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DAVID CUTLER editor-publisher

Let's rightsize when we downsize

I N THE LAST decade the trend to downsizing in I American automobiles began. In this recessionary decade downsizing has spread to include companies.

Some car companies overdid it, downsizing to the point where headroom, leg space and trunk capacity were too small. The same situation is now happening at some companies.

What every organization needs to realize is that there 's an optimum size we ' ll call rightsize Not too big or too small. It's that size that results in maximum operating efficiencies and profits. There's no magic formula to achieve this delicate balance. Every company must evaluate its needs for today and the future. Growth and expansion for its own sake have often been pursued in the American business community. Spectacular corporate fail- ures have occurred because of it while others survived and prospered only because they did grow. Downsizing for some firms allowed them to spin off unprofitable and/or distracting operations so they could focus all their energies on what has come to be known as the core business.

It is very tempting for the managers to feel that in bad or so-so times personnel reduction is the answer. It is an answer, but it may be the wrong answer if the people needed to take care of the customers and do the necessary work are fired and the job is not accomplished. This balance can be difficult indeed to achieve.

The path to rightsize is often clouded with uncertainties, unknowns and other obstacles impossible to forecast. Yet seizing that goal may make the difference between coroorate life and death.