Business of all sizes have a problem: How do you know—in real time—whether you are earning the profit you need to grow or even just stay in business? And which products or services are doing the “heavy lifting” in contributing to profit? Financial statements tell only part of the story. They are backward looking, for one thing, and they generally show results only in the aggregate. Worse, they never seem to reflect the hard work you’re doing on a daily basis. As one manager said, “If I’m adding 25% profit to every job, why am I getting barely 5% net profit at the end of the year?” Improving Profit: Using Contribution Metrics to Boost the Bottom Line solves this dilemma. As this book shows, Contribution-Based Activity (CBA) measures focus on two key levers that are fundamental to the operation of any business: financial contribution and units of activity. Knowing how to use these levers gets your company off the treadmill and on your way to stellar profitability. And as the 21 case studies show, CBA is surprisingly easy to apply to businesses of all types and all sizes. What is “financial contribution”? Simply the amount above and beyond the cost of goods or materials sold that contributes to covering overhead and creating profit. As entrepreneur, business consultant, and professor Keith Cleland shows, few managers actually know the financial contribution their products and services make, nor how to amplify that contribution by incremental adjustments to one or both levers. As you’ll learn, the financial tool Cleland created, TARI (Target Average Rate Index), provides insight into each product’s value. You’ll not only learn which products are contributing the most to the bottom line, but how to unlock the profit potential in run-of-the-mill products or services. Improving Profit will help you: Restore and boost profit levels for your entire operation Relate your daily efforts to a transaction's actual profitability Focus on the two key performance indicators that can help you identify and solve problems affecting finance and productivity Help everyone in the company—from CEO to janitor—understand how their activities help or hinder the company’s fortunes Make effective financial decisions If you’ve ever wondered why your results don’t match your hard work, hopes, and dreams, read this book. As the case studies make clear, identifying and applying TARI results in a significant—and often dramatic—boost to the bottom-line.

Leading marketing expert V. Kumar shows how to use Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) to target customers with higher profit potential...manage and reward existing customers based on their profitability...and invest in high-profit customers to prevent attrition and ensure future profitability. Kumar introduces customer-centric approaches to allocating marketing resources for maximum effectiveness...pitching the right products to the right customers at the right time...determining when a customer is likely to leave, and whether to intervene...managing multichannel shopping...even calculating a customer's referral value.

Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability. Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that: · Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances. · A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line. · Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth. With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of.

Master the fundamentals, hone your business instincts, and save a fortune in tuition. The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works. Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more. True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.

A systematic approach to profit optimization utilizing strategic solutions and methodologies for the chemical process industry In the ongoing battle to reduce the cost of production and increase profit margin within the chemical process industry, leaders are searching for new ways to deploy profit optimization strategies. Profit Maximization Techniques For Operating Chemical Plants defines strategic planning and implementation techniques for managers, senior executives, and technical service consultants to help increase profit margins. The book provides in-depth insight and practical tools to help readers find new and unique opportunities to implement profit optimization strategies. From identifying where the large profit improvement projects are to increasing plant capacity and pushing plant operations towards multiple constraints while maintaining continuous improvements—there is a plethora of information to help keep plant operations on budget. The book also includes information on: ● Take away methods and techniques for identifying and exploiting potential areas to improve profit within the plant ● Focus on latest Artificial Intelligence based modeling, knowledge discovery and optimization strategies to maximize profit in running plant. ● Describes procedure to develop advance process monitoring and fault diagnosis in running plant ● Thoughts on engineering design , best practices and monitoring to sustain profit improvements ● Step-by-step guides to identifying, building, and deploying improvement applications For leaders and technologists in the industry who want to maximize profit margins, this text provides basic concepts, guidelines, and step-by-step guides specifically for the chemical plant sector.