Trade off
Synergy. That ubiquitous word we find mentioned in every merger, alliance, partnership or business acquistion. That most elusive of things to actually realize business value from. Ok so, the most common synergy resides in cost efficiencies that are achieved through combining shared activities of two firms. It is THE easiest synergy to realize, if there was ever a low hanging fruit among synergies, this is it. Now, in order to achieve these cost efficiencies some people will lose there jobs, well someone will have to fire them. We slickly call it ‘active management of overhead’ or ‘SG&A trimming’ from a financial perspective or ‘right sizing’ in the realm of corporate strategy. Whatever it maybe, we state is so simply, in our case reports – an easy win, an obvious move. But it changes the life of people who are affected.I saw some one get fired the past week. I was a bit saddened by how quickly it happened, how quickly people forgot and moved on. The business student in me understands the logic behind it and does admire the ruthless effectiveness of the human machinery that kept on working inspite of this key ex-employee’s absence, but the person in me dislikes the way in which the termination was carried out. I felt like saying “show some respect” to those who oversaw the job termination.
Somethings must be done, like reducing staff but there is a civil respectful way of doing it and this way sometimes is not consistent with Effectiveness and Efficiency tenets and a trade off must made.
