Word: marginally
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...Europeans had been somewhat nonplussed by the Bush administration, because despite the extremely narrow margin of its election victory it had set out to brashly, and unilaterally, make dramatic changes in the course of U.S. foreign policy. European diplomats speaking off the record had confided that they believed the Bush administration had ushered in an unstable and unpredictable era for the U.S., leaving many of its traditional allies inclined to simply wait out the four or eight years of his tenure. Those who want to see Washington playing a leading role, in consultation with its allies, on the international stage...
...make sure that every employee understands the basic building blocks of how his or her business works. Here's an example. Last summer Bruce Nelson took over as CEO of Office Depot, the world's largest seller of office supplies. In analyzing the fundamentals, he quickly discovered that gross margin and inventory velocity were slipping. Not good...
...what they could do to improve these two fundamentals. These folks know best what customers are buying. Nelson's emphasizing just how important their individual store performance is to the overall corporate performance brought home some key points. If you change your mix of merchandise and emphasize high-margin products that turn rapidly, comp sales (same-store sales compared with last year) will improve. Not only will you and your store perform better but so will the total business of the company...
Most people understand the concept of margin--the money they pocket after all expenses have been paid. But velocity--the speed at which things move through the company to the customer--is often missed. I cannot think of any company whose performance would not improve by increasing the rate of inventory turn. And, by the way, the concept of velocity applies as well to services as it does to products...
Employees are probably not going to realize that all the fundamentals--cash, margin, velocity and growth--are important unless somebody tells them. And I'm not talking about throwing out a few ideas. These concepts have to be explained in the context of the entire business--how these building blocks fit together. Every great manager is in some respects a great teacher. Do you understand the fundamentals of the business well enough to explain them to everyone at every level? If not, you're throwing away a cost-free opportunity for prospering in what could prove to be a very...