How Small Gains Drive Big Business Results in 2025
There is absolutely nothing new about the concept of incremental gain. Many businesses and sports teams have long adopted this approach and built it into the way they operate, and for a lot of them, it brings great success!
If, however, this is something new to you, then let me explain.
If we take Formula 1 as an example, back in the 1990s the average pit stop time was around 10 seconds. Fast-forward to 2025 and it’s now consistently under 2.5 seconds.
Now, some of this is down to changes in technology, but it’s fair to say that most of it is down to incremental gain. Looking at every single component of the pit stop — from the refuelling process to the design of the jack that lifts the front of the car, through to the pit crew practising over and over again to hone their skills — it’s all about looking for tiny improvements to make the overall process quicker. When all of these marginal improvements are combined, the overall gain becomes far more significant.
Another brilliant example is the Great Britain Cycling Team, and in particular Sir Dave Brailsford, who was the performance director between 1997 and 2014. He is famed for his success and has written extensively on the subject. In simple terms, he looked to improve everything the team did by just 1%. From the diet of the athletes through to the oil used in the wheel bearings of the bikes, then testing things again and again to find out which formula gave them a 1% improvement. All of these gains combined to lead to faster lap times and, ultimately, great success for the team!
How can this work in the business environment?
In all honesty, it works in very much the same way as it does within sports teams. It’s about looking at all of the component parts of the business — from operating processes to people skills — and identifying where small improvements can be made.
There are very few businesses that could improve their performance with a magic bullet that fixes one big issue and suddenly the performance
goes up. For most organisations, the issues impacting performance are much smaller and found in multiple places. With this in mind, the 1% effect is actually a great way of looking at making improvements!
What Are the Challenges to This Approach?
Fundamentally, it’s a mindset shift that enables this. It’s difficult to change habits, but if performance is to be improved or enhanced, then this is where it starts.
One of the key challenges in business when looking at incremental gains is that the changes often needed can be relatively small and, therefore, not seem ‘worth it’ in isolation. And if people don’t see value in making a change, then they’re much less likely to buy into it and create the new habits needed.
It’s also important to understand some of the basics around change management — it’s no good just telling people that they need to change the way they do something. They need to understand the ‘why’ and how the change will benefit not just the business but them as individuals — the concept of ‘what’s in it for me?’.
It’s also important to paint a clear picture of ‘what good looks like’. And when thinking about small incremental gains, it can take time to build the bigger picture to demonstrate how the tiny changes will build up to a more significant performance.
How impactful can a 1% improvement really be?
Take a recent example from the UK automotive sector. Working with a business in this space, we identified that a 1% improvement in their technician efficiency would increase their profit by approximately £1,500 per month. Now, that may not sound much — until you multiply that by 12 months and, all of a sudden, it’s £18,000 a year. And who wouldn’t want that added to their bottom line?
But what would they need to do to achieve that £18k a year? A 1% improvement in efficiency equated to a four-minute saving per technician per day in wasted time. This was easily achieved by placing the parts needed for the vehicles booked into the workshop closer to each technician’s work bay, so they didn’t have to spend time unnecessarily walking to and from the parts department to collect them.
It’s a tiny change — but one that delivered significant financial impact.
How do you bring this to life?
There are two approaches required to bring this to life. Firstly, it’s about understanding the processes and recognising where they could be improved — and this is much easier for an outsider to the business, as you’re not ‘wedded’ to the current way of working.
Secondly, it’s about understanding the people working with the processes and what causes them problems daily. More often than not, improvements in the process will fix the
problems they have. But where this isn’t the case, it’s a simple trade-off: “If we can improve the issues you’re having, are you able to work slightly differently in this other area?”
Of course, all of this is well and good, but it sadly won’t be sustainable if there’s no leadership buy-in and, critically, no change management in place.
Why is change management needed for such small changes?
The reason change management is so important is that it helps to embed the new mindset and subsequent habits.
It’s all in the ongoing communication: the little reminders of why we are making the changes, the support when things don’t work out exactly as planned, and even evolving the changes as you learn more about how people work day to day.
Small changes only deliver big results when the change is supported, communicated well, and consistently reinforced over time.
Summary
It’s easy to dismiss small changes as ‘not being worth it’, but with the right mindset and solid change management principles in place, it’s more than possible to find significant improvement from multiple small gains.
Remember — F1 teams invest millions trying to go a fraction of a second a lap quicker. The same principle applies in business: small, smart improvements add up to major commercial advantage over time.
Dave Bownes
Director,
Haynes Oliver Limited
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