Hospitality
The café was busy. But which part of it was actually making money?
The point
That's the difference between producing numbers and using them.
The café was busy. Customers were coming through the door, the till was ringing and the annual accounts looked respectable.
But the numbers the owner was given only told one story: sales were this much, and gross profit was that percentage.
Useful for the year-end accounts. Not much help deciding what to do on Monday morning.
Looking beneath the headline figures
Instead of one set of numbers for the whole business, we started looking at the café in parts — what it sells, when it sells it, and what it costs to do so.
The conversation moved from “what were the results?” to questions the owner could actually act on.
- What do we make on coffee?
- What do we make on food?
- Which part of the day is profitable?
- What's happening to labour cost?
- What effect would changing opening hours have?
- Where is waste affecting margin?
- Which products deserve more attention?
Same business. Same accounts.
The lesson: That's the difference between producing numbers and using them.
