If your supply value analysis program doesn’t evolve, trust me, it will eventually stagnate. This is because you can’t be doing the same thing for years and then hope somehow improvements will just happen. It just doesn’t work that way!
Just as important, your supply chain department has cut your price at the pump to the lowest in decades, therefore, to keep achieving double-digit savings you now need to look beyond price for new and better savings. This requires a whole new mindset, new team structures and new value methodology to uncover these hidden savings. So, to get you started on this new road to better savings, here are four ways to prevent the stagnation I just talked about:
- Invest in value analysis analytics software: If you are still depending on your ERP system to uncover hidden supply chain expense savings, you will be greatly disappointed. This is because your ERP system is built to facilitate your supply chain organization’s purchasing process, not uncover your hidden supply chain expense savings. Any savings that are exposed by your ERP transactions are basic in nature. Only by automatically slicing, dicing and analyzing your supply expense data can you make your supply chain expense data rich, meaningful, and actionable
- Commit to advanced value analysis training: All value analysis practitioners believe that they know how to save money, improve quality and promote safety, but to do so is truly an art and science. Based on my experience, with advanced value analysis training your VA teams will triple their output in savings within their first 90 days after training.
- Expand VA’s span of influence at your healthcare organization: Most value analysis programs focus only on clinical products, services and technologies. Whereas, 40% of a healthcare organization’s budget is non-clinical (i.e. purchase services, laundry chemicals, food service, etc.) and that needs to be put under a microscope. If VA expands its span of influence, it will open up a whole new savings area for your healthcare organization.
- Embrace automation to speed up your VA process: If you aren’t employing value analysis software to greatly improve your VA team’s productivity, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness you are making your VA job harder than it needs to be. Why not lighten you load through automation.?
All these suggestions are meant to propel your VA program right out of the gate in 2019, thus preventing stagnation. Why not put these ideas into action as soon as possible, so you can sit back and experience these positive changes in your VA teams before 2019 passes you by.