Effective? Or efficient at being ineffective?

I recently had a conversation with an executive in a large UK based business.  He was telling me about his concerns about the current extraordinary focus on cost reduction in his business specifically and in the UK economy in general.

In this age of austerity it does of course make sense to be efficient and prevent unneccesary costs.  But he went on to explain that the problem is that the focus on removing cost has become such a high priority that it's replaced a common sense view to running the business.  It means that people cut corners in order to save money.  It means that focus on the customer within the business has become secondary and consequently it means that their customer experience is deteriorating.

That's a problem when customers are saying that the experience already falls short.  And yet .....they are congratulating themselves on cutting costs out of the business.

He went on to express his fear that what they're doing is to become more efficient but less effective in delivering what customers want.  Or put another way - more efficient at being ineffective.

Not a good strategy!

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