Continuing from yesterday’s post:
Numbers Disciple: Every company, however small, must develop a “numbers discipline” when it comes to revenues and costs. For much of my business life, this is not something I never bothered to do. I used to think that (a) small companies could not estimate accurately about what numbers they do each month or quarter since business is generally unpredictable, and (b) it didn’t really matter whether we met whatever targets we set or not. I was wrong on both counts. Also, habits once formed become hard to change. Over time, missing numbers becomes an acceptable thing, and that culture then sets in – both on the sales front and on the expenses side. That is why there is need to instill the discipline of meeting numbers early in companies.
Quarterly Reviews: Linked with the discipline of numbers is the need to make everyone accountable to numbers that are committed. This forces the management team to review itself every three months (ideally, with external Board Advisors), and it also gets inputs which sometimes may get missed in the daily bustle of business. These reviews thus can be a useful and essential part of the process of ensuring that even as the team thinks long-term, there needs to be a recognition of the importance of keeping on delivering in the short-term also.
