What is the bottom line to you?

Those who believe that the financial bottom line is the be all and end all of commerce and industry are wrong. As has been repeatedly pointed out in these posts, money is useful but without human beings, people, individuals, you and I, there would be no money. So to me it is a blinding glimpse of the obvious to realise that human beings, people, individuals must be considered more important than money!! Look after people, customers, patients – whomsoever, and the money will flow.

This is ‘service’. The core, the prime purpose of every business is to provide a service. Think about it. I need a jacket – I can’t make one so I go to someone, a shop for example, that provides them. They are servicing my needs. The shop purchases the jacket from a tailor – the tailor services the needs of the shop; the tailor buys the jacket material from the weaver – the weaver services the needs of the tailor – and so on right back to the farmer who breeds sheep and has them sheared for the wool. Each is servicing the needs of the other. Likewise if I need coal or iron ore for my factory I approach an organisation that provides these minerals – they too are servicing my needs. So by default all commerce and industry is ultimately providing a service – but to whom? To human beings, people, individuals – you and I!!

The jacket or the coal or iron ore does not make money; it is the people who require the products that pay for the goods or materials (the service) provided that “make” the money. So, once more (it is worth repeating again and again), take care of the ultimate source of the money you are seeking - provide a service to human beings; care for people, and the money will flow. It is really very simple.

This is the ideal and the ultimate “win – win” situation. Commerce and industry win and people win, each get what they want. Greed, hubris, inflated egos and plain old selfishness, however, are all too common human attributes that need to be accounted for when the subject of money is mentioned. Enough, seemingly, is never enough.

But the truth remains – provide a service and money will flow.