It is not an easy to ask to run an efficient office. When personalities are involved, it can be laborious to get everyone to operate with a single vision. Personality flaws aside, in order to increase productivity workers must be given the proper tools to aptly complete a task. When it comes to acquiring these tools and the necessary office supplies, these decisions in the small business world often rest on the shoulders of the office manager. The proper tools can easy be equated with improved time management.
Often considered an afterthought or even a nuisance, office supplies are rarely viewed as a means to improve efficiency. But this could be a mistake. Businesses are fueled by office supplies. . Disagree? Well, work can come to a complete standstill and productive time lost if the toner malfunctions or if all the copy paper is used up. Therefore, besides maintaining a healthy backup of these necessities, a wise office manager should consider newer products in circulation that might in fact save the organization money in the very short term.
The reality of difficult economic conditions has strained many firms to place larger workloads on fewer people. Doing more with less has always been the goal of upper management but now with the harsh truth of an extended depressed economy staring us square in the face, this concept must be put into action now.
In house marketing pieces are becoming much common place assisted by both technological advances and the need to control expenses. Printing on demand rather than by the thousands is certainly attractive. Having a staffer construct an email campaign instead of outsourcing it to a professional marketing firm has been infinitely easier thanks to simple and affordable web based programs. Keep in mind this all about cost conscious efficiency.
Therefore, office managers, while of course keeping in mind cost containment, should explore the new product options that exist instead of simply focusing on saving a quarter here or a nickel there. Often times, more money is needlessly spent under the assumption that one particular purchase is more cost effective and therefore better. Such is not always true . Take a shredder for example. The price range can be huge . What may look like a good deal might have some buried expenses. Let’s say you purchase a simple cross cut shredder. It seems to shred just fine, but the bulk of the shredded strips requires more shredder bags and more trips to the dumpster. Had a cross cut shredder been purchased instead the remnants would have been smaller and easier to compact. The cross cut shredder is more expensive but , the associated expenses would have been less.
Similar examples can be found in laser cartridges, high yield toner cartridges do cost more, but the extra toner ensures a longer print out and therefore longer periods of uninterrupted work. Requiring fewer supplies than before, binding machines have improved to the point where they are much easier to operate. Machines such as the Unibind have revolutionized binding by making the entire process much more efficient and almost fool proof.
Industry data suggests that only 1% to 1.5% of a an overall operating budget is allocated to office supplies. And yet, many office managers simply look at the office supply budget and pound it yielding miniscule savings. Labor is the true expense. Buying your office supplies online is certainly less laborious then faxing or phoning an order and light years more efficient than driving to an office supply store. Labor can represent almost 97% of an operating budget. Here is where the savings are. Here is where the energy must be placed.
Color coding your filing system is more expensive than using manila but creates an obvious benefit. Likewise, using a tabbing system that allows a file to be viewed from the top down would assuredly cost a little more than those flimsy plastic tabs that are so difficult to insert. But, think of the productivity improvement from such a seemingly minor tweak. Filing away and retrieval becomes much faster…mis-filing infrequent. The office supply industry is filled with a plethora of such products designed to help with work flow. Unfortunately, so many great products are ignored simply because they are more expensive or the office manager does not examine other possibilities.
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