How well protected is your organisations bottom line?

Turnover is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash is king. Right?

It’s not how much we sell, it’s what’s left when all the bills have been paid that’s the true measure of how our businesses are performing. It’s what allows us to invest for the future.

But how well do your team understand the profit impact of their actions? And how careful are they with your organisation’s money?

Having a commercially savvy workforce enables small changes to compound for big impact.

Whether it is appreciation for high margin upsells or understanding the bottom-line impact of discounting, commercial skills drive business success.

The best businesses have this worked out. Is there anyone among us who hasn’t been asked ‘would you like fries with that?’ or whether we’d ‘like to go large?’

Simple, easy questions but when asked routinely to an estimated 69,000,000 customer every day, they combine to make a big difference to revenues and profit margins.

Similarly understanding the difference between invoiced activity, cash in the bank and the importance of customer creditworthiness all have significant bearing on the financial health of a business.

We’ve probably all come across salespeople who can generate large orders but only with the pain of big discounts, lower margins and extended payment terms. If they are targeted (and bonussed) on revenue alone, who can blame them?

Understanding revenue drivers and cost implications of how we work and the decisions we make is something that everyone in the organisation is responsible for. Process automation, customer self-service and everyday simplification can drive profits from every department.

If your business would benefit from having a workforce with the skills to understand these key commercial concepts, maybe it’s time to consider equipping them to protect your bottom line.