Your Home Business PurchasingIn
previous five articles, I've mentioned some of key elements of managing your online business when you are working at home. Working at home in your own business does not mean there are no management responsibilities, as you are now manager of all different "departments" in business. It is your business now, so you get all benefits of good management, and all consequences of bad management. The buck stops with you, though if things go wrong, you may be tempted to blame others. But when you are CEO, responsibility for well being of business is yours. Apart from everything else, you are also CEO.
There are three "departmental" elements of management that I have not covered yet: purchasing, and, if appropriate, research and development, and production. I will not delve into production or research and development, as I suspect few of you will have a need for these. However, working in any home based business will certainly have a purchasing input. Whatever you are doing, you will spend money. The better you manage that spending, better your profit and loss results will be, and that is true whether you're working in an office or at home. A large business will probably have a professional purchasing manager, watched closely by finance director and CEO. If you are working alone at home, you are that purchasing manager. However, finance director and CEO parts of you need to watch out for what's going on. You need to give yourself a tough time in justifying your expenditure.
Why Do You Need to Manage Your Purchasing?
This is really a statement of obvious. To be profitable, you need your revenue to be above your expenditure. Your expenditure is made up of purchases, whether for internet access, power, ebooks, advertising, or printer cartridges. The more efficiently you can manage that expenditure, better for your bottom line.
Spending money is easy. It is one of easiest things in world to do. Spending it well and in a business like fashion is very different, and not anywhere near so easy.
Where and how can you go wrong with your purchasing if it is not managed properly? Here are just a few examples:
• There will be numerous temptations every day to spend money, supposedly to improve your business. If you succumb to all those temptations quickly, you could very soon be cash poor. If you are an impulsive buyer, this could be a dangerous area for you and your business.
• You may be paying too much for a product or service. That directly affects your profitability.
• You may end up buying inadequate products or services, damaging growth potential of business and affecting profitability.
• You may miss superior products or services that, although more expensive than their competitors, will improve your bottom line by being more productive.
