Peanut Butter, Mayonnaise and Girl Scout Cookies
What do these three things have in common – shrinkage. In recent weeks, there have been many stories about how manufacturers of these products, and many others, are reducing the size or quantity of their products in an effort to hold pricing steady. This shrinkage ranges by product and category, but I have seen anywhere from 5% to 14% shrinkage in grocery items alone. Manufacturers argue that in order to give the customer the product to which they are accustom at the same price, they must reduce the quantity. But isn’t this just a sneaky way of raising prices? Why don’t companies find a better, more innovative way to competitively deliver product instead of just raising prices or reducing quantity?
So what does this have to do with business and law? I believe that our dollars need to buy more value, not less – especially in difficult economic times. Now is the perfect time to examine every dollar you spend and ask whether you are receiving the maximum value from that dollar. Are your service providers aggressively reducing expenses to lower or maintain pricing? Are they looking for innovative ways of conducting business that provide you with more value and less cost? Are they looking for creative win-win strategies to partner with your business? Most importantly, are they taking the time to understand your business so they can provide their service to you in a way that is most responsive and relevant to your world?
Now is the time to start looking at your service providers the same way you look at peanut butter, mayonnaise and Girl Scout cookies to see if you are experiencing shrinkage or if you are experiencing “value-added” service. If it is not the latter, you should take steps to move to providers that embrace a different way of conducting business that is relevant to your world.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Excellent!