My brother in law owns a furniture business. He needs an assistant and He is asking my help to take care of other expenses incurred. Its like sorting and managing it. By the way, I think, I'll be running out of ideas about the usual way of budgeting and cutting down expenses of the company. It is a bit tough for me to handle finance and operations at the same time. In connection with that, do you know a solution for energy reduction that could ensure easy monitoring company maintenance expense?
If you can explain what the major sources of energy consumption are in this business, then maybe someone can give you some ideas.
Since we are in a furniture business, we often use resources like water , power or electricity and raw materials. Its good if we can find better methods to reduce consumption of those that I mentioned.
Yeah, how do you use them, then, and which are the big ones for the business in terms of cost? For instance, you have not yet explained whether your business is a manufacturing business, or a distribution and sales business, or both, and what the key activities are that consume energy and give rise to major costs. Obviously without this sort of information it is impossible to comment.
It's the same for all businesses of all sizes who want to save costs: some form of identifying your existing processes and from that identify where costs could be saved, and then do a cost/benefit analysis (I.e. Will you save more money in the long term than it will cost). For energy it might be simple things like putting in lights that automatically turn themselves off after a certain period of not detecting any presence, or swapping electric tools for more efficient ones etc. Changing energy supplier might also be an option. Or investing in solar panels (depending where you are). For water: reducing the size of the cisterns in the restrooms (or put a brick in the existing ones to reduce the water volume). These sorts of things are small and relatively simple, yet might make a noticeable difference on a cumulative basis. One thing that might also help is, if it isn't already in place, introduce a process whereby all "other" costs have to be approved prior to being incurred, and if over a certain size then multiple quotes need to be sought. This might reduce the risk of paying over the odds for something. But for energy and general consumables, find the best supplier and then for usage you'll need to look at the processes themselves and see where savings can be made.
You are not being very specific so my reply cannot be very specific. Since you do not always use water, power and raw materials; you only often use them. You should increase the time that you run the buisness without using water, power and raw materials, that should save you a bundle of cash. That right there is what I like to call sarcasm. There is no way to give useful advice with such a vague description of your buisness. Do you repair furniture? Do you make funiture? Are you a wholesaler? Are you a retailer? How big is the operation? What areas are your biggest expenditures? What is the volume of business?
i am actually surprised that none have complained about you posting this under science and tech rather than under business.
I'm not sure why you said that this is a two-part spam, I'm here cause I need help.. thanks for your help though.
We make and repair furniture, we operate for 12 hours, we specialize in cabinets and sofas, we cut our own wood and we use machines for detailing, with regards to our upholstery we use power-operated sewing machines. That is the reason why our electricity bill is one of our major expenses. We cannot reduce the quality of our materials definitely and we are thinking of reducing our power and energy consumption instead to compensate for the mounting expenses every month.
We can wholesale and retail as well, depending on the orders. Most of the time we sell our furniture on a retail price. The furniture business is not big neighter small, safe to say that we operate on a medium scale, raw materials and electricity are two of our major expenses.
What wastage do you get on the wood? Are you sure it's cheaper than getting it pre-cut? Have you compared all the costs of cutting it yourself to having it pre-cut? Or do you need the ability to cut bespoke furniture? Can you source the wood more cheaply? For electricity, other than looking at wastage (things left on when they don't need to be etc) can you source supply from a chapter provider? For other costs, you just need to be as streamlined as possible. Are you in too expensive a location / building, do you need all your employees, etc. Once you think you are as lean as possible, the only other alternative to improve margin is to increase your price.
Hey guys, my brother-in-law said that it's okay now. He hired a company for their energy management solutions. I didn't even know that there's such a thing. Thanks for trying to help though. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hahahahahahahahahahah!!!! I win!!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
