Effectiveness vs Efficiency

Effectiveness, according to Merriam-Webster, means producing, or capable of producing a desired result; efficiency, capable of producing desired result with little or no waste.

These definitions are broad. It goes without saying that according to the context of what is being spoken of, their meanings will take on a different tenor. In the military, for example, effectiveness may mean the precision with which commands are carried out, the perfection of technique, and the like; while efficiency will be referring to the input which is required by personnel to execute their goals maximally. In business, on the other hand, it may mean the relative concurrence of goals to outcome, and of the amount of resources utilized in ratio of the results acquired, respectively. In any case, wherever the terms are used they refer, in general, to the same procedural assessments.

In business, which is what we are concerned with, effectiveness and efficiency are variables with which the success, and even the lifespan, of a business can be measured. A good business is one which not only is effective in executing goals, but also does so with the minimum expenditure of resources, whether these be time, money, human and material resources etc. thus, it is difficult to see how the two can be pit against one another. We would not be mistaken, as a matter of fact, if we referred to both as the sides of a coin. An effective business, although able to achieve its desired goals, would eventually be overwhelmed by the costs of these achievements where no regard is taken for efficiency. Conversely, efficient though a business may be, without effectively executing its goals, this efficiency would amount to nothing more than miserliness.

In this article, we will address a few issues as regards to Nigerian businesses, our focus will be the hospitality industry,We will look at a few Problems and fixes that are both efficient and effective in boosting business growth. After all, if you are not growing then you are gradually going down.

First of we will start with Accessibility/visibility and customer conversion. A Beautiful Mansion Located in a thick,inaccessible forest gives no bragging right to its owner.if the hilton’s, marriott’s,the four seasons were not in everyone’s eyes, it is obvious they would not have been this big. Accessibility should not be an issue considering the era we currently live in,Where the internet runs big businesses.The main problem here is customer conversion.We have earlier sighted that we live in an internet era,The earlier mentioned hotels do not just see themselves as just a hotel anymore, they collectively sell themselves as a service, an experience everyone craves to have.

Now you have a hotel,you put it on social media, instagram, facebook, twitter, you get a few messages asking you about your services, you then reply to them each after the other, this is not an effective and efficient way of customer retention. Now let us imagine that there is a website that these potential customers can go to from your various social media pages,the website shows a gallery of your services, it is so well designed that the customer is moved to use your services. This is far more an effective and efficient way of customer retention,you have both advertised your business and also got new customers.

The second part or problem to talk about is scattered metrics and customer retention.Now that you have got customers, keeping them should be the next priority. Most businesses in Nigeria do not keep data or metrics of their business, this is a big issue, as without our metrics there is no way to accurately point out the issues in your business or even know where to improve in your business.

Our Software we have made for hotels, saves you the stress of gathering data, filtering, accurately giving you the necessary metrics that will help you in retaining your customer and also improving your business. Businesses like costco, Walmart all do this, to better their business.

The last we will touch on is general customer service. This is more psychological. It is a feeling the customer gets from your business, it is the experience we talked earlier about. It could be the way the doors in your hotel opens, or if some services that require technological automation exist. Example ordering Food, from their rooms, booking spa sessions etc. these examples give satisfaction to customers, again an effective and efficient way to improve your business.

To conclude, we do not imagine that businesses can survive where one of these concepts is privileged above the other. On the contrary, it is our belief that the intelligence of a business person lies in his ability to combine effectiveness and efficiency in order to derive, as much as possible, the maximum productivity from a business.