Why are obvious situations often overlooked?

Business is all about dealing with problems. Obstacles are a part of every business and no entrepreneur would disagree that almost every day, a new obstacle makes way. The enterprise which deals with the problem in the most efficient way manages to flourish and reach greater heights of success. Business is all about improvisation, the better a business improvises and adapts to cater to the customer needs, the brighter is the future of the business!?

Why are obvious situations often overlooked??

Sometimes we as individuals try too hard to achieve a certain thing. We become so process-oriented that we forget that there is a much straightforward solution to the problem. We constantly work towards finding a complex solution and overlook solutions that might solve the same problem as effectively as the complicated solution would or in some cases it might even do a better job! Hence, foreseeing the obvious solution is a smarter business move in comparison to investing time and money to obtain complex solutions. To understand this in a better manner, let us take a look at a case study about a logistics company.?

A case study

The industry:?This problem described below belongs to the logistics industry which received a major setback due to the spread of the pandemic.?

?The problem: The pandemic had stunted the growth of businesses. There was almost no progress in some industries whereas some industries had a higher demand than usual. The logistics industry was one such industry, since people were refusing to step out of the home to purchase goods, transport became more important than ever. In such a time of crisis, it was important for the logistics industry to step up its game and deliver to its maximum efficiency. Yes, the logistics industry was indeed under tremendous pressure but dealing with this tremendous pressure had become further necessary since failing to deliver would result in the fellow citizens of the country starving and suffering.?

The possible solutions in such a case

Every problem has multiple approaches to solve. One is an obvious one and another being a complex one. Well here, if we cut down the problem and made it more specific, we'd realize that although the logistics and transport system was stunted. If we consider the big picture, only about 10-20 percent of the time taken for shipping contributes to the touch time. Rest of the duration of the traversal, the package is either waiting in a queue for transportation or lying in the godown of the suppliers. The process is often not streamlined and prone to human mistakes. Instead of stressing upon the transportation problems and the curbs placed on transportation, businesses spend too much strengthening their transportation system. Instead, they can try to find an optimal solution to reduce the wait time, which is obviously a simpler and more effective solution.?

Another possible improvisation is improving the coordination between the different units responsible for the shipment. In several cases, there is a mismatch between the ordered product and the delivered product. Lack of coordination could lead to such a blunder. According to a survey, about 1000000 users complained of mismatched delivery and incorrect shipment. Well, that does add unnecessary pressure onto the logistics system. This problem could be avoided if the logistic system is more synchronized. A synchronized coordination system is all it takes to streamline a business!?

Another model to improvise the scenario and reduce the shipping time would be the relay trucking (rivigo) model. While transportation in the inland regions, roadways is probably the most preferred method of transportation. However, a drawback of the same is stoppages. Roadway transportation is most likely bound to multiple stoppages. The stoppage might be due to various reasons such as refuelling, driver breaks, and other such miscellaneous reasons. The driver also needs to halt for a specific duration to get some rest. The stoppage time of a shipment accounts to almost 30-40 percent of the total transport time. Reducing this stoppage time will make the transportation process a much faster one. The relay trucking model was hence adopted to reduce this stoppage time.

The Impact

These solutions, although pretty obvious, are often avoided. They can enhance the productivity of a business by almost 20 percent by reducing the possibility of errors and effective management of the business. In many such businesses, the obvious solutions are often ignored and overlooked. Well, avoiding an obvious solution and digging for a complex solution is just a waste of time and funds!

A concluductory note

So as we see, finding loopholes in the system that are letting the system down is necessary. Just by investing money to solve business problems, it is impossible to innovate budget friendly solutions. One must reach the roots of the problem and understand it, furthermore choosing simpler solutions that are more effective is important too. Hence, as business owners, you must not avoid the obvious solutions trying to seek the complex once.?