Suddenly, the numbers don’t add up.

You need to cut costs.

Now we’ve already established the dangers associated with attacks on the Marketing and Corporate and Social Responsibility budgets. If I have persuaded you that cutting these should not feature in your cost-reduction options, where else can you save money?

Ok—here’s my top five.

• Attendance. Do you know what your sick absence levels are and how much they’re costing? If your HR people aren’t monitoring attendance and addressing sickness levels (in a firm yet sympathetic way) and other absenteeism-related issues, then your productivity will be suffering. You won’t need to hire new people if existing staff turn up!
• IT. Is your company harnessing IT constructively? By this I don’t mean handing Blackberries out to all staff so their lives can be made miserable in the middle of the night. I mean, for example, are your people teleconferencing instead of incurring the often huge costs attendant on face-to-face meetings? If not, then your business is missing a serious trick. And what about using customer access to your website to replace paper communications?
• Efficiency. Go and meet a few of your customers. Talk about their experiences in dealing with your organization. I bet, unsolicited, they will share with you just how inefficient your company is. From duplication of communications through to failure to renew lapsed contracts through to how your departments fail to liaise with each other… you will be amazed. More importantly, you will have an efficiency ‘to do’ list
• Remuneration. So your company is struggling but you and your fellow directors have voted yourselves above-inflation salary increases. You can’t do that! How about putting a greater percentage of reward against achievement? And how about extending that to staff at all levels?
• The patently obvious. Right now, there’s a room in your headquarters or other premises with a light on and no one in it. Probably several rooms, in fact. There’s a tap in a wash room that’s been left on. There’s several hundred laptops and PCs switched on with nobody in front of them. There are contracts with suppliers that are never reviewed for performance or better tariffs. There are staff members using the internet and their phones for non-business purposes.

  Attend to these and you’ll save your business a small fortune.

  
  

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A recent blog encouraged CEOs and other business leaders not to target ’softer-costs’ like marketing during the recession. My warning, in a nutshell, was that companies that did this would come out the other side of the recession less able to take advantage of the recovery (which history tells us, will come… even if it does not seem like it at present!).

I would now like to add a further warning in a similar vein.

Another vulnerable target as companies seek to reduce costs is their ‘Corporate and Social Responsibility Policy’ (C&SRP).

Supporting good causes, looking for carbon footprint reductions, minimizing other environmental impacts… these C&SRP-related endeavors are sometimes costly exercises, at least in the short-term.

But what about the cost of reducing or even abandoning your C&SRP related programs?

Well, you could get caught out on the compliance front.

And you might be impacting on company morale.

But the greatest cost of all will be reputational. You see, many people are seriously distrustful about most companies’ C&SRP. They think it’s a PR exercise—rather than reflecting a genuine to consider the needs of the wider community.

I am afraid that in some cases they might be right. But you would not want to compound their suspicions by suddenly reining back your otherwise genuinely intentioned C&SRP. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sustaining your C&SRP and even improving its budget will convince even the most cynical of your commitment, including valued suppliers and key customers whose own C&SRP obliges them to deal with companies with your C&SRP credentials.

So, leave marketing and the Corporate and Social Responsibility Policy alone, eh, Frank? Where are the savings we need to make supposed to come from, then?

We’ll give that some thought in the next blog.

Tags: business leaders companies ceos corporate corporate and social responsibility corporate and social responsibility policy leaders marketing nutshell recession responsibility policy social responsibility target