9 Simple Ideas That Made Companies Save Millions

In some cases, even the most unusual ideas can turn into a gold mine for those who dare to implement them. Many directors of large companies have proven this firsthand.

O awesome.club gathered some of the most interesting success stories and tried to clarify all the details that involve them. At the end of the post, you will see a bonus that can never be shown to McDonald’s managers.

At the end of the 19th century, British researcher Joseph Lister demonstrated the importance of disinfecting mouths after dental surgery. Inspired by this work, an American pharmacist named Joseph Lawrence invented a formula based on menthol and eucalyptus that he named Listerine in honor of Dr. Lister. With the support of another pharmacist, Jordan Lambert, in a few decades the product had already become a worldwide brand. And during the 1920s, the company’s income grew from $115,000 to over $8 million.

The vertiginous success was achieved thanks to publicity based on Lambert’s idea. He suggested focusing advertising on the fight against chronic halitosis, a fictional disease that simply didn’t exist before Listerine came along. This was one of the first cases of creating an artificial need for the consumer, and it generated huge profits.

In 2007, the Cleveland Clinic, in the United States, rethought its people management policy and completely refused to give job opportunities to smokers. One might say that the ban is discriminatory, but smoking negatively affects the company due to decreased efficiency in the workplace. Bad breath jeopardizes the lives of employees themselves, who are forced to spend on medical care. And the employer, in most cases, is forced to cover part of these expenses with insurance and stop relying on these employees when they are on medical leave for treatment.

UPS is one of the USA’s leading transportation companies, based in Atlanta, and has a special relationship with curves. Perhaps you have noticed that making a left turn in a country with right-hand traffic (such as Brazil and the USA) is much more difficult and requires more time than a right turn. In addition, in situations like this, accidents often happen. So UPS management decided to do something about it: Since the 1970s, drivers have been taking routes that allow them to avoid making left turns.

Nowadays, in 90% of cases, the company’s trucks turn right at intersections. With this, they save approximately 10 million liters of fuel, or 300 million dollars per year. Not to mention, due to acceleration, UPS vehicles produce significantly less toxic gases.

In the early 2000s, the famous Danish company was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, although new toy models were developed by modern designers with excellent education. At that time, LEGO was able to continue its activities by signing a contract for the creation of characters and machines from the Star Wars universe.

A little later, the new CEO, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, took on the task of turning the company around. One of his best ideas was really simple: less ‘experts’ and more admirers in toy creation. After adopting this bold attitude, LEGO’s business improved and the crisis stopped threatening the manufacturer of what are the favorite toys of many.

In this American airline, the managers decided to try to eliminate from most of the short flights those refreshing wipes that were previously offered to passengers. Then they shortened the movies shown during flights. And on the menu, grapefruit juice was replaced by orange juice, which was more popular. As a result, United Airlines saved $200 million.

Would you quit your job if you were offered $5,000 to quit? According to Amazon, if the answer is ‘yes’, then most likely this work is not convenient and that its presence does not bring much benefit to the company.

This original planning to save time and energy in staff training is used to get employees thinking about what they are doing and what they really want to do. In the process, disinterested workers, who don’t get involved in the life of the e-commerce giant, are being cut out. And those who decided to stay are becoming more motivated, as they made a conscious choice to become more integrated into the company.

In the early 1990s, the State of Texas, United States, suffered a prolonged crisis of increased spending that threatened to imply a large increase in taxes for the population. At the time, politicians asked the Comptroller of State (a type of governor), John Sharpe, to review the budget and find ways to reduce spending. The politician founded the Texas Performance Review to audit public administration. Over 10 years, it provided the state with savings of around 10 billion dollars.

Among Sharpe’s suggestions, some were very extravagant. For example, removing a light bulb from the soda vending machine window. This certainly didn’t affect the appearance of the device, but Texas was able to reduce energy costs by $200,000 a year.

Imagine if the idea were adopted by indebted Brazilian states…

In 2009, the company was experiencing serious financial difficulties, and was forced to reduce its staff. To reduce spending, Yahoo! decided to give collective, unpaid leave for a week between Christmas and New Year. As a result, management saved $21 million. At the same time, employees avoided a new wave of mass layoffs and were able to enjoy the Christmas holidays.

Once again, those responsible for the company came up with something original. They decided to reduce the weight of the magazine that passengers can read during the flight. It may seem little; after all, the mass of a single print edition was reduced by just 28.35 grams. Except that, surprisingly, the simple trick allowed United Airlines to reduce the weight of the aircraft by almost 5 kilos. As a result, these planes began to need less fuel to fly. In monetary terms, the savings amount to $290,000 a year.

This one for those who believe that small spending cuts mean nothing…

A fast food chain customer noticed that, sometimes, employees forget to put an extra portion of cheese on the hamburgers, which costs from 3 cents on the dollar. Internet user IseeSuns calculated: if McDonald’s ‘forgets’ extra cheese at least 10 times a day, then the savings made by the company will be more than 39 million dollars a year. Obviously, this information is difficult to prove, but it is definitely something worth thinking about.

Has the company where you work already taken actions like those shown in this post? What did you think of them? Comment!