30 Ways of Increasing Profits & Managing Costs For Our Clients

Increasing Profits using our unique IP.

At The CFO Centre, when working with our clients, we use a unique framework called the 12 Boxes.  These boxes are made up of the 12 financial building blocks in any company. There are many activities that sit behind each of the 12 boxes and the list below is not exhaustive, but merely gives some examples of how our CFO’s (Chief Financial Officers) can support clients in the area of Profit Improvement:

1. Help clients identify the ways in which they can sell more, sell more frequently, increase prices (without losing customers) and cut costs;
2. Help clients identify the profit drivers in the company, both financial and non-financial;
3. Educate the senior team about the importance of Critical Success Factors (CSFs).
4. Systematically analyse relevant KPIs and trends to identify potential hazards before they become a problem;
5. Review arrangements with the company’s main customers to see if there is a more profitable way to supply them;
6. Review pricing arrangements with existing suppliers;
7. Research alternative suppliers across all areas of the business;
8. Research sources of grant funding;
9. Determine company’s eligibility for government funded incentive schemes that encourage research and development;
10. Develop effective incentive schemes for staff to encourage productivity and to manage risk;
11. Prepare customer surveys to understand what the market really wants;
12. Analyse competitors to find out what is working well and what isn’t and course correct accordingly;
13. Review significant overheads and isolate opportunities to reduce expenditure;
14. Investigate exchange rate hedging and planning;
15. Create a realistic and achievable action plan then communicate it to all employees;
16. Increase prices;
17. Explore online selling;
18. Explore more cost-effective ways of marketing by forming strategic alliances and joint ventures with companies that deal with the business’s prospective clients;
19. Arrange for business mentors to give advice and share experiences with the client;
20. Review organisational structure and delegation procedures to maximise efficiency;
21. Develop customer retention strategies to prevent loss of revenue;
22. Evaluate business location and determine possible alternatives (to save costs on production, delivery, etc.);
23. Outsource some functions, employ some people on a part-time rather than full-time basis;
24. Look at the viability of redundancies;
25. Introduce an expense control programme;
26. Review bank charges;
27. Check invoices from suppliers for overcharging;
28. Get rid of inefficient systems;
29. Measure the return on all advertising;
30. Replace frequent small orders with bulk buy discount orders.