Don’t Just Look at the Finances to Improve Earnings
If you’ve spent any time in the business world, you know the drill.
Each month, the reports are compiled and sent to the executive team. You pour through the reports, looking for the good, the bad and the ugly. The good you celebrate for a few seconds, the bad and ugly, you attack. Meetings are set, issues discussed, and you’ll spend hours, if not days, working to fix those problems. This cycle repeats itself each month and if you’re in a publicly traded company, the end of quarter ratchets up the financial reviews and planning even more.
So, what happens when the bad and ugly things don’t turn around after a few months? In come the financial consultants. They then dig deeper, suggest changes and build bigger plans (with fantastic graphs!).
Don’t get me wrong, financial review are clearly important to success. Understanding your P&L, recognizing trends and opportunities are skills that everyone in a leadership role should have. However, there are times when a professional third-party qualitative review of the business can lead to insights that deliver right to the bottom line.
Three Ways a Third-Party Qualitative Review Can Drive Results
New Point of View:
Good consultants have engaged with multiple companies across several different industries. There are no biases that come from working within an organization, which allows them to provide a real Fresh Eyes approach and share best practices. How many times have you heard “that’s the way we have always done it”? Sounds like the chorus of a terrible 70’s song. In addition to a new point of view, third parties also provide an honest point of view, free from bias. Sometimes it takes the news you don’t want to hear to truly become a catalyst for change.
Conduct Key Stakeholder Interviews:
Often, issues and opportunities go unspoken in companies as people hold back for fear of hampering their career aspirations, angering a boss, or simply because they are not sure how their comments will be received. A good consultant can have frank, anonymous conversations with key stakeholders and team members to learn underlying climate and culture issues, and to explore areas of improvement and potential opportunities for growth that haven’t been considered.
Value Stream Mapping of Processes:
Think back over the past few years and try and identify the last time you had an extended team review your processes, customer acquisition, order-to-cash, supply chain and so on. If you can’t recall when this last happened, I guarantee you are leaving money on the table. Often, we are so busy that we focus on the symptoms of our issues instead of the root causes. Taking time to map your organization’s processes not only identifies pain points, but provides a great deal of opportunity to add dollars to the bottom line.
Can’t remember the last time you had an extended review of your entire business from end to end? Never had a set of “fresh eyes” take a look to determine your untapped opportunities, and uncover what you can do to improve your model? We are ready to talk when you are, whether you just have some quick questions or are ready to look at thing more in-depth.
We’ve helped companies from many industries and of all sizes. Jason Fisher – jfisher@thinkempirical.com (610) 994-1139.
