03 / Commercial opportunities

Three places we would look first

Priority 1 · Pricing

Check whether your most popular jobs earn enough

Why: A profitable business can still have individual services that barely cover their costs. Those jobs can absorb staff time that could be spent on better work.

Action: List your five most frequently sold services. For each one, compare selling price against labour, materials and other costs of completing it. Look for jobs with weak returns before changing prices.

Illustration, not a forecast: a 1% increase on unchanged £420,000 sales adds £4,200 revenue. Extra profit depends on volumes, costs, VAT and customer response.

Priority 2 · Cost control

Review commitments you keep paying

Why: Subscriptions, insurance, software and supplier contracts may have become more expensive without anyone reviewing their value.

Action: Make a list of your ten largest repeat costs. Confirm the service, owner, renewal date and whether the company still needs it.

Illustration: a verified £100 monthly saving would equate to £1,200 a year before any cancellation fees. No such saving has been established for this sample business.

Priority 3 · Productivity

Make sure staff time converts into useful work

Why: Staffing costs may be appropriate overall but still conceal avoidable travel, idle time, rework or scheduling gaps.

Action: Track work completed and revenue per paid staff hour for four weeks, using the same definition each week.

METRIVANTA · SAMPLE ONLY · Harbour & Field Services Ltd · Fictional figures