It’s All About Utilization!
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – October 15, 2008
Robert T. Yokl
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.
