This measure, which seemed to be an insignificant one and which none of its passengers noticed when tasting the salad, allowed the objective of reducing costs to be met and gave an example of austerity to the business world.
Mexico City. In 1987 American Airlines (AA) stopped putting one olive – or rather put one less – in the salads it served on board on each of its flights, thereby achieving savings of $40,000 per plane per year.
This measure, which seemed to be an insignificant one and which none of its passengers noticed when tasting the salad, allowed the objective of reducing costs to be met and gave an example of austerity to the business world.
Executives from other companies were stunned, as they could not believe the results reported by the airline, which repeated its feat years later, with another measure that had better results.
In 2007, AA replaced the heavy beverage carts on board with others that were nine kilos lighter, which meant a decrease of 190 kilos in fuel consumption on its Boeing 777 aircraft and 54 kilos on the MD80.
Calculations on the savings achieved by the US airline in fuel were 2.8 million dollars annually, according to various estimates made by third parties.
Told this way, the airline's experience seems to be a story of easy decisions and actions, the results of which seem more than obvious.
However, today, after this anecdote has been documented and known, there are companies that do not know how to reduce costs and generate savings, which has led to the emergence of consulting firms specialized in the matter.
That is the case of Expense Reduction Analyst (ERA), founded in London in 1992, to help the owners and managers of other companies find savings by efficiently managing their expense categories and suppliers.
The leading consulting firm in the analysis and reduction of operating expenses found a large market niche among the large number of companies that need to reduce costs but do not know how to do so and need help.
Sylvia Perales, consulting partner at ERA, says that some of the most common problems that cause companies to spend more than necessary are because they have petty cash, the resources of which they use to buy whatever they can think of.
The problem, according to the expert, is that they often buy products that are not allowed, from fountain pens to colored clips, which are usually unnecessary items.
“We also see that the documentation requirements for these expenses are inadequate. That is, most of the time there is no formal invoice with the corresponding fiscal characteristics, nor do they have the approvals required to make other acquisitions.
"In some companies we have also detected that purchases of items are made that are not permitted by the regulated processes, among which we have found the purchase of a common detergent when due to the type of activities, the company requires specific detergents," he says.
In conclusion, he warns that in both large and small companies it is difficult to have an adequate magnifying glass to supervise these “minor expenses”, but when these are added up they can represent a significant expense of non-tax deductible expenses.
The lesson for companies and people is that, keeping the proportions, and with actions that may seem insignificant, both can reduce expenses and thus achieve savings.
