In my last post, I argued that companies can’t keep their costs in line by attacking them directly. The typical approaches of budget cuts and layoffs usually don’t result in sustained changes to their cost structure — the costs creep back. Instead, companies must make fundamental changes to the way they work — how they market and sell, handle orders, bill for those orders, manufacture and distribute their goods, and serve customers after the sale. If they remove waste, errors, and time from these processes, they will get cost efficiency as a byproduct.