Politicians poor on attempts to raise productivity Posted 2011, 15 November As politicians from all the main parties tramp around the hustings in the dying days of this year’s general election, I am more than a little disappointed about their policies on productivity. They all say we need to do better, but say very little about how. And even less on any innovative thinking about it. Perhaps we could take a lead from the state of Montana in the United States. Most people consider that the US is in deep trouble economically, and for most states that is the case. But Montana is a state that is bucking the trend and running a surplus. The approach is simple and probably old fashioned. It is about keeping costs down, and not spending up large during boom times. The cost-cutting, however, is not about slash and burn and taking services away from citizens. In fact, a major programme is implementing the ideas on savings offered by the public. As a result, Montana has made money by selling off government vehicles it didn’t need, lengthening the cycle of replacement for computers, and most interesting to me, saving $3.4 million renegotiating commercial space leased by the state. In New Zealand, commercial property costs are the second highest item on a profit and loss statement. And interestingly, Parallel Directions’ survey of commercial property leasing trends shows how much we under-perform when it comes to identifying opportunities to reduce property costs. Montana is taking an approach that is simple but innovative in the way it has used some smart thinking to reduce costs, and to bring the public on board to offer suggestions for how to make the state more productive. In effect, Montana is “crowd sourcing” ideas on how to improve productivity. That’s really smart thinking. New Zealand must build its management expertise to think like this; to not focus solely on growth, but on smart efficiency.
Couldn’t agree more – Improving asset performance is at the core of this and it is pleasing to note that many property occupiers are at last looking to their landlords to demonstrate better asset utilization, better maintenance planning and more proactive strategic thinking about property costs. We are seeing an increasing trend towards using state of the art software to achieve these ends – although, be warned, there are some low cost low value software options to be avoided! Log in to Reply
