Less Is More: Using The 80/20 Rule To Drive Efficiency And Revenue In Your Business
How the 80/20 rule helps businesses cut complexity, refocus operations, and drive profitable growth.
In a business article, NPR highlighted how Starbucks faced some of its lowest sales in 2024. One major contributor? Its increasingly complex and ever-expanding menu. While variety can be appealing in theory, consumer psychology and operational research consistently show that too many choices often lead to decision fatigue, slower service times, operational inefficiencies, and a diluted brand experience. Starbucks, once celebrated for its simple, high-quality coffee offerings, has now frequently been cited as an example of how complexity can quietly erode performance. Thankfully in 2025, they have been working towards change in this area to start correcting this issue.
This challenge is not unique to Starbucks, and it certainly isn’t limited to consumer-facing brands. Businesses in all industries, from manufacturing to healthcare, often face similar issues as they grow. More products and more services leads to more processes, more reports, and more meetings. Over time, what once felt like smart expansion can turn into operational drag. Understanding where complexity helps, and where it actually hurts, is critical for companies looking to increase efficiency and revenue.
Why “Less Is More” Works in Business
The “less is more” principle is something many successful organizations understand deeply. In-N-Out Burger is often cited as a classic example. By focusing on a small number of core menu items, the company has built a loyal customer base, maintained consistent quality, and streamlined operations across locations. Fewer options mean faster service, less waste, easier training, and tighter control over costs.
The same principle applies far beyond the restaurant industry. In other industries, complexity can show up as bloated product lines, excessive SKUs, overly intricate production schedules, redundant administrative processes, overlapping service lines, and more. In all industries, complexity often creeps in gradually until it begins to impact margins, quality, and employee morale.
The 80/20 Rule: A Practical Framework for Focus
The 80/20 principle, also known as the Pareto Principle, offers a powerful lens for understanding where complexity helps and where it hurts. The idea is simple: in many organizations, 80% of results come from just 20% of efforts. Applied to business, this often means that a small portion of your products, services, customers, or processes are generating the majority of your revenue and value.
In the Starbucks example, the majority of revenue likely comes from a relatively small set of staple drinks—plain coffee, lattes, cold brew, and a few popular variations. Yet the operational burden of supporting dozens of syrups, seasonal items, and highly customized drinks affects every store, every shift, and every employee.
For almost all businesses, the same pattern typically exists—just in less obvious ways.
Applying the 80/20 Rule in Your Business
Business owners are often surprised when they analyze their data through an 80/20 rule lens. Common findings include:
- A small percentage of products or services account for the majority of revenue and profit
- A large number of SKUs contribute minimal margin but add significant complexity
- Certain customers are highly profitable, while others consistently strain resources
- A handful of processes, machines, or administrative tasks drive most throughput, while others take disproportionate time and effortÂ
For example, a company may offer dozens—or even hundreds—of product variations to meet perceived customer demand. But when analyzed closely, only a fraction of those products may account for most sales and profit. The remaining items still require things like engineering time, inventory management, production planning, quality checks, and customer support, without individually being worth all of that effort.
Another example is that multiple departments may use slightly different intake processes, documentation standards, or scheduling workflows. While each variation may have been created with good intentions, the cumulative effect is confusion, training challenges, and inconsistent outcomes.
If you’re struggling to identify these high-impact products and customers, working with a consulting firm like CICG may be a great resource. They can take an in-depth look at your company to evaluate difficult but necessary questions: Which offerings truly align with your strategy? Which ones drain resources without meaningful return? Where can standardization replace customization without sacrificing customer value?
By focusing on the critical 20%, businesses can:
- Simplify production schedules
- Reduce inventory and carrying costs
- Improve quality and consistency
- Shorten lead times
- Free up leadership time to focus on growth
The result is not just about cost reduction. With a more aligned focus on the products and services that are making you the most efficient money, your business can improve operational agility and scalability.
Why Growing Organizations Struggle with Focus
One reason complexity persists is that leaders are often too close to the day-to-day operations to clearly see where value is truly created. Teams may be busy, but not necessarily effective. New initiatives are added faster than old ones are removed. Over time, organizations accumulate “operational clutter.”
Another challenge is internal alignment. Different departments may optimize for their own goals rather than overall organizational performance. Without a clear framework for prioritization, everything feels important and nothing gets simplified.
This is where an external consulting firm partner can add significant value.
How Consulting Firms Help Organizations Refocus
A strong consulting engagement does more than identify problems, it provides clarity. Consultants bring data-driven analysis, industry benchmarks, and an objective perspective that internal teams often lack due to familiarity and competing priorities.
For organizations of many types, consultants can:
- Analyze product, service, and customer profitability
- Identify bottlenecks and low-value activities
- Facilitate leadership alignment around strategic priorities
- Design streamlined processes that scale with growth
- Build implementation roadmaps that balance efficiency with quality
Most importantly, consultants help organizations make disciplined decisions about where to focus—and where to let go.
Simplification as a Growth Strategy
It’s easy to think of simplification only as cost-cutting. In reality, it’s a growth strategy. When organizations reduce unnecessary complexity, they gain speed, clarity, and focus. Employees spend less time navigating confusion and more time delivering value. Leaders make decisions faster. Customers and patients receive more consistent experiences.
In certain situations, organizations are even able to increase their bottom-line profit without changing their overhead at all. Businesses can actually see a decrease in revenue, but still have an increase in net profit because they removed complexity in order to focus on being more profitable.
Just as Starbucks could benefit from refocusing on its core offerings, many organizations can unlock significant performance improvements by concentrating on what truly drives results, however that looks for them.
Final Thoughts
The lesson from the 80/20 rule is not to do less for the sake of doing less, but to do more of what matters. This often means reevaluating your services, products, and processes through a strategic lens.
Growth does not have to mean added complexity. With the right focus, and (if needed) the right consulting partner, organizations can simplify operations, improve efficiency, and increase profit at the same time.
Interested in learning how the 80/20 principle could unlock efficiency and profitability in your organization? Reach out to our team to start the conversation.
