Here's a question to test your prospects as a business leader: How does your company make money?

    If you can't answer it, you're hardly alone. Many MBAs can't answer it. Many CFOs and vice presidents can't answer it. Experienced CEOs sometimes struggle to answer it.

    What I'm testing with this question is your business acumen.

    The Universals of Business

    At the core of every successful business, from a global giant to a corner store, are the same fundamentals of moneymaking: cash, margin, velocity, return, and growth. And at the core of every successful business leader is an intuitive understanding of the relationships among them.

    It's easy to think the basics of business are for beginners. Everyone knows what cash is, and that companies must make a profit.

    But business acumen isn't about knowing definitions. It's about keeping the basics of moneymaking in sharp focus and balancing them in a way that's healthy for the business.

    When you have business acumen, you realize the importance of every job at every stage of your career. A mailroom clerk with business acumen knows that getting checks to the accounts receivable department more quickly will ease the company's cash flow. And a sales rep with business acumen knows that higher-margin products will increase the company's return.

    Moneymaking Basics

    As the complexity of your job increases, it's easy to lose sight of the fundamentals. If your business acumen doesn't develop, you can stumble -- focus too much on revenue growth and overlook cash, or focus too much on cash and overlook growth.

    That's why you should never consider it beneath you to revisit the moneymaking basics. They should be front and center in your diagnosis and decision making in every job you have.

    Here are the basics:

    Cash

    No business survives long without it. You should know how much cash your business generates and how much cash it consumes.

    What are the sources of it? What drains it? What's the timing of the inflows and outflows and how is it changing? More revenues （sales） often means more cash. But growing a business consumes cash. How fast can the company expand without straining its cash flow?

  Margin

    When people talk about the bottom line, they generally mean net profit margin -- the money the company earns after paying all its expenses, interest, and taxes. But gross margin is important, too.

    Gross margin -- the difference between a product's selling price and what it costs to make the product （the "costs of goods"）, expressed as a percent of the selling price -- can signal important shifts in a business. When PC makers saw their 32 percent gross margins decline to 20, they knew （or should have known） the competitive landscape had changed.

    You have to know how changes inside or outside the business affect gross margin. Are there new entrants in the market who are winning customers? A competitor who's found a clever way to reduce costs and prices? A change in the pricing power of suppliers?

    Velocity

    Velocity refers to speed, turnover, or movement.

    How much revenue do you turn over, or generate, for each dollar of inventory? If you have $1 million in inventory for the year and revenues of $10 million, your inventory velocity is 10. This tells you how fast you're moving raw materials through the factory, turning them into finished products, and moving those products off the shelf to customers. The faster, the better.

    Service businesses can track velocity, too. For banks, velocity of equity -- how much revenue is generated per dollar of equity -- is a useful measure. The concept applies to every business.

    Return

    Margin multiplied by velocity equals return. If your return is lower than your cost of capital, your business is likely to be in trouble. That's when shareholders get concerned.

    How do you boost your return? See if you can boost your margin or increase your velocity -- or, better yet, both.

    Growth

    Every business needs to grow to stay in business. How do you grow in a way that keeps the other aspects of moneymaking in balance? There's no formula -- people with business acumen figure it out.

    Where Business Acumen Counts Most

    Street vendors in villages around the world use business acumen every day. They have to -- their next meal often depends on it.

    In companies, business acumen is crucial when the external world changes and there's a need to reposition the business.

    Like when Hollywood studios started selling videocassettes directly to the public at the same time it sold them to video rental companies. That's when Blockbuster's rental business started to slide.

    People wanted to buy movies, not just rent them, so Blockbuster started selling them. But the moneymaking was completely different.

    Blockbuster was used to buying videocassettes on credit and making payments with the cash from renting them. Returns were high.

    Selling videocassettes meant laying out the cash up front, holding lots of inventory, and waiting for the cash to come in when the videocassettes were sold. Cash flow, velocity, and return were all adversely affected.

    Where Do You Want to Go?

    You don't need business acumen to make a meaningful contribution to a business. But you'll need it to rise through the leadership ranks.

