Category: business planning

A little Excel Excitement

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs by John ~ Leave a comment

The other day at a client meeting we were discussing Pareto and the concept that 80% of the revenues were generated by 20% of the customers and It was likely that 80% of profit was generated from them as well.  Management was having a difficult time picturing this, but fortunately we had prepared for this meeting by using the Excel Data Analysis add-in.

The first graph we presented was the histogram of revenues generated by their clients.

histogram1

The most telling thing for management was that 40 of their customers generated less than $1,000 of revenue.  And notice how many generated under $15K in revenue.  Suddenly, they could see new patterns by changing the visualization.  So, if you haven’t tried to graph this yet using data analysis, here are steps to consider.

First, create a table with the information you want to chart.  In this case it was the customer and revenues for 2018.  Next, in your Excel, click on Data Analysis and the following modal box pops up:

histogram2

Select histogram.  It then advances to the next pop-up which asks for the data range and the Bin Range.  A little bit about the bin range:  It is the breakpoints you want to use to group your information.  In this case, I ran a filter to determine the largest amount and set the bin increment just above it.  In this case, we want to see the Pareto effect, so click on the Pareto (sorted histogram) box and also the Cumulative Percentage box.  And then chart the output.

histogram5.png

Click OK.

histogram8

After Excel generates the histogram table file and graph, you may need to make some modifications to get the graph to look the way you want.  In this case, I wanted to sort by revenue impact of the various bins.  To do that, I multiplied the frequency by the bin amount and then sorted the table file by the total bin revenue generated.  Finally, I added a calculated percentage for each bin and the cumulative percentage.  I then set the Cumulative Percentage to use the new percentage I calculated. In this case, The impact of sales between $15,000 and $25,000 account for almost 80% of revenues, even though their frequency is less than 15%.

Consider the impact that this type of presentation can have on a strategic conversation.  What does your staffing level look like if we focused our energy on that small group of customers?  What message resonates best with that group?  Should we discontinue sales to small buyers?  We had a great conversation from less than an two hours worth of work – mostly spent in defining the table structure, gathering the data and importing it.

Raw data and numbers are useful in the right context, but if you want to stimulate an effective business meeting, show some graphs which group data in ways that make your team think about what they are doing and why.

 

 

Planning over budgeting

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs by John ~ Leave a comment

Somedays it feels like all we do is parse semantics, doesn’t it?

Budgeting, planning, it is all the same thing, right?  Well, no – not really.  Yes, far too often they are used interchangeably, but the truth is that planning is far more important than budgeting.  Budgeting is really about allocating your resources.  Planning identifies what you want to accomplish and how your resources can help you make that happen.

This is why the distinction is important.  I am starting to help clients plan for the next year and part of that is looking at what we have accomplished through today.  It is part looking at the numbers and part looking at the strategy and seeing if we are off target.

To me, there is nothing worse than not being able to answer the question, “How did we get here?”  Or worse, hearing the glib answer, “We performed well (poorly).”  Duh.

What was the plan?  Did we think we were going to break into a new market?  Did we succeed?  What is the acquisition cost per new customer?  Are we getting repeat business?  Can we grow in that are?  At what cost?

There is nothing harder to do than listen to someone say how profits are holding steady, while knowing that it is because money is not being spent on carrying out the plan.  Of course you have profit, we are not spending money on project X, which, by the way, two years ago we all agreed that it was going to be the flagship product within 5 years.  Why did the company plan to allocate thousands of dollars on advertising if we don’t want to spend it?

These are hard questions to listen to, much less respond.  No one likes having their parade rained upon, and yet, well, there it is. The plan drives how resources are acquired and spent, otherwise you just have a budget.

That isn’t to say budgeting isn’t a useful tool, it is.  But my experience has been, budgets are typically devoid of planning.  We spend money in that area last year, lets continue to spend money in that area.  We generated revenues selling widgets last year, lets budget to generate 5% more in sales.  There is no plan, no vision, nothing to be held accountable to until it is too late.

I do lots of budgeting for non-profits and the most fun I have is helping them rethink the budget process into the planning process.  We start by looking at the big picture and then start asking how we get there.  Then, once we get consensus, we start putting numbers to actions.  It is extremely rewarding to see these professionals see the results and understand that there is a reason for spending money, other than the satisfaction of having money to spend.

So take time, do planning.  Think about where you want to be and how you want to get there and THEN allocate resources.  You will get tremendous benefits from it, mostly from thinking about how you are going to get from A to B.  If you need help, let me know, I am always open to helping companies and non-profits think about their plans and how they translate into action and money.

 

Alignment

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs by John ~ Leave a comment

Growing a business can be challenging.  It doesn’t help that there are lots of books and internet articles explaining how so-and-so did it with no investment and no effort.  Those stories might be inspiring, but they don’t always tell you the whole story.  What those stories aren’t telling you might cause you to chase a plan for longer than you normally would.  No small part of that has to do with alignment.

Alignment in business is all about making sure your marketing, your message and ultimately your assets all support your core business.  A great example of this came from a company I was assisting as an outsourced controller.  At a strategic retreat, the leadership decided it wanted to start going after larger commercial construction projects.  This was a great idea but it meant more than just saying “here we are.”

First we had to deal with the fact that most manufacturers did not adequately plan for their liquids and gas piping.  And yet, in order to do the job well, the piping needed to be planned.  Client’s did not have specialists on staff to handle this nor did most architectural firms.  Don’t get me wrong, they had a good idea of how it needed to be, but some things are highly specialized.  To be successful the Company needed to invest in an engineering team.

