The past year has been extremely difficult for businesses as the world grappled with the worst crisis since the World Wars. The Covid-19 pandemic caused structural shifts in consumer behaviour, making many businesses redundant while creating immense opportunities for others. Most companies have had to go back to the drawing board to re-think their survival strategies, grow their business and maintain profitability.

In times such as these, a guide would be useful to help harness the resources available to the business and help in taking the right decisions on costs that can be cut without causing irreparable damage to the company, keeping customers satisfied and ensuring that the business grows its profits.

Sangeeta Shankaran Sumesh’s Where’s the Moolah, Financial growth hacking for business profitability fills this need, not just during periods of uncertainties but also during regular times. The book provides indicators towards the levers available to a company that should be moved to improve cash flows, improve profitability and achieve business growth.

The business wheel

The book takes a holistic view of the drivers of the company, not limiting it to tracking financial performance alone. These are set out as the business wheel that will take the company forward. “For a business to move ahead, think of the business as a vehicle and each of the business functions like wheels of the vehicle which propel it forward,” she says. The author identifies the wheels of the business as customer care and management, human resources, operations, including the products or services offered, finance (margins, working capital management, funds requirement and so on), strategy, information technology, marketing and suppliers.

Each of these facets is examined lucidly and practically. The decisions that need to be made in each of these areas are often discussed with bullet points that make them easy to remember. The common mistakes that are made by businesses are set out at the end of every section, providing a useful checklist to avoid.

There are some offbeat stories strewn across the book. “An autorickshaw driver in Chennai by the name of Anna Durai plies his share auto in Chennai’s IT corridor. What is special about an auto driver, one may wonder? Inside his auto, Anna Durai provides daily newspapers, popular magazines, a mini refrigerator with juices, a mini fan and free Wi-Fi. And because of the extra services he renders, he has become extremely popular and the most preferred auto to travel in. He is tech savvy and has even built his website, which has helped his branding as well.”

The chapter on operations and the need to select the right products or services to drive the business forward begins with the story of Nokia. “A pulp mill factory founded in 1865 in Finland started expanding its business to manufacture toilet paper, then to tyres, electrical power generation and telephones. Eventually, it had spun off most of its operations except its telecommunications business. This business helped pioneer the mobile industry, and thus Nokia became the largest mobile phone maker in the 1990s.”

A workshop

Reading the book is akin to sitting in a workshop for business leaders and listening to a passionate speaker. The fact that Sankaran Sumesh is a business coach is evident in the book’s tone and how the chapters are laid out. Readers are kept engaged with the stories and interviews with business leaders. There are even assignments at the end of each chapter in the form of ‘Thoughts for reflection/action’.

Obviously, Sankaran Sumesh has dived into the learnings from her career in coaching business leaders to find insights that will be useful for those who want to change how they are operating.

Check out the book on Amazon

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