    You can't acquire it at a seminar or in a quick read. You learn it by using it in real business situations.

    Start now by applying it to your company. Ask for the numbers or pull them from the annual report. Precision isn't necessary -- knowing what to focus on is.

    這個(gè)問(wèn)題可以測(cè)試你作為一個(gè)企業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的前景：你的企業(yè)是怎樣賺錢的？

    如果你不能回答，那么你只是很多人中的一個(gè)。許多工商管理碩士不能回答。許多首席財(cái)務(wù)官和副總裁也不能回答。許多經(jīng)驗(yàn)豐富的首席執(zhí)行官很費(fèi)力地才能回答上來(lái)。

    我這個(gè)問(wèn)題測(cè)試的是你的商業(yè)智慧。

    企業(yè)的普遍原則

    從全球巨頭到街角小店，在每一個(gè)成功企業(yè)里處于核心地位的都是同樣的盈利基本要素：現(xiàn)金、利潤(rùn)率、周轉(zhuǎn)率、收益和增長(zhǎng)率。對(duì)每一個(gè)成功的企業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)來(lái)說(shuō)，最核心的素質(zhì)就是對(duì)這些要素之間的相互關(guān)系的直覺(jué)理解。

    人們很容易認(rèn)為企業(yè)的基本要素是新手要學(xué)習(xí)的東西。每個(gè)人都知道現(xiàn)金是什么，也知道企業(yè)必須要盈利。

    但是商業(yè)智慧不僅僅是知道定義，而是機(jī)警地關(guān)注盈利的基本要素并且以一種對(duì)企業(yè)有益的方式來(lái)平衡這些要素。

    當(dāng)你擁有商業(yè)智慧的時(shí)候，你就會(huì)明白你每一個(gè)職業(yè)階段的每一份工作的重要性。一個(gè)擁有商業(yè)智慧的信房職員知道，將支票盡快送達(dá)應(yīng)收賬款部門將會(huì)改善公司的現(xiàn)金流狀況。一個(gè)擁有商業(yè)智慧的銷售業(yè)務(wù)員明白，高利潤(rùn)的產(chǎn)品將會(huì)增加公司的收益。

    盈利的基本要素

    當(dāng)你的工作變得越來(lái)越復(fù)雜的時(shí)候，你很容易忽視基本要素。如果你不發(fā)展你的商業(yè)智慧，你可能會(huì)犯錯(cuò)誤--過(guò)于關(guān)注收入而忽視現(xiàn)金，或者過(guò)于關(guān)注現(xiàn)金而忽視增長(zhǎng)率。

    因此你決不能忽視對(duì)盈利基本要素的再度審視。它們應(yīng)該在你每一項(xiàng)工作的診斷和決策中處于首要和中心位置。

    以下是這些基本要素：

    現(xiàn)金

    沒(méi)有現(xiàn)金，沒(méi)有任何一個(gè)企業(yè)能夠生存下去。你應(yīng)該知道你的企業(yè)產(chǎn)生多少現(xiàn)金，消耗多少現(xiàn)金。

    現(xiàn)金來(lái)源是什么？什么消耗現(xiàn)金？現(xiàn)金流入和流出的時(shí)機(jī)是什么？流入流出是怎樣改變的？收入（銷售）越多一般意味著現(xiàn)金越多。但是企業(yè)的發(fā)展需要現(xiàn)金。在不完全使用現(xiàn)金流的情況下企業(yè)的擴(kuò)張速度能有多快？

    利潤(rùn)率

    當(dāng)人們談?wù)撡~本底線的時(shí)候，他們的意思通常是凈利潤(rùn)率--扣除所有費(fèi)用、利息和稅金之后公司所賺的錢。但是毛利潤(rùn)率也是很重要的。

    毛利潤(rùn)率--產(chǎn)品的售價(jià)和制造其所需要的成本（貨物成本）的差額，以售價(jià)的百分比來(lái)表示--能夠傳達(dá)企業(yè)的重大變化。當(dāng)個(gè)人電腦制造商發(fā)現(xiàn)其毛利潤(rùn)率由32%下降到20%,他們就知道（或者應(yīng)該知道）競(jìng)爭(zhēng)環(huán)境已經(jīng)發(fā)生了改變。

