HCI Blog

Owning and managing your own business is always a handful. At the end of the day, you are responsible for the decision made within your venture as well as reaping what you sow in your business.

Entrepreneurs must therefore avoid wasting resources in general and what is meant by resources is literally anything that the entrepreneur requires to get his business going, be it money or even time.

Below are listed eight wastes which an entrepreneur must be careful with:

1. Having too many products or services available: This causes the company’s focus to become extremely broad, which results in a very steep learning curve and little specialization. Think of a restaurant with a huge menu; do you think customers will order everything on the menu daily or does all the food necessary to prepare every single plate available go to waste?

2. Inventory restocked too soon: Having too much inventory sitting around or letting it perish is as good as burning your money. Make sure that you time correctly and calculate the inventory you need appropriately.

3. No delegation and time management: Don’t centralize every single decision on yourself. Eventually, you will have to focus on other business aspects rather than micromanage every single decision. Hire a team and delegate!

4. Inefficient communication: Share information! Make it clear to all those involved what are your goals and how you want to get there.

5. Excessive red tape: Some people just love bureaucratic procedures. In a business, this will be reflected as too many processes and checks being used. Entrepreneurs need to be creative and minimal with the processes they deem necessary.

6. Too many actions and little results: Work can be distracting at times. It can be so distracting that entrepreneurs forget that it’s supposed to yield results. Sometimes, working too much doesn’t mean you will get the results you want. Work smart, not necessarily hard.

7. Defective products and services: Poor quality products and poor customer service are doubly deadly wastes. You lose the customer you paid to acquire, and the unhappy customer spreads the word to potential customers that you are spending marketing resources on, but will never win. Recovery efforts are wasted resource which rarely succeeds.

8. Underestimating the skills of others: If you know well your team (and you should), you will know their strengths and weaknesses. Don’t underestimate the abilities your team might have. Let them show what they got and put it to good use!

BASED ON: FORBES