Product as a Service (PaaS)
Whenever we talk about modern start-up corporations, we assume that the company is engaged in some kind of an online business model. However, that may not always be the case. There are many start-ups that have transformed existing businesses by completely changing the business model and revenue model of underlying industries. One such business model […]
Strategic Finance and Sustainability
The concept of strategic finance relates to making decisions that help the firm increase its cash flow in the long run. Strategic finance is about changing the focus from short-term profits to long-term value creation. On the other hand, sustainability is about including more stakeholders in the value creation process. For instance, in the past, […]
Why are Professional Sports Franchises Increasing in Value?
The sports business has traditionally not been a very lucrative one. It was common for the valuation of sports franchises to stay stagnant for a large number of years or even drop down as the years progressed. However, all this has changed drastically now. It is now common for sports team franchises to drastically go […]
Advantages of Strategic Financial Management
The field of strategic financial management has become increasingly popular in the past few years. This has been because of the various advantages that accrue to the practitioners of this philosophy. In this article, we will have a closer look at some of the important advantages which result from following this philosophy. Aligns The Vision […]
The Flow of Funds in a Financial System
The economy of any nation can be viewed from the point of view of fund flow. This is a unique way to view the economy, which until now has only been viewed as a sum of all the sectors in it. In simple words, this means that the economy as a whole is a combination […]
The untrained investor uses profit and profit margin interchangeably. This is not technically correct. The difference may be minor but it is vital. This article will explain about profit margins in detail.
Profit and profitability are two different things. Although they may be closely related, they have a subtle difference. Profit is the absolute number that a company is earning. Profitability on the other hand implies profit margins. Margins are calculated on a per unit basis. Secondly they consider the amount of capital that has been employed to generate the profit. Thus profitability i.e. profit margins are a wider concept.
There are different measures of profitability that a company can choose from. Similarly there are different profit margins that a company can choose from. It is common practice to convert each profit figure into a margin.
Margins need to be compared with industry and relevant competition. A 15% return may be great for a utility company but may suggest serious problems with an information technology firm. Luxury brands such as Armani, Rolls Royce, and Rolex have very high profit margins. This is because the cost that they put in is small and they are reaping the benefits of the brand that they have created. Comparing a Rolls Royce profit margin to a Maruti would not be advisable even though both of them are cars.
Profit margins are very important to understand how diminishing returns work in the context of the firm. Using various profit margins, the firm can look at the profitability figures and find out the level of production where the costs are minimum and profit margins are high. This is the quantity that the company should optimally produce.
The drawback with profit margins is that they do not consider volume. It is for this reason that a separate Cost-Volume-Profit analysis often needs to be done. Usually profit margins and volume are inversely proportional to each other. Higher margins indicate lower volumes and vice versa. There are unusual cases where margins and volumes are both high. However, these are usually examples of monopoly.
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