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172 Managing Customers Through Economic Cycles

operating at appropriate levels far exceeded the raw cost
inefficiencies. Table 7.2 illustrates the annual cost inefficien-
cies from a director-level employee spending most of their
time working at lesser skill levels within an organization.

As this organization developed its information com-
petency, there was a significant shift in level-appropriate
work for information-related activities, as can be seen from
Table 7.3.

The annual cost saving was over one million dollars with
estimated revenue opportunity cost savings estimated as
three to five times those cost savings.

These examples show that the importance for a business
to be master of their information and data sources can not
be overemphasized. In periods of boom and bust, those
companies with the highest level of mastery will be the ones
who continue to prosper.