Improving Productivity and Profitability

Things go wrong when people avoid elements that ought not to be avoided. If one shuns one's mind to information, no amount of drift or wave of information hardly penetrates the closed mind. By the same analogy, if people close up their minds for figures and facts they play only with statements which could exist only in the mind; and even if they are demonstrated they remain in most cases subjective. A thing becomes objective only when it becomes empiric and is related to the open world with verifiable fibre of truth. Improvement of productivity and profitability and minimizing errors in a system and the realization of a nearly perfect process is through the application of quantitative analysis as much as humanly possible. Not only are that reliable customers the effects of quality process, but, they are the pillars of a corporate body.
Quantitative analysis could be seen through the above premise. It is probably, as most authors recognized, the most challenging and important field of science that provides basic tools for solving problems in the areas of finance, accounting, marketing, and operations. Besides, for many years now, even international relations have been governed, to a good extent, by mathematical tools applicable to the field to show that mathematics pervades every side of human activity.
As experts in the area often say the theories behind the techniques are inconsequential. What is very important is their application to solve real and complex business problems. However, this is not to undermine a manager's or a business administration expert's best judgments, but, only to emphasize the mathematical precision of the tools of quantitative analysis.
Why do people bother in their businesses to prepare cash-flow analyses, income statements, or balance sheets? It is just because customers frequent them, governments trust them, banks and insurance companies work with them, and that they become reliable partners in development wherever they may be operating.
The best decisions are made on the results of decision analysis. In this, possible alternatives and risks associated with the situation are determined; the monetary consequences of the alternatives are calculated; and, what is more, uncertainties associated with each alternative are evaluated and decided upon. This means that before a green house is rigged, all water pipes and fertilizer transmitters are installed and laid,workers are employed and deployed, alternatives have to be evaluated, whether the high lands or the low lands are better suited for the purpose, the purpose being either growing vegetables or flowers or both. Each alternative has to be evaluated and the monetary implication weighed, and the risks considered before decisions are made.
Likewise, a cash flow analysis is important for any business, small or large, not to determine its profitability but to define the value of the investment, the magnitude of the benefits, the timing and uncertainty of the benefits, the cash sources and their uses, etc.
No less than this is the critical issue of the value of timing that is calculated under this heading. Differentiation is made between accumulated value and net present value. In turn, this will help the business man to compare different projects. A company may consider investing a good amount of money in a new project, but, analysis will show that it may take ten years to develop it. Then the business man may say it will not make sense to invest in this project, and shifts to another project which could be timely and worthwhile. However, since there could be much intervening variables that disturb the situation, the business man's or management's best judgments ust be used at such times side by side with the mathematical tools. On the other hand, calculating discount factors and rate of returns on investments are matters of importance for the business man to see his position clearly.
Likewise, probability theory and regression analysis and forecasting are very vital for larger businesses. Rains at a particular area are measured and their density calculated through the same process.
What matters high in this respect is the position availed to the corporate manager that through checking the process to an optimal level, he is sure to save his empire's present and future business opportunities, his customers' trust, and his employees' confidence, and above all the quality level of his products and the maximization of his profit, by timely error correction in the process through the application of quantitative analysis to a level of perfection.
This short writing is only to remind or indicate businesses that use mathematical notions in their daily lives where and when applicable are much better of than those which ignore them most of the time; and to make them aware that they can compete best internally and externally if they are equipped with such skills; and these skills are surely available abundantly in the market with the new generation of college graduates.