So the New Year is once again upon us and we\u2019re busily making promises to ourselves to eat better, exercise more and empty our \u201ctoo hard\u201d baskets. And, in our professional lives, we are urged by management consultants and accountants to make resolutions to improve margins, cut expenses and enhance profitability. But to me, something doesn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n
For years we have listened to the academics, the self-proclaimed experts and every business consultant who has traipsed a well-worn path to our office door and blindly accepted their buzz-word laden advice about how we can improve our operations and enjoy the fruits of strong profitability and business growth. If only we could better \u201ccapture\u201d our time, prevent \u201cleakage\u201d and \u201cleverage\u201d off our human resources. And what if we could \u201cdrill down\u201d and take a \u201cdeep dive\u201d into a detailed \u201cSWAT analysis\u201d and then ensure that our team focuses on \u201cdeliverables\u201d. Imagine the \u201csuper-profits\u201d that could be generated. Well I\u2019m calling BS.<\/p>\n
And before I offend all the well-intentioned business consultants and financial gurus out there, I am not for one moment questioning their worth or the value they add to an organisation. On the contrary, there is enormous benefit in an objective outsider bringing their experience and expertise to strategic and business planning. My perspective is simply that of the Principal of a professional services firm; an outlook to the surrounding landscape viewed through the lens of the values of a profession, rather than a commercial enterprise. And I don\u2019t pretend that those of us called to a profession are compelled to serve the greater good without keeping one eye focussed on our profitability.<\/p>\n
My point is simply that we should consider fairness, balance and the interests of our clients\/customers\/patients in all the business decisions we make. It\u2019s Ethics 101 that, as a starting proposition, the interests of those we serve should take priority over our own. So while it\u2019s no sin to try and improve margins and increase prices, I reckon we need to test the temptation to recalibrate pricing and charging methods against our enterprise\u2019s values and our own moral compass. Yes, Mr Consultant, I know that my pricing model lags behind others in my space. And yes I understand that I\u2019m missing an opportunity to improve returns. But at least it\u2019s a choice informed by considered judgment, rather than simply being ignorant misadventure.<\/p>\n
So this year, I\u2019ll listen to good advice, and heed the wise counsel of advisers, but if there\u2019s to be any increase in pricing there will have to be a commensurate improvement in our value proposition through better service delivery or product offering. Because a value is non-negotiable. And as a professional, no matter what our calling, should we not insist that we are diligent and competent in our work and that our service pricing is fair, proportionate and transparent?<\/p>\n
Client-centric business practices and profitability need not be mutually exclusive, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So the New Year is once again upon us and we\u2019re busily making promises to ourselves to eat better, exercise more and empty our \u201ctoo hard\u201d baskets. And, in our professional lives, we are urged by management consultants and accountants to make resolutions to improve margins, cut expenses and enhance profitability. But to me, something…
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[258],"tags":[260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travisschultz.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}