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What is the bottom line to you?

Guest post by: Andrew Campbell-Watt

Article Overview: Those who believe that the financial bottom line is the be all and end all of commerce and industry are wrong. As has been repeatedly pointed out in these articles, money is useful but without human beings, people, individuals, you and I, there would be no money and no use for money.

What is the bottom line to you?

Those who believe that the financial bottom line is the be all and end all of commerce and industry are wrong. As has been repeatedly pointed out in these articles, money is useful but without human beings, people, individuals, you and I, there would be no money and no use for money. It is therefore of vital importance to understand that human beings, people, individuals, are pre-eminent and the originators of the money (and the associated value given to money) that others (also people) so desperately seek!! Look after people, customers, patients – whomsoever, and the money will flow.

This is ‘service’. The core, the prime purpose of every business, enterprise or organization is to provide a service. Think about it. A person needs a jacket – they can’t make one so they go to someone, a shop for example, that provides jackets. The shop services their needs. The shop purchases jackets from a tailor – the tailor services the needs of the shop; the tailor buys the jacket material from the weaver – the weaver services the needs of the tailor – and so on right back to the farmer who breeds sheep and has them sheared for the wool. Each is servicing the needs of the other. Likewise an industrialist (a person) requiring coal or iron ore for a factory would approach an organisation (more people) that provides these minerals. Such providers are also servicing a need.

By default then, all commerce and industry is ultimately providing a service – but to whom? To human beings, people, individuals – you and I!! This is the basis, the core ‘ingredient’ of all trade – providing a service. Hidden and often under rated in all this, of course, is trust and ethics. There is an expectation that people will treat others the way they would like to be treated, honestly, justly, kindly and with integrity; in other words, ethically.

What is often ignored or forgotten is that the jacket or the coal or iron ore does not make money; it is the people who require the products and pay for the goods or materials provided (the service) that “make” the money. So, once more (it is worth repeating again and again), take care of the ultimate source of the money you are seeking - provide a service to human beings; care for people, particularly the countless individuals who comprise the workforce that provide the service of labour for commercial enterprise and the products manufactured – remember they too are consumers - and the money will flow. It is really very, very simple.

This is the ideal and the ultimate “win – win” situation. Commerce and industry (ultimately people, because commerce and industry is run by people) win and people (the customers or purchasers) win; each get what they want – a good service. Greed, hubris, inflated egos and plain old selfishness, however, are all too common human attributes that need to be taken into account when the subject of money is mentioned. Enough, seemingly, is never enough.

Surely most people, at some time, have had to deal with sloppy service, if not downright rudeness from some organisations (and not just restaurants!)? What is the normal reaction? “Well! Such rudeness! I am not going back there again”!! For too many the bottom line is thought of in purely monetary terms – cash, profits, dividends or as a return on investments – with nary a thought or a care for how this all came about.

But the truth remains – provide a good service (a rare event today) and money will flow.

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Article Tags: ethics, human beings, money, service, winwin situation



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