F-works

Did you know space-time is available at all leading retailers?

steve — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:58:27 +0000

If you want to make a strong case for your products to be listed by a retailer, or if you’re a retailer and want to understand how to use key financial information to increase profit, then read our latest paper. Request a copy.

Please help us find the right person

steve — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:52:53 +0000

We are looking for something that is almost as difficult to find as a Higgs bosun. A Cheltenham / Gloucester based finance director to join our team, with as much understanding of entrepreneurs and love of working with them as finance expertise. Please help us find that person. If you feel it’s you, please call Read more...

A new year?!

steve — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:29:22 +0000

A new year?! That has to be the fastest three months ever. Productive though. We’re pleased to have started working with three new clients. And we met the MDs of twenty other businesses interested in our support, many of which we’re meeting again in January. Exciting times ahead.

Ever wondered why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck?

steve — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:54:06 +0000

If you have and / or want to know how to get your ideas to stick in peoples minds then read Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Another great read is Getting More by Stuart Diamond recommended to me by Trevor Herbert of Hobbs House Bakery. Essential reading for anyone who has to negotiate. Which is everyone. We all do, everyday.

Wise words

steve — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:18:40 +0000

Anyone trying to build a business should read this blog post by David Hieatt who learnt a lot in starting and building howies and is now putting all that he learnt to good use in building the Hiut Denim Co. As the Chinese proverb says ‘not until you do something will you understand it’.

There’s always room for improvement

steve — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:27:04 +0000

Never ones to rest on our laurels we’ve asked The Ideas Monster to review our service design. The feedback from clients and others that know us and what we do has been excellent, but there’s always something to be improved. Having our service reviewed by designers means we get to see the results expressed visually, which is a great way of seeing how the different elements fit together and great at stimulating ideas. If you’re running a service business get these guys to review your service design.

You need more than passion to create a recipe for success

steve — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:40:01 +0000

So far we’ve had about 100 requests for our paper on the profitability of service businesses and I’m pleased to be able to say the feedback has been excellent. We’ve now turned our attention to the other sector we specialise in and produced a paper that will help businesses selling food and drink improve profitability. Read more...

A surprisingly good read

steve — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:07:52 +0000

A friend recently gave me her well thumbed copy of Business Model Generation by Osterwalder and Pignear and told me to read it over my Easter holiday. After overcoming my initial surprise at the … generosity (a creme egg would have been fine) the slightly larger hurdle of the business-schooly title (I left that stuff behind long ago) and encouraged by days of rain in Gibraltar, I read it and have to confess … I found it fascinating. A great thought stimulator. (You are a wise as well as generous lady Ms L, though please bear in mind the creme egg thing.) If you want an insight into how to construct your business to maximise revenue and minimise costs get yourself a copy. According to the authors this will make you ‘a visionary, game changer or challenger’. Or a combination of.

What information do you need to grow your business?

antony — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:05:20 +0000

What strategic financial information do you need to grow your business? By strategic I mean over and above the standard set of information that your book keeper or finance manager can provide.

Well, here’s a short list I’ve come up with:

You wouldn’t start a journey without knowing your destination and having some idea of your route so why would you start a business without a plan? Think of a plan as a way of mapping out how you want your business to develop and grow in the future. It’s not just for you though: it’s also a great way of communicating this to your team. If they understand where the business is going then there’s a better chance that they will all pull in the same direction. Using your plan to track performance against financial targets also helps you quickly identify when parts of the business diverge from the plan. You can then either take corrective action to bring it back on track or come up with a new plan based on the new reality.

To run a successful business you need to know where to focus your effort. Which products / services are making the most money? Are there any which are actually losing you money? Focussing on the profitability of your products / services allows you to invest to sell more of the profitable ones and ask some hard questions of the loss makers.

A step beyond this is to focus on the profitability of individual customers based on the products they take, the sales channel they use, their credit terms and how easy they are to manage. Do you know which of your customers are generating profit and which need corrective action?

Growing businesses need more cash than stable ones:

They need to invest in marketing and people for future growth;
They need to keep paying the bills when sales increase but, because of credit given to customers, cash receipts are lagging behind;
They may need to build up stocks if they are selling goods.

Depending on the business, this extra cash might be available from profits. If not then the business may need to consider external funding. We’ve written a paper on investors and sources of funding which covers this so I won’t go into too much detail. I will, however, say that you should make sure that you don’t leave it till the last minute: it takes time to raise cash. If you’re going to need funding, plan how much you’ll need, when you need and what type of funding is best for the business well in advance.

So that’s my choice: Future, Focus and Funding. If you have a different view, why not add a comment below?

Has UK inflation peaked?

simon — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:23:38 +0000

Yesterdays announcement of a fall in CPI from 4.4% in February to 4.0% in March may mean that the rate of consumer inflation has peaked.

This morning I read that Goldman Sachs have indicated that commodity prices may also have peaked for the time being, and on the basis of their comments the price of crude oil has started to come off. Nevertheless it is worth noting that raw material input prices have risen by 14.6% since last March, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The enormous gap between the input price inflation of 14.6% and the inflation rate that is being passed on (4.0%) can only mean that local costs, principally wages, and margins are suffering. I was especially interested to read that one of the main reasons that CPI fell this month was because food and non-alcoholic beverages actually decreased in price by 1.4%, primarily as a result of supermarket led offers.

The experience of the past 24 months has shown just how vulnerable the UK economy and businesses are to external price pressures, and how influential large organisations, such as supermarkets, are in controlling it.