Improving your business through data – Reducing Inefficiency

In our last blog, we outlined the impact that the effective use of data can have on improving customer experience. In this blog, we’ll look at the ways by which data can be used to help identify inefficiencies and reduce waste at various levels of an organisation.

A recent study conducted by The Workforce Institute at Kronos found that unnecessary administration tasks could potentially cost the UK economy up to £60 billion per year, a figure that equates to £1,932 a  year, per employee, per organisation.

Organisational waste regardless of what form it takes can have a detrimental effect on how an organisation performs and not least of all, its bottom-line. Other examples of inefficiency and waste to consider are:

• Energy | Infrastructural resources like electricity can massively impact an organisation’s bottom-line. Large spaces like shopping centres and airports are especially susceptible to such waste.
• Space | Space is a resource like any other and is equally liable to inefficiency. Given the physical cost often associated with space, it is important for organisations to consider if they perhaps have more than they need.
• Logistics | Poor route planning not only wastes time but can also have a negative effect on customer experience.
• Time | Time is perhaps the most finite resource that an organisation must manage and is able to affect all aspects of how a business performs.

There exists the need for organisations to address these inefficiencies. Digital transformation, data and technology are capable of providing viable solutions to organisational waste.

KPMG’s ‘Emerging Trends in Infrastructure’ report stated that data and analytics will increase ‘productivity, extending asset life spans and reducing operating and maintenance costs’. The KPMG report authors go on to state that they ‘believe that it will almost certainly unlock massive value for infrastructure owners, operators and – most importantly – the end users’.

The Workforce Institute at Kronos goes on to state in their report, that saving just one hour per employee per week, equates to around £690 per year, saving the UK economy a staggering £21.4 billion.

To return to a point made in one of our earlier blogs – data solutions should “seamlessly integrate with the everyday workflow of the end user”. The benefit of such an approach is two-fold. Not only is the user experience improved, but by “seamlessly integrating” with everyday workflow, the solution itself becomes a system for collecting data that is capable of enabling meaningful change.

Consider for example our PRECISION for Pharmacy solution, a clinical pharmacy workflow management tool specifically designed to meet the unique demands of a hospital environment.

Not only does PRECISION serve as a comprehensive task management tool for the hospital environment, but it also provides hospital administration staff with the means to identify inefficiencies in the task management process. By collecting, processing and displaying data relating to activities in the clinical pharmacy staff, in a coherent, meaningful way, administrative staff are able to easily identify where issues are occurring and therefore address them efficiently.

With the help of our solution, Altnagelvin Hospital saw:

• Overall efficiencies and cost savings of more than £500k P.A.
• An overall increase in team capacity of 22%
• Improved team spirit, a greater sense of cohesion and a sense of empowerment within their role among PRECISION users.

Using data enables organisations to identify where waste and inefficiency occurs and as such, provides them with the means to address it. To find out how our solutions have enabled organisations to reduce their waste and improve efficiency, contact us using the form below.