Profitability by Morals

These past few weeks, we attended a lot of gatherings in our fledgling ecosystem. I have realized that what truly differentiates from our brethren is not scale, growth or value but profitability (and being consistently so for the last few years).

We are always asked whether it is strategy or execution that makes us profitable? And our answer has always been the later as there are many that do similar stuff as what we do, but they do not do it profitably. And we are profitable in most things we do. And that execution for us is a combination of a few very basic morals.

1.     Honesty – We never said we are profitable at GM, CM1, CM2, EBITDA levels. Profit is PAT, and that’s what counts. Measuring it at the right level keeps pushing us to it.

2.     Reality – The only real profit is the one that is on our balance sheet and/ or in our bank account. Anything that is in the future is not real. Only the present matters.

3.     Productivity – Does it pinch us when an OFBian is idle? Or when we see a supplier advance sitting, when the material should have moved? Or a customer not having paid by the due date? Or a business that we have invested in not making money immediately? Immensely! And we give our all, right from top to bottom, to correct it.

4.     Push – A supplier contract is being negotiated, a customer deal is being struck, a company is being bought – can it be done better? Always. An OFBian will do it till he drops dead of exhaustion or till it almost sounds absurd.

5.     Frugality – If there is a cheaper option, even if it’s harder, we take it. And then, we make it work.

6.     Unit economics – Everyone has great unit economics on paper. But for us, the definition of unit economics is different. Every unit of OfBusiness has to make real economic sense here and now – be it a team member, team, product or geography. Imagine then what the sum of those units looks like.

7.     Discipline – There is a process; we follow it. There is a rule, we live for it and die by it. If there is no process for something, we make one and make the loop continue.

8.     Love – Till death do us part, we love our customer/ supplier/ OFBian. In business, its retention and lifetime value after acquisition cost has been spent; but for us, it’s the old value of family love. Once one is in the family and stays long enough, we get the best out of him and vice versa.

9.     Language – In what you speak, the way you speak: is being profitable a part of our general vocabulary?

10.  Drive – Whatever we did on all the above is not enough. It can, should and will be better tomorrow.

Read more from CEO speaks Column:-
– A little bit of sale(s) (Memories from my early sales team addresses at OfBusiness)
– Men of Steel