Jarmo Manninen & Muutosdraiveri Oy
Achieving the company's financial goals must be based on PROFITABLE GROWTH, which requires that the company's financial management conditions are in order. When a company has the conditions for financial management in order, this means in practice that the company knows what results the company can achieve with its current investments and current products and services.
By internal services, I mean the services needed in the company's business, which the company can either produce itself or purchase from an external supplier. Such services include, for example, maintenance services and financial management services needed in the company's business. Should the company produce the necessary internal services itself or purchase them from an external service provider? There is no single correct answer to this question, because companies' businesses and their situations are different. No two cases are the same. For this reason, giving the correct answer requires investigating the matter on a case-by-case basis. As we know, conjecture is not worth knowing. In the following, I will examine the matter from the perspective of the company's financial management.
When I ask companies whether their internal services are competitive, the answer is always that the internal services my company needs are competitive. When I next ask companies for the reasons for the answer given, the reasons for the answer are always as follows: for example, a company that needs maintenance services in its business. When my company needs to replace a burnt-out lamp, for example, it costs 30 euros when replaced by my company's internal maintenance service. When I buy this service from an external supplier, it costs 90 euros. This comparison is incorrect. In this case, the price of the company's internal maintenance service typically includes only the purchase price of the lamp and part of the costs required to replace the lamp without the necessary cost factors. Instead, the external supplier's price includes the total costs of replacing the lamp. When comparing the competitiveness of a company's internal service, the comparison must always consider the total costs of the service being compared. When this is done, the costs of the company's own internal maintenance service turn out to be surprisingly high in the company's opinion. When the price of the company's internal maintenance service for replacing a lamp was calculated correctly in the above case, it was surprisingly 110 euros. I would like to emphasize that this