The engineering team needed the right tools.  Auto-cad, plotter and a quiet place to do the design work.  Not to mention a large space where the team could meet with clients to review the plans and requirements.

The company then needed to get the message out to the construction community.  The company’s sales team needed to be armed with information to help clients in their selection process.  We had to successfully educate them that lowest bid is not always the most appropriate bid.

Finally, the company needed to address its pricing model.  There was an obvious disconnect that was hamstringing the growth and adoption of the new service.  The company was moving from a repair and maintenance service to a construction service

but management was still using their service rate to try and price the construction.

rate analysis

The company was pricing local jobs about 20% higher than out of town work.  This was driven by two issues – first daily mobilization from an office no nearer than 15 miles from the nearest likely construction site and second applying the service rate to the total time.  The service rate worked well for service – it required some technical skill to diagnose a problem with a gas distribution system and the client expected to pay for the “emergency” nature of the call-out which included travel time to get to the job.

This doesn’t always apply in construction.  And because of this, the company was not completely aligned.  Local jobs were being lost and the company had work coming out of its ears hundreds of miles away.  The crews were tired of being away all of the time and it was harder to manage if things went sideways at the jobsite.

So, the sales manager, the engineering manager and I sat down and figured out how to get aligned.  The estimate was redesigned to charge a lower rate for mobilization in town.  The engineer generated a bill of materials for every job – one problem was that local jobs were not getting the same supporting documents since it didn’t seem like a problem to run around town and pick up parts when the crew was local – all of which allowed the company to still make a substantial profit on jobs, since the company was now able to land local contracts which reduced wear and tear on vehicles and employees.

rate analysis rev 1

As your company leader, always make sure your entire business is aligned.  The greatest service in the world won’t make you a dime if customers don’t agree with the pricing.

The power of analysis

~ C.O.R.E. Beliefs by John ~ Leave a comment

Do you have a checklist for your month end closing process?  Have you added running analytical testing to your checklist?

Managing multiple association accounting systems does not leave a lot of time to thoroughly review everything, which is, of course, why we created our checklist in the first place.  I can determine what has been completed and by whom and then spot check their work.  It also helps that we have solid systems to fully vet transactions as they are incurred and which work hard to detect and prevent fraud – but still, the goal is to provide full information for the month and year-to-date so we struggle with determining what might be missing.

First, look at some relationships between your balance sheet and your statement of operations.  Certain accounts have very comfortable relationships – think inventory and cost of goods sold while others may be more tenuous.  Also, keep in mind that the purpose is to help you determine if the statements appear reasonable; so don’t overdo the number of calculations.

Some key ratios you should consider running at month end to help you pinpoint potential problems:

Days in Accounts Receivable

This will give you a sense of potential collection problems without having to dig into the aging: Take your monthly revenue and divide by 30, this is daily sales.  Then divide this amount into your accounts receivable balance.  Now, the two most important questions you should ask yourself: Is it over 30 days?  Is it higher than prior periods?  If it is more than 30 days, you have sales from prior months which have still not been collected and if it is increasing, then you have many sales which are not being collected and you might need to consider increasing your allowance for potential bad debt.

Days in Inventory

This will give a good idea if inventory is being handled well without worrying about a potential physical count of inventory.  Take your cost of goods sold and divide by 30, which is the daily cost of sales and then divide this amount into inventory.  Is the pattern consistent with prior months?  Did you see an unexplained change that skewed the results well beyond prior months?  A large increase could indicate that some CoGS were not adjusted properly or that potentially you have inventory which is not turning over, potentially indicating obsolescence.

Sales Growth Rate to change in A/R

Comparing the growth in sales to the change in accounts receivable can also provide an indication of deteriorating a/r quality.  If your sales increased by 5% from the prior months but your accounts receivable increased by 25%, it could indicate that collection problems might exist.

Gross Profit Percentage Month Over Month

If your company sells products, this could help you address a change in your business or in customer demand – either of which could indicate other potential problems.  You will want to map out your gross profit percentage – which is revenues less cost of goods sold and divided by revenues – for each month over the past few years.  First, compare it to the past few months, is the trend consistent?  Then compare it to the same month in prior years.  If you are trending downwards both over time and in comparison to the same period in prior years, this could indicate possible issues with the costs of materials or production issues, both of which can have long-term impacts to your business.

Labor Costs to Revenues

One area where a small business can be caught off-guard is in labor costs.  Unplanned overtime can be especially painful so always watch to ensure that overtime is planned and paid for, either in revenue premiums or in additional sales.  If labor is consistently increasing during months of slow or no sales growth, perhaps your overtime policy needs to be re-evaluated to ensure that it is not out of control.graph hr rev to ave

In this example, taken from a client who was experiencing reduced profits, we were able to identify the driver was in fact over 1,400 overtime hours.  There were two primary drivers of this, first was that department managers did not actively plan work for the week, leaving things to be completed on Wednesday and Thursday so they could be shipped on Friday.  Since there was always a lot of work to complete, the teams were working 2-3 extra hours on those two days, even if Monday and Tuesday had the teams with substantial idle time.  Second was that there was no policy to require the manage to authorize the use of overtime in advance.

Analytics can help you understand how your business operates.  It can point out areas where additional effort might be called for and also help management isolate and test potential issues to see if a change can help improve performance.