    你應(yīng)該知道企業(yè)內(nèi)外的變化是如何影響毛利潤(rùn)率的。是否有新加入市場(chǎng)者在爭(zhēng)取顧客？是否競(jìng)爭(zhēng)者找到了一個(gè)降低成本和價(jià)格的妙方？是否供應(yīng)商的定價(jià)能力發(fā)生了變化？

    周轉(zhuǎn)率

    周轉(zhuǎn)率指速度、營(yíng)業(yè)額，或者運(yùn)動(dòng)。

    每一美元的存貨，你能帶來(lái)多少收入？如果你一年有100萬(wàn)的存貨，1000萬(wàn)的收入，那么你的存貨周轉(zhuǎn)率就是10.這表明你以多快的速度從工廠獲得原材料，將其變?yōu)槌善罚�然后將產(chǎn)品從貨架上銷到顧客手里。存貨周轉(zhuǎn)率越快越好。

    服務(wù)企業(yè)也能夠跟蹤存貨周轉(zhuǎn)率。對(duì)銀行來(lái)說(shuō)，資產(chǎn)周轉(zhuǎn)率--每一美元的資產(chǎn)帶來(lái)多少收入--這是一個(gè)有用的度量。這個(gè)概念適用于每一個(gè)企業(yè)。

   收益

    利潤(rùn)率乘以周轉(zhuǎn)率就是收益。如果你的收益低于你的資金成本，你的企業(yè)很可能出現(xiàn)問(wèn)題了。這時(shí)候股東會(huì)開(kāi)始擔(dān)心。

    如何提高收益？看一下你是否能夠提高利潤(rùn)率或者周轉(zhuǎn)率--或者更好的是，兩者都能得到提高。

   增長(zhǎng)率

    每個(gè)企業(yè)都需要增長(zhǎng)以在生意場(chǎng)上生存下去。你應(yīng)該以怎樣的方式增長(zhǎng)才能維持其他盈利要素的平衡？沒(méi)有公式。有著商業(yè)智慧的人們自己決斷。

    商業(yè)智慧在何處最重要

    世界各地的街頭賣主每天都在使用商業(yè)智慧。他們不得不這樣--他們的下一頓飯經(jīng)常得靠他們的商業(yè)智慧。

    對(duì)公司來(lái)說(shuō)，當(dāng)外部環(huán)境發(fā)生改變、需要重新定位企業(yè)的時(shí)候，商業(yè)智慧最為重要。

    就像當(dāng)好萊塢制片廠開(kāi)始直接向公眾出售磁帶又同時(shí)賣給磁帶錄像出租公司的時(shí)候，Blockbuster的磁帶出租生意開(kāi)始衰落。

    人們不只是想租電影，他們希望購(gòu)買電影。于是Blockbuster開(kāi)始向人們出售電影磁帶。但是盈利方式完全不同了。

    Blockbuster 習(xí)慣了賒購(gòu)磁帶然后以出租磁帶所得現(xiàn)金來(lái)支付欠款。收益頗為豐厚。

    而出售磁帶意味著預(yù)先支付現(xiàn)金，持有大量存貨，等待磁帶售出后現(xiàn)金回籠。現(xiàn)金流、周轉(zhuǎn)率和收益都受到了消極的影響。

    你的目標(biāo)是什么？

    要想對(duì)企業(yè)做出有意義的貢獻(xiàn)，你并不需要商業(yè)智慧。但是如果你想往領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層爬，你必然需要它。

    你不能通過(guò)研討會(huì)或是快速閱讀來(lái)獲得商業(yè)智慧。你只有通過(guò)在實(shí)際商業(yè)場(chǎng)景中的運(yùn)用才能學(xué)到它。

    現(xiàn)在就開(kāi)始將商業(yè)智慧應(yīng)用到你的公司吧。通過(guò)詢問(wèn)或從年報(bào)中獲得數(shù)據(jù)。精確性不是必要的--重要的是知道應(yīng)該關(guān)注什么。