Sometimes it's interesting to take the management emails and translate 
them into their /actual/ meanings...



"The past few months have seen revenues consistently above budget."

(We managed to convince the finance guys to set the targets *so low* 
that we actually managed to meet them for once.)



(It's been so long since we earned any money that this paltry sum seems 
impressive to us now.)

"In the YTD, UK revenues are 29% ahead of budget"

(We really set it low this time.)

"and 62% ahead of this time last year."

(We had almost no business last year.)

"This is a good result reflecting an improved study mix."

(Improved study mix = we actually *had* some studies.)



Sorry, management power-speak just irks me...

Post a reply to this message

> "and 62% ahead of this time last year."

Comparing to last year/month is pointless, is it really so hard to just 
draw a simple chart rather than one meaningless figure?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> "The past few months have seen revenues consistently above budget."
> 
> (We managed to convince the finance guys to set the targets *so low* 
> that we actually managed to meet them for once.)

A budget is what you plan to spend, not what you plan to earn.

> "In the YTD, UK revenues are 29% ahead of budget"

In other words, you actually took in 29% more money than you planned to have 
spent. So you're profitable with 29% profit, assuming you spent the same 
amount you planned to spend. It has nothing to do with how much you "set it" 
at, except to the extent that you fired people, deferred fixing equipment, etc.


Scott wrote:
 > Comparing to last year/month is pointless,

It makes sense in a seasonal business. Most businesses are at least a bit 
seasonal.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

Post a reply to this message

> Scott wrote:
>  > Comparing to last year/month is pointless,
>
> It makes sense in a seasonal business.

Not really, because it's comparing your current performance with one 
arbitrary data point.  It can give a very misleading figure about 
actually how well you are doing, either due to random variation in the 
figures, or that you just had an exceptionally good/bad figure the year 
before for some reason.  It only tells you one thing, yet people try to 
draw far more conclusions from that one figure.  A simple chart of even 
just 10 data points is infinitely better.

Real world example, my sister manages a shop (which has very seasonal 
sales figures) and just after she started the job she kept getting "best 
in region" month after month.  She couldn't really understand why, until 
she figured out that they were simply comparing her monthly sales with 
12 months ago, where the store had been run by someone with no 
motivation and who wanted to leave.  Now she doesn't get "best in 
region" very often (it's probably mostly random variation between shops 
if all the managers are relatively competent).

Post a reply to this message

>> "The past few months have seen revenues consistently above budget."
>>
>> (We managed to convince the finance guys to set the targets *so low*
>> that we actually managed to meet them for once.)
>
> A budget is what you plan to spend, not what you plan to earn.

I doubt that my employer knows that.

Certainly we have budgets for what we plan to spend on X, what we plan 
to spend on Y, and what we plan to spend on Z. We also have a budget for 
how much income we're supposed to generate. (Presumably the idea is that 
if we earn that much, we should be able to pay for all the stuff in our 
expenses budgets...)

>> "In the YTD, UK revenues are 29% ahead of budget"
>
> In other words, you actually took in 29% more money than you planned to
> have spent.

No. We earned 29% more than we were aiming for. Presumably because we 
set our targets so low...

> Scott wrote:
>  > Comparing to last year/month is pointless,
>
> It makes sense in a seasonal business. Most businesses are at least a
> bit seasonal.

Well, spring is usually our least busy time of the year, so presumably 
that equates to also being the least profitable. :-)

(Not to be confused with profiterole, which is something quite different.)

Post a reply to this message