Efficiency vs. Effectiveness: The Battle of the 'effs'

Written by Tecwyn Hill | 3 min read
Published on: January 29th 2018 - Last modified: November 13th, 2020
efficiency vs effectiveness a suited man with eight arms performs multiple tasks

Who’d be an employee? The daily drudge of soul-destroying, time-draining, and enthusiasm-sapping tasks. The need to work across multiple platforms, to re-draft charts, and all those repetitive, mundane bottlenecks. How can staff possibly demonstrate both efficiency and effectiveness in today’s business world?

Let the Battle Commence!

Finding the answer to this question has caused management years of debate, as the need to push productivity has intensified.

But as organizations the world over brainstorm the battle of the two ‘effs’, do we understand what they mean? Because while they may sound similar, effectiveness means something entirely different to efficiency. But both are equally as important! An effective employee produces at a high level, while an efficient employee produces quickly and intelligently. By combining effectiveness and efficiency, a company produces better products faster and with fewer resources.

Understanding Efficiency

Efficiency is the time it takes to complete a project. An efficient workforce will finish tasks in the shortest amount of time possible, using the least amount of resources. Inefficient staff will do the opposite. For example, a manager will communicate more efficiently by using email rather than handwriting notes. Efficiency increases productivity and saves both time and money.

Understanding Effectiveness

Effectiveness is the level of results achieved. Those who are effective in the workplace will produce high-quality output. For example, an employee who works in sales will only be effective if leads are consistently created and followed up. If the employee is ineffective, they’ll struggle to persuade customers to purchase anything. The effectiveness of a workforce has an enormous impact on the quality of a product or service. This dictates a company’s reputation and customer satisfaction.

Efficiency + Effectiveness = Signavio

SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite is an intuitive BPM solution that examines and evaluates the present processes in an organization. Through Process Manager, Process Governance, and Process Intelligence, the Suite helps your processes reach peak efficiency, without sacrificing effectiveness. Improving productivity while cutting costs—what’s not to like?

SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite identifies and improves current strategies within a company to find more useful ways to get things done. When processes are ineffective or dysfunctional, they can result in problems. This can affect the quality of the services provided and can lead to dissatisfied and frustrated employees.

Three ways SAP Signavio Process Transformation Suite empowers an organization:

  • Efficiency: Processes can become inefficient due to inadequate monitoring of effort and progress. Improving processes will increase efficiency and remove activities that waste time and resources.
  • Effectiveness: As processes become more efficient, they also become more effective. This leads to better-informed decisions and execution of necessary tasks and improved customer experiences, making the organization more profitable and competitive.
  • Flexibility: Businesses must have tools that are flexible and easily adjustable. Companies that don’t, or work with out-of-date business processes, may fail. New opportunities, partners, or regulations can all require flexibility to accommodate different ways of doing things.

Sharing is caring

Business reporting and company productivity will also be more accurate, focused, efficient and effective when a workforce can utilize consolidation capabilities. SAP Signavio Collaboration Hub offers a centralized location for data, which eases communication and provides decision-makers with the most up to date data. Centralizing data is beneficial for both single location companies with multiple departments, as well as multi-site companies that need to share data.

Be more process intelligent

From misplacing car keys to forgetting to collect the milk, time lost is time wasted. The way you approach a problem is half the battle to solving it. Process intelligence jolts your system into efficiency and effectiveness by highlighting internal and external challenges. PI can help you maximize the way your business processes operate, how process mining is rendered, and better visualizes the way processes interact across multiple systems and tasks.

Process Intelligence means your organization has the chance to stop and think before acting, and determine the right actions to improve your business processes. The use of Signavio multi-tier process control systems, extensive interface equipment with advanced communications capabilities, and integrated intelligence can help alleviate fundamental business problems.

Survival sweet spot

As the world gets smaller and business interaction gets simpler, cheaper and more competitive, efficiency mustn’t just meet effectiveness—the two have to join forces and work side by side, daily. They should gel together to form an efficient and effective team of employees. The current digital tsunami roaring through the business world will only continue to grow.

Times have changed. Doing the right things isn’t enough anymore. Nor is just doing things right. We must be doing the right things right. Finding the sweet spot between efficiency and effectiveness is the ultimate goal for all companies. It can mean the difference between surfing the tsunami and disappearing under it.

 

The Turbulent Sea of Data

Grab that Signavio surfboard and ensure your organization is both efficient and effective. Find out how SAP Signavio Process Intelligence can keep you ahead of the competition and afloat in the turbulent sea of data.

Published on: January 29th 2018 - Last modified: November 13th, 2020