By: Maron Koop
Even experienced businesspeople can fall into subconscious, routine behavior that is expensive to maintain. To break bad habits, it’s important to regularly evaluate departmental processes to discover areas for improvement.
I developed the 99/1 rule to help identify ineffective processes. What actions are performed 99 times to catch 1 exception? Evaluate the resources spent the other 98 times — it’s unlikely the time, energy and funds spent were worth the effort.
Here’s a real-life subrogation example:
We spoke to an organization whose subrogation department attempted to recover a claim for more than three years. Over three years, the file had about 1,100 documents scanned and attached. Routine telephone calls were made and demand letters were sent every 30 days for three years—all for a claim worth $1,200! Putting this much effort into a claim type that represented less than 5% of the organization’s annual recovery monopolized talented employee time when they could have been working on other, more valuable tasks.
Implementing the 99/1 rule pinpoints costly habits and helps avoid repetitive actions that produce lackluster results. Leaders can discover — and stop —habits that don’t make sense for their businesses when utilizing this approach. Being in tune with process and resource management is important for long-term success.
Maron Koop is the Director of Operations for Advanced Subrogation Resources (AnSR). To learn more about AnSR’s services, click here.
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