Best Practices Podcast – Incentivize to Save
NEW Incentivize to Save
There is a critical need for healthcare organizations to realize the value of a new generation of incentive programs that will help you keep your supply chain teams working on all of your special initiatives in order to maintain your bottom line. We can no longer believe that just because we pay managers and staff a salary that we will get 100% effort and participation on the value analysis and other special project teams that the results are so important to your hospital’s bottom line.
Incentivize to Save
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – October 1, 2008
President & Chief Value Strategist
Greetings!
Incentivize to Save
If there is one success factor that I have observed that is universally missing from all but a few supply value analysis programs is an rewards and recognition program to motivate your value team members to be hyper performers.
For some unknown reason supply chain professionals believe that their value teams should be motivated to do this hard, time consuming and artful work just because they ask their department heads and managers to do so.
Well, that’s not the way human nature works. Everyone listens to their own radio station called WIIFM (or what’s in it for me). And if you aren’t tuned into this radio station too, then you aren’t going to obtain the optimal performance you are looking for with your value teams.
Yes, you will have some successes without a rewards and recognition program for your value teams. However, over the long-term is what separates the weak from the built-to-last VA programs is value teams that have strong commitment, motivation and resilience which is absolutely necessary to generate double-digit savings each and every year.
So if you are looking to turbo-charge your Supply Value Analysis Program to the next level of performance you definitely need to have a rewards and recognition driven program that will put you over the top every year in savings.
What Big Lesson can We Learn from our Sales Reps?
I know what we all think of sales reps who are tenacious, persistent and obsessed with making a sale, but these are the same traits that make these same individuals great sales reps. They can’t be timid if they want to generate sufficient sales to meet their quotas and thus receive a big enough paycheck to pay their bills.
This is a lesson we can all learn from our sales reps and can catapult us to the next level of supply chain performance if like them we are willing to be more tenacious, persistent and obsessed with getting our own way. I know this to be a fact, since I observe almost daily how often supply chain professionals just give up at the first sign of resistance to the ideas and proposals that they are trying to sell to their management or peers.
I can’t even count the number of times I have been told by MMs that they won’t even attempt to talk to their physicians about their buying practices because they fear retribution by these same physicians. While my own empirical experience demonstrates that physicians are indeed open to talk about their buying practices if you approach them with respect, empathy and you value their time.
Can you imagine a sales rep having this give up attitude? I don’t think so! Not only would these sales reps find a way to talk to all of your physicians but they will make friends with most of them. Ultimately, they will sell something to your physicians because they never give up, waver or go away.
This is a big lesson we can all learn from our sales reps; they never take NO as a final answer. They just consider it an amber light that can be passed through in time with tenacity, persistence, and a determination to get their own way.
