Value is in the Eyes of the Beholder: Efficiency

In an earlier post, I introduced six Key Value Factors that I consider to be drivers of high service value perception:

• Timeliness
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Responsiveness
• Quality
• Integrity

In this post, I will expand upon the second factor:  Efficiency.  I will do so by defining what it means and discussing what it entails.  While the focus of this post is based on my experience and approach at Remote DBA Experts, these factors are universal and thus applicable in multiple individual and business contexts.  Being timely, efficient, effective, responsive, and delivering quality output with high integrity will score big on anyone’s value scorecard.  That is why these six factors are so universal and thus powerful value drivers!

What does Efficiency mean?

Efficiency means completing tasks and accomplishing results with minimum expenditure of resources.  Resources include time, people, money, and/or assets consumed during the accomplishment process.

What does Efficiency entail?

Efficiency at Remote DBA Experts entails delivering remote database administration services efficiently.  In this context, efficiency involves several aspects.  Our ability to accomplish results efficiently depends on how well these aspects are integrated and managed.  There are five aspects I want to delve into to give you a better sense of what efficiency entails in our remote database administration business:

• Human factors
• Efficiency enablers
• Value activities
• Key tasks
• Key results

Human Factors are the seven “Accomplishment Factors” I wrote about in one of my prior blog series:

• Aspiration
• Attitude
• Aptitude
• Approach
• Action
• Absorption
• Adaptiveness

These factors frame efficiency at the human level.  To start, you must aspire to be efficient.  Efficiency also requires a certain mindset (or attitude) and a set of aptitudes (or skills).  Furthermore, it requires an approach (or strategy), action, absorption (or focus), and adaptiveness (or flexibility).  These seven factors are key to both individual and collective effectiveness.

Efficiency Enablers are the set of capabilities that enable a person or group to be efficient:

• Processes
• Procedures
• Methods
• Tools
• Information

In addition, the company’s culture, expectations, reward systems, and work environment influence efficiency significantly!  Thus, they must be carefully considered and managed in order to maximize efficiency at both the individual and group level.

Value Activities are what I call the set of “meta-activities” people do in order to accomplish value delivering tasks and achieve the key results customer expect.  In our business, there are several of them:

• Preparation
• Learning
• Communication
• Documentation
• Search
• Analysis
• Collaboration
• Research

These are basic activities that knowledge workers perform regardless of their specific job or role.  They are where a lot of time gets consumed.  Performing these activities enables us to be more or less efficient in accomplishing key tasks and results.

Key Tasks are the specific services that may involve SLAs (Service Level Agreements).  In our business, we have three major key task areas:

• Database Monitoring
• Problem Management (prevention and resolution)
• Database Maintenance

These are what customers hire us to do for them.  Each of these tasks breaks down into many more “sub-tasks” for the lack of a better term.  However, these three capture the essence of the services we deliver.

Key Results are the bottom line of our service engagements.  Everything we do must result in one of the key results if we are to be most valuable to our customers.  In our business, we have two key results our customers expect most from us:

1. Database Availability
2. Database Performance

When all is said and done, everything we do at Remote DBA Experts must result in one or both of these results depending on customer expectations and contractual agreements.

As you may have discerned from my dissertation, Efficiency is not as simple as one may think.  It involves multiple aspects that must be integrated and managed carefully in order to accomplish individual and organizational efficiency.  It requires deliberate and careful coordination.  It needs to be measured and monitored on an ongoing basis with goals and benchmarks to drive improvement.  It starts by hiring and retaining people with a set of performance factors attuned to efficiency.  Then you need to enable them with capabilities to make them most efficient at doing what they do to deliver the key results and high value customers expect and pay for.

While Efficiency impacts your margins, do not forget that it also impacts the customer’s value perception.  Keep in mind the title of this blog post series: “Value is in the Eyes of the Beholder.”  Do not forget to ask your customer what efficiency means to them, because no matter what, that is the only definition that really counts when it comes to delivering them high value.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO