Productivity as a competitive advantage

Currently, all companies, regardless of their size, the product or service they sell, or the market in which they carry out their activity, face global competition. In the face of this, we must ask ourselves, how do we achieve a competitive advantage?

Organizations are always eager to achieve better working conditions that allow them to differentiate themselves from their competitors; therefore, in a global context, having a unique and sustainable advantage over your competitors will give your company a greater competitive advantage.

Within the different variables that influence competitive advantage, we can refer mainly to effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. PRODUCTIVITY. To achieve an excellent competitive advantage, it is necessary to take productivity as part of it. But what do we mean by productivity?

When we speak of productivity we refer to the relationship between the number of products obtained through a production system and the resources used in their production. For this, we must take into account that:

• It can be measured in terms of time, the less time is used for a given product, the more productive the system is.
• It can be measured based on the resources used, the fewer resources are wasted, the higher profitability for the company.

 <<<<<< What is productivity? >>> 

Once we have clarified what we understand by competitive advantage and productivity, let's focus on the different recommendations so that you can use productivity as a competitive advantage:

1. Prioritize tasks: The first thing we must do is give a level of importance to each task to have an organized and, therefore, balanced work agenda.

Write down all the activities that you must carry out, determine what the main objectives are, and consider the Law of the ABC criterion (You will find it in: Productivity: law of the ABC criterion, what is it?). This will help us improve the way we deliver on commitments.

Also, you can organize tasks on boards to have faster and easier access to delivery dates and, thus, differentiate urgent and important tasks, who is responsible, among other things. In this way, you will be able to better plan the action plan that must be carried out.

2. Communication: Communication is one of the most important elements to achieve productivity in a company. We have to take into account both internal communication and external communication.

To improve your internal communication, you must create, preserve and nurture the appropriate channels to disseminate information among all the people who are part of the production system; this will allow you to keep all the resources up to date with the company's news and organized against the objectives. This requires asking questions, sharing ideas, and working as a team.

Regarding external communication, you have to bear in mind that the main objective is to address consumers, the general public, opinion groups, etc. And its main objective is to inform people of the existence of the product or service that you provide.

3. Work environment: A good work environment gives us the right conditions to have a motivated team; this will help them fulfill the assigned tasks, and work harmoniously. It will make them feel significant to the company and they'll look for ways to objectives are met on time.

Many factors are part of the work environment, among them, we can find emotional, physical, intangible, among others. These directly affect the way people behave and work. For this reason, it is optimal to assess the work environment, this will allow us to know the status of these factors and with the results, be able to create an action plan that will allow us to deal with the different inconveniences that are identified.

<<< How to improve the productivity and efficiency of your work teams >>> 

Taking into account the three previous key points, we must be clear that, as in any company, yours has to pay special attention to the fact that the strategy that is taken is clear, defined, and shared; that is to say, that it is a productive strategy since your success will depend on it, giving you a greater competitive advantage.

Finally, let's make it clear that productivity is a construction that must be measured considering all the observable variables that intervene in the action plan carried out so that, in this way, your company ensures a process of continuous improvement.

To achieve this improvement, we must ensure that the entire team makes an effort to increase the results of its performance throughout all its processes and the achievement of the objectives set.