Have you noticed a difference in buying burgers from McDonald's in recent years to 5-6 years ago?
Now it takes longer to have your orders filled right?
But the burgers are now hotter ;)
In the past, can you recall you can physically see pre-made burgers sitting in a queue behind the McDonald's counter?
The quicker you move the customer queue, the more $ you make per minute or per hour right?
All in the name of meeting efficiency metrics and KPIs. No?
Remember leaner, faster, cheaper?
When same stores sales fell at McDonald's 5-6 years ago (and their share price tanked), it must have raised alarm with management.
Kudos to McDonald's management for asking their customers what were they pet peeves eating at their restaurants.
High up on the customers' complaint list was - cold food.
Next time you visit McDonald's, do take a look behind the counter. Can you see your burgers are now made-to-order?
And if the queues are too long, before you complain or whine, ask yourself - do you prefer cold pre-produced burgers instead?
There are many examples of where we push the limits of efficiency so much that it works against effectiveness:
1) When educators (they are not teachers) discourage students in taking certain subjects as it's harder to score distinctions, and may affect the school's ranking... What's the purpose of education again?
2) I hate shopping at a local supermarket chain near Queenstown as it tries to cram everything into extreme narrow aisles and totally forget about the customer experience.
It's main selling point is "cheap". Nothing else.
NTUC supermaket was once upon a time like them. I am so glad NTUC now offers a shopping experience almost equal to Cold Storage without sacrificing "fair pricing".
3) As employees, especially if you are the sandwiched middle-management class, I'm sure you have lots of examples of idiotic short-term efficiency goals that go counter to the values of the company, and/or the long term strategic plans of the company!
Well, somebody have to meet the short term goals for the next quarterly report mah...
As investors and traders, there are 3 fingers pointing back at us (when we point our index fingers at others, our thumbs don't point back at us do we? I wonder where the 4 fingers saying comes from???).
Why do we invest or trade in the first place? To make money! Duh!
That's the one effectiveness we should not forget.
Take a count of those "efficiency" targets or concerns you are currently tracking and ask yourself - do they really matter in the big scheme of things?
Singapore Man of Leisure (welcome to my blog; just google it!)
