How Smart Companies Save Money (and the Planet)

I read an HBR post this morning called “How Smart Cities Save Money (and the Planet).” As I read it, I realized that if you you were to replace “Cities” with “Companies,” you can pretty much make the same argument for many fast-growth companies.

In the post, Michael J. Dixon of IBM wrote, “…today a city’s success should be measured by how wisely it uses energy, water, and other resources, how well it maintains a high quality of life for its people, and how smart it is in building prosperity on a sustainable foundation. In short, cities have to become much smarter about how they use existing capacity and resources.”

Now, let me replace “cities” with “companies” and “citizens” with “employees and stakeholders.”

“Today a company’s success should be measured by how wisely it uses energy, water, and other resources, how well it maintains a high quality of life for its employees and stakeholders, and how smart it is in building prosperity on a sustainable foundation. In short, companies have to become much smarter about how they use existing capacity and resources.”

Pretty compelling stuff, right?  At its core, any business has the imperative to use all of its resources efficiently to create value.  Any business that can effectively understand and act on its own resource use data will be able to grow and be far more successful than one that doesn’t.

Take a look at the whole article over on HBR.org and after you’ve read it, think about how some of the same data-driven “smart growth” is relevant for growing businesses, just like it is for cities.