It's not a new issue that operators should be familiar with finance. However, whether your team has financial knowledge and basic financial awareness is a particularly prominent problem for enterprises.
The fact is: many operators themselves lack financial awareness, and the concept of revenue and expenditure is quite vague. Such enterprises are like walking on thin ice. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. According to what I know [Song Xiaofei], most personnel in public institutions and civil servants basically have no financial knowledge. Therefore, major errors and waste often occur in enterprises.
Case One
A company was going to hold a conference for a thousand people in Beijing. The boss assigned the task of choosing the event venue to his assistant. The assistant, based on the principle of saving costs, negotiated with several large five-star hotels through phone calls, faxes, and QQ, screening and confirming them before finally reporting back to the boss. After confirmation by the boss, it was decided to cooperate with one of the hotels.
A week before the meeting, the boss arrived in Beijing with the advance team to inspect the venue and accommodation conditions at the hotel where an agreement had been signed and a deposit of 100,000 yuan had been paid. It was truly shocking to find out that the hotel was not capable of hosting a conference for a thousand people, and the accommodation conditions did not meet the five-star standard. What could they do? After failing to negotiate with the hotel, they could only suffer in silence.
This incident is a financial case that appears to be due to error. In reality, it is a typical example of lacking financial knowledge.
1. Saving is good, but first, you need to look at the situation. For such meetings, saving is not the core issue; the core is the purpose and result of the meeting. Don't lose sight of the bigger picture;
2. If a little money had been spent upfront to check the location and personally inspect the accommodations,
such results would naturally not have occurred;
3. The boss and employees lack financial knowledge. Under what circumstances can large sums of money be transferred, and under what circumstances is it absolutely unacceptable?
Case Two
A company developed a new product, and the boss personally participated in the R&D process. After confirming everything was correct, they went into mass production. However, during production, subordinates deliberately "cut corners" to save costs. After the product hit the market, to support sales, there was a big promotional campaign. The cost of making promotional materials alone reached hundreds of thousands of yuan, yet after the product was launched, sales were minimal. Investigations revealed that the product's effectiveness could not be guaranteed, severely affecting sales and even leading to unsold inventory.
During the R&D process, was it because of trying to save costs that things weren't done well enough? During production, due to human "cutting corners," the already variable efficacy became even less assured. This led to the "brand" dying prematurely, and the waste of resources seemed like "details determine success or failure," with a situation akin to "a long embankment being destroyed by an ant hole." In reality, it was still a financial issue causing the problem.
Such cases are unprecedented.
How many companies have been ruined by themselves? And the fundamental reason why they ruin themselves isn't anything else—it's "financial" issues. Financial problems aren't simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; they are a process of measurement using reality as a standard and requiring careful consideration. Companies without financial awareness and knowledge are risky businesses; teams without financial awareness and knowledge are very easily prone to sudden death. Addressing financial issues doesn't mean cutting costs; addressing financial issues means enhancing learning and making financial knowledge a regular training subject for all enterprise employees. Through learning and training, ensure that your company is always in a state of rationality and sobriety. This is the guarantee for making your competition more effective.
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A viewpoint holds that branding is a visual action.