Steve Davies Online

Any company that sells time has what amounts to an inventory of future hours that its clients have committed to buy from it at an agreed rate. This commitment may either be firm or contingent on future events, but it is important to find a way to calculate the size of the inventory on hand at any point as this is an important measurement of workload and ultimately of future revenues.

The Gross margin is probably the most important in any business, and yet many people fail to measure it. Part of the reason for this is that the Gross margin is radically different for different businesses and in many cases it is not a well understood concept.

In these days of internet-based job advertisements it is simply not possible to respond in person to every candidate who replies, and this level of courtesy is not expected when people apply online.

One of the most frequent weasel words you hear as an employer are some variant of: “it’s not for me but for my family”. Beware when you hear this…it often signals the need for a pay raise, but it can also be an indication that what is coming is not only self-serving but that it will probably cause you some pain and may in some way be unethical.

Years ago I was in the computer service business and we had an insatiable need for spare parts to repair the broken systems of our service contract customers. Many of these systems were pretty old and using used parts was not only acceptable but essential.