I am an admirer of Murphy's laws and many a time I have seen how apt those laws of Murphy were in the reality of business life. In my 29 years of business experience (both in employment as well as in running my own business), I have also formed my own laws on one specific aspect of business life - the “Urgency factor”. I am glad to share these with you, though I am not prominent enough to declare them as CV's laws of business urgency!
The main law of urgency: “Nothing is really urgent”
Any urgency thrust upon by one link of a business chain on another link is essentially a perceived, over-bloated or a non-existent contingency! One's sluggishness or inefficiency is thrust as urgency on to another. It works in several ways:
Type 1: Laziness / Procrastination:
Example: A production Engineer, who forgot/ delayed/ procrastinated to check the stocks of a critical raw material, wants the purchase department to procure the material urgently. The purchase department, due to “heavy work” delays placing the order but wants the supplier to supply the items urgently!
Type 2: Over cautiousness:
Example: A production engineer knows that the purchase department will delay any requisition that is not marked as "urgent". So he marks “urgent” even those requirements which are not really urgent!
Type 3: Ignoring over cautiousness:
The purchase department, over a period of time learns that almost all indents are marked “urgent”! So they equally delay ordering all the items irrespective of true urgency!
When urgency is thrust upon you, think of this golden law: Nothing is really urgent. A little bit of thickening of skin (to reduce over sensitivity) will help you a long way in tackling urgency. Pass the bug to the next in the pecking order by adding your share of delay and be relaxed!
Now let us see some corollaries of the main law of urgency:
The urgency of a purchase requirement comes to an end once the quotation is receivedUntil any transaction of money comes into the picture, most of the procedures can be gleefully trumpeted as urgent. A purchase officer will keep on chasing the potential supplier to give a quotation stating that the requirement is “urgent”. A supplier may run helter shelter to work out the quotation and submit it. The moment the offer is received, the urgency dies and things go to the back burner! Now there has to be a budget, a couple of competitive quotations for comparison, a sanction of money, preparation of a purchase order, making an advance payment - all these elements are involved and each will have its share of delays!
The urgency of a supply comes to an end once the order and advance are receivedWhen the buyer wants something “very urgently”, a shrewd supplier knows how to handle it. He says he will supply the item "off the shelf" or "at half the time any other competitor takes". To receive his order and advance, he knows for sure that there will be delays and he will judiciously point out these delays and say the stock had been exhausted or work schedules have got altered in the passed period! Now it is his turn to keep his customer at his mercy and go happily making false promises and delays in delivery!
The urgency of sending payment comes to an end once the material is receivedThe buyer will clearly state in his order that the payment will be made “before taking delivery” (if the item is too critical), or “immediately against receipt” if the seller insists so. But the seller, who has delayed his deliveries may have to succumb to the demand of the buyer “not to wait for payment formalities” to deliver the items, considering the urgency and the inordinate delays.
The moment items are received, all the commitments about making a timely payment become null and void for the buyer!
All commitments for providing urgent after-sales-service become null and void once the payment is receivedAs long as the buyer withholds the payment, the seller will provide prompt after sales service at the beg and call of the buyer in the interest of collecting the pending payment. Once the payment is released, providing prompt after sales service will no longer be “urgent” for the seller!
Any project declared as very urgent will end up twice as much delayedWhen any project is begun with a very tight schedules (even if the reasons are real) and there is a constant pressure at every stage and at every level, you will ultimately find the project getting delayed and screwed up more and more! People under pressure do more mistakes, do less checks, do a less than perfect work and they show up for rework at every stage! Reworks take up more time than normal and the delays accumulate.
