I frequently hear from CEOs, CFOs, and cost managers that tell me that their value analysis program has “run out of steam” or it is in a “dormant state” and that they need to reenergize it so that they can reduce their non-salary expenses that are creeping up again.
Why is it that organizations can’t sustain their value analysis program – at peak performance levels – for more than a few years before letting it go into decay? What is the secret formula to maintaining your value analysis program at even higher levels of performance than your peers and competitors – without missing a beat?
The answer to these questions is for you to master three new management disciplines: Revolution, renewal, and resilience strategies and techniques to sustain your value analysis program evermore.
The term revolution is usually equated with rebellion, revolt or uprising, but a revolution can also be analogous with creative destruction of what went before it. By creative destruction I mean you should be looking for unconventional strategies that will change the rules of your value analysis program, such as, having heterogeneous vs. homogenous team membership on your value analysis teams. This will certainly change the rules of the game!
To renew or rejuvenate your value analysis program you must change your value analysis model from a price-oriented model to a functional model if you want to start with a clean slate. Strategic renewal is a creative process that requires value analysis practitioners to continuously experiment with new ways of doing business, and not be satisfied with traditional and old value analysis models that aren’t sustainable over the long term.
It usually takes a crisis for any organization before they are really ready to set in motion a REVOLUTION OR RENEWAL in their value analysis program. Unfortunately, the difficult climb back to peak performance of your value analysis program is too long and painful to go through very often. A much better way is to continuously reconstruct your value analysis program so that it is always ready for any crisis that might arise.
A business associate of mine frequently reminds me that “success is a habit” that never fails you and is a learned trait if you constantly experiment and innovate with your business processes. It is also the same philosophy you should be employing in maintaining and sustaining your value analysis program at peak performance. Continuous reconstruction (revolution and renewal) should become a habit with your value analysis program so that it can become flexible and resilient when turbulent times arise – as they always have and always will – because of changes in your marketplace’s normal business cycles.