One concern we often hear from stakeholders of various businesses is that many of their staff don’t think ‘commercially’ enough. These people make decisions without thinking of the financial implications, pass-up opportunities to cut costs and lack the ‘commercial’ savviness’ for what makes a good ‘business’ decision.
So what does it take to be commercially savvy or astute?
You may ask, what does commercial savviness or commerciality consist of? How do we know who’s got it? And how do we develop it for the ones who lack in it?
but our experience tells us there is no single way to define it. For some, it might mean looking beyond the basic financial metrics, for others, it’s about being able to objectively evaluate the business from the outside in, or making decisions that result from weighing up the cost versus the benefits of something.
Whatever the definition, organizations need to articulate what commercial acumen means to them and ensure their people are completely aligned with it.
We at Kaplan follow a 3-staged approach towards measuring commerciality. The first stage is defining the drivers - the core elements that shape a business’ attitude towards commercial decision making.
This exercise of defining drivers is then followed by two more critical stages.
You can find out more about them right here
To know more about how we can help your organization, get in touch with us today. Because commercial acumen is the one skill that your business can’t do without.
