There seems to be a bit of a witch hunt at the minute against business and profits. It frustrates me to the core because those doing the hunting seemingly fail to realize the importance of businesses and their profits.
Lets get one thing clear here. Business is good. Profit is very good. Profit is what keeps people in jobs. Profit is what allows companies with a shareholding to give dividends at the end of the year. Profit is what allows a company to expand it’s operations and employ more people. So let’s re-focus on what is really ticking people off at the minute…
Bonuses. It is a basic principle for most people that when people go above and beyond what is expected of them and do better than expected, their reward is a bonus on top of their standard wage. What has really annoyed the general population is the massive rewards to top level executives in charge of companies that haven’t met expectations and not achieved their targets. Case in point, the RBS boss Stephen Hester. His annual salary is over £1m, which I would say is fair due to the massive task of reforming the bank to make it profitable and to get it into a position where it can be bought back from the public. But when the banks lending and profit targets were not met, the £1m+ bonus seemed highly inappropriate. Especially as the majority of the country is currently crippled by rising living costs and wage freezes.
But I digress. Profit remains the sole reason why businesses exist. Without it, the business world would not turn. People need to distinguish between profit and excessive greed. Unfortunately bonuses and banker’s greed has tainted the whole idea of profit. We all need to remember that the biggest companies making the biggest profit usually have a dividends scheme where their shareholders get a cut of the profit, giving back to those who put their hard earned money into their company.
Profit and business has to be seen in a positive light. A job providing money machine that absolutely has to keep on working. We should be painting profit in a positive light and celebrate it when companies do well.
totally agree dgb, profit is vital in our industry so the supply lines move swiftly and smoothley as prompt payments ensure companies can keep on providing good service by paying their suppliers on time ensuring a reliable supply chain, its such a shame that UPVC installers in my experience tend to be the slowest payers of the lot out there and expect the most dynamic quick service at the most non profitable prices, thus causing problems to most dgu suppliers as all our hard earned profits are used up keeping ourselves afloat and paying our suppliers on time, whilst we… Read more »
before i get lots of we are innocent guv and pay our suppliers on time comments thats just the upvc brigade in my area and i cant comment on companies too far afield of my little piece of heaven
I agree. We live in a cpatalist world, where the very basics of our wau of life is to generate revenues to maintain a decent standard of life!! How and why do some people think that it is immoral to generate income, its beyond me?? As a company, we have had to wind in how much credit we give to our trade customers as unfortunately, the few ruin the privelidge for the better payers, but we cannot sustain funding a business where companie take 60,90 or 120 days to pay, and think this is perfectly reasonable. Sometime they wont answer… Read more »