Growing Profit at any cost or Maintaining and Growing Associate Headcount.
Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc
This sounds like a tough question, but it shouldn’t have to be. I have waxed for years that the first thing most new executive suite leaders do when they get that new job, is study the existing business and propose changes. They have to do this because ownership and or the board are watching. Generally, any plan they provide includes heavy headcount adjustments. Why, because it is the single biggest expense on the P&L. Cut headcount by 10% and if the business is not poorly managed, the dollars should drop to the bottom line pretty quickly and you are now the new wunderkind. Too bad you were not more creative and more interested in your employees than to look at them as money. You’ll probably also get a nice bonus while they get the breadline.
Another thing learned in management school is to be able to define your job in terms of your passion in an easy-to-understand elevator type statement. That being something that you can recite in the short elevator ride between less than a few floors.
When I am asked what we do at SafeSourcing, my response is that “we are passionate about assisting our customers in reducing all costs, that result in improved Gross Margin and Earnings in the current period, to support growth and sustain and grow associate headcount”. Anyone that understands accounting should understand how that statement can apply to any business.
It’s always an easy decision to restructure and go after headcount, it’s more difficult to look at the bowels of your business and realize there are other maybe better ways. That’s my passion. Why not join me and see if we can accomplish this for your company.
SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite . These include but are not limited to SafeContract™, SafePO™, SafeDocument™ and our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers.
To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.
