The green move manager: New opportunities for cost reductions

Sensitivity toward "Green" in the move management process is growing to the point of spurring on the creation of new industries providing "Triple Net Bottom Line Wins." "Wins" which generate economical, ecological and socially positive outcomes. Today, unlike ever before, move consultants can provide options to their clients to help them reduce the overall environmental impacts and economic costs of moving. Converting "Conventional Clutter" to the "Paperless Office" During the relocation process in particular, a sense of renewal oftentimes blossoms from within an organization, fostering an openness to doing things differently and more efficiently in the future. Of note is the growing trend towards the "paperless office," achieved by nothing short of creating a process-map and engaging everyone in the process as a company-wide effort. The input garnered from staff will help to evaluate and form recommendations as to how the company may want to reorganize, use and index its data, and how it wishes to communicate with its internal and external customers going forward. The actual conversion of the company's hard copy files into a digital data base is amongst the last steps in the process. This trend is exemplary of a "Triple Net Bottom Line Win." Business owners win in the long term due to reduced operating costs which shows up on the balance in terms of both (i) hard cost reductions of paper/printer supplies and real estate costs allocable to on-site file storage, (ii) soft cost reductions of employee down time. Employees win as a result of having easy, instant access to information enabling them to communicate more effectively in less time. My observation during my most recent trip across the country is that being part of a "paperless office" is a source of great pride to employees. From it they draw inferences about the integrity of the company they work for as evidenced by the big, broad smiles that light up their faces when they would tell me about what was new at their company....not the least of which is the psychological relief from the absence of clutter! The environment wins significantly as fewer trees are cut down in response to demand for paper. Ancillary ecological benefits are reductions in demand and manufacture of expensive printing supplies such as ink/toner cartridges, and drums, not to mention the printers themselves and the energy required to power them in "stand-by" mode. The "Cash in your Trash:" The Importance of Pre-Move Purging Pre-move purging is a process by which all assets and/or documents are reviewed and evaluated for relevancy to the company's future business strategy. Retention is a state reserved for only the most essential assets and/or documents...the surplus disposed of through a variety of means...sale, donation, recycled or discarded to name a few. A well designed asset management/purge program is akin to creating a customized version of the government's "Cash for Clunkers" program for a private company in that one can literally get "Cash for Trash." As an example for larger companies, some asset management programs such as AsseTek, include features that are particularly relevant to the current budget crisis and unfunded mandates limiting surplus assets that can be sent to the landfill. Surplus asset sales and disposal programs can dramatically maximize sales revenues for surplus assets and manage donations to 501 "C"s (non-profit organizations). Surplus assets can be batch processed and uploaded directly to publicsurplus.com, which, unlike e-Bay, charges no listing commissions. The "Triple Net Bottom Line Win" here is that economically, the company disposing of surplus assets wins as (i) retains more dollar value through reduced commissions, (ii) cost avoidance of being impacted by unfunded mandates limiting surplus assets that can be sent to the landfill and (iii) tax credits for charitable contributions. Socially, charities win as they are the recipients of donations which can help their operating budgets, and the environmental win is a significant reduction in quantity of "stuff" that is disposed of in landfills. As an example for smaller companies, the management of assets and/or documents may not be so complex as to require an asset management program; nonetheless it is possible to purge, recycle and donate unwanted usable items cost effectively with a well-designed pre-move purge program. To the extent that reusable moving equipment is selected to work in tandem with a pre-move purge program, it is possible to reduce costs, or fine "cash in your trash" by (i) combine deliveries/pickups of equipment, (ii) condense time frame between purging and moving, thereby reducing employee down time and (iii) avoid trash disposal, carting/tipping fees by donating usable office items to charity. In some cases, charities will provide pickup services to donating company. Reusable moving equipment such as plastic crates, carts, plasma TV-cases, monitor/keyboard bags are all components of a well designed strategy to help reduce moving costs in the double digits...generally around 30%. Telephony as "Game Changer" Telephony is another area where technology is changing the way we communicate producing tremendous efficiencies in communications and significant reductions in operating costs and energy requirements. VoIP, an emerging technology not so many years ago, has improved its reliability to the extent that, coupled with cell phone and WiFi technology...it is a "game changer." This topic is so broad...it's a platform for another article. As a quick simplistic way of looking at it through the lens of "Triple Net Bottom Line Wins," the technology affords us the following: (i) economically - reduced cost of communication over the Internet, reducing the number of lines needed to support an organization's communications needs, (ii) socially - "anywhere, anytime" communications features such as VM conversion to TM or email and (iii) environmentally - reduced energy demand by eliminating the hard infrastructure to support land lines, servers and related equipment. "Triple Net Bottom Line Win" new opportunities/technologies increase daily and move managers and consultants are in a pivotal position to pull these new opportunities/technologies into the conversation so that their clients can better manage change and optimize the outcomes of their expenditures and strategies. Nadine Cino, LEED AP, is CEO and co-inventor for Tyga-Box Systems, Inc., New York, N.Y.