So you're leading your organization and looking at numbers. Most managers are concerned about profits.Everything either looks great or it doesn't. You're either meeting your goals or you're not. What do you do next? Regardless of the goals you can't just make blanket demands of your organization and hope (i.e. pray) that it grows. Like it or not, if you're a leader you need to roll up your sleeves and do some analysis.
One way to increase profit is to reduce costs. Do you even know where you can reduce costs? Can you even reduce costs?
Before you answer those questions ask yourself this one first: What is my organizational strategy?
Do you want to be a low-cost leader, or do you want to be a differentiator? You have to know your market and your company. You may feel overzealous and want to be a differentiator, but if your company is not designed to be innovative, you're going to fail. I hate to break it to you, but it's true.
So you have a strategy and you're looking at the numbers and trying to figure out where to make changes. After all, growth is something every organization attempts in order to thrive. You've gotta beat inflation after all.
Consider your stakeholders
Are you meeting your stakeholders' demands? If you are then you can find something else to analyze. However, I'm willing to bet that stakeholders will always line up to tell you you're doing something wrong. Gather feedback from them. Get to know all of your stakeholders, internal and external. What do they want from your company? They will likely have all sorts of ideas on how you can improve your products and services. You should listen to them.
Internal processes
Of course one way to improve your margins is to reduce costs. However, you have to know where to focus your efforts and knowing your business processes will guide your decisions. Are there better ways to do produce your products and services? Your employees will tell you (oh, by the way, employees are part of that internal stakeholder group) - listen to them. If you're not specific with where you want to control resources then you will spend a lot of time and effort and gain little, if anything at all, from your efforts.
Resource inputs
What is it you produce? It takes inputs to generate outputs. Chances are you've got a supply chain. Are you paying too much for your inputs? Are there vendors that can sell you quality resources at a cheaper price? Maybe you can negotiate to purchase more resources at a discount that can lead to you producing more outputs. However, before you jump on that bandwagon thinking you can increase revenues by simply selling more product stop and think. Can you even produce more product? Can you sell more?
Look, if you're making pizzas then there is going to be a maximum number of pizzas you can bake in an hour given the size of your kitchen and the number of workers in it. You may only be able to produce 10 pizzas, so just because you want to sell 15 pizzas doesn't mean you can. Analyzing your resource inputs goes hand-in-hand with knowing your business processes.
Conclusion
There is a lot of work to do in setting the goals and strategy of your organization. But that's why you're in charge. Don't worry, your employees will still think you do nothing everyday and each one will believe they can do your job better than you can. That's not going to change. But remember, all the work you do to make your company run effectively and efficiently is why they all have jobs.