Earlier this week, I shared a blog post called, “The Impact of Price Discounting on Gross Margin from a Business Acumen Perspective.” In it, we shared insights and ideas about how cutting prices can impact the business from the business acumen perspective, most notably gross margin and profit metrics.

As a compliment to that blog, I want to share today's insights and ideas on how cutting prices can impact the business from a business leadership perspective. Here, business leadership is defined as the process of executing strategy through people.

From a business leadership perspective, the impact of price discounting extends beyond the previously mentioned immediate financial metrics like gross margin to encompass broader strategic issues such as organizational culture and long-term customer relationships.

Here are some key aspects of the impact of price discounting from a business leadership perspective:

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And in the blink of an eye, we are more than halfway through February. In another two weeks, two-thirds of Q1 2024 will be in the books, meaning there will be a lot of Sales Leaders and Senior Executives starting to get nervous about Q1 earnings reports. Q1 earnings reports set the tone for the year and a poor Q1 could dig a hole that is impossible to get out of.

As we teach in our simulation -centric business acumen programs, conducting an environmental analysis and forecasting is the foundation of business success. One of the “levers” that companies are pulling right now as part of their “what-if analysis” and planning for Q1 and beyond is price discounting .

The primary motivation for taking price discounts is to drive revenue to meet top-line (P&L) commitments. However, there are short- and long-term ramifications to the rest of the business and key metrics of performance from pulling that one lever.

For purposes of sharing, I have pulled some content from our core business acumen solution to share ideas and insights on why discounting can be good, bad, or non-consequential based on your current business condition.

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As we settle into the new year, some employees are also settling into new manager roles. Let’s keep the momentum of enhancing our skills and continue making this year the best year yet. At Advantexe, we recently spent the better part of a year researching and developing the re-launch of our core, Foundational Business Leadership training program that provides the critical skills needed for new managers to be successful.

As we re-launch our flagship leadership simulation and learning journey, we wanted to share our top 5 key insights on what it really takes to transition to a new manager role.

1) Communications

When you move from an individual contributor to a manager role the skill of being able to communicate is probably the most important skill to develop. Clear, open, and effective communication is the only path to success. Whether it's setting SMART goals, conveying expectations, giving feedback, or just establishing a cadence for sharing information, strong communication is the foundation of effective leadership. Especially for new managers.

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Sometimes, concepts of Business Acumen can seem really straightforward, and other times they can seem very complex. Inventory management is one of those concepts that seems fairly easy to grasp but in practicality, it is a complex and critical science that can make or break a business.

I’ve been facilitating an awesome high-potential leader program for a client who manufactures large and expensive B2B equipment. They design and sell superior, high-quality products to their customers and one of the issues that has bubbled up for some great learning is inventory management. Part of the learning journey involves a customized business simulationand they have learned a lot about operations including inventory management.

Some of the key learnings have centered around:

• How much inventory should we have?
• How do we optimize our supply chain?
• What do our customers care about?
• Are there benchmarks for our industry?

All of these are very important questions and there are some foundational answers.

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Business is hard.

Shareholder expectations border on the impossible.

The next generation of employees has changed the paradigm of work.

These are just three of an infinite number of challenges faced by today’s business leaders. But if there is one thing we all know to be a universal truth is that by building skills and developing talent you can solve every challenge that comes your way.

So why aren’t businesses looking to spend more time on effective training that will lead to the skills that will solve the challenges they face? The answer, unfortunately, resides in some cauldron of ingredients that include smaller budgets, less time available, and a reluctance to go to more crappy, non-effective training that they have purchased and are remorseful for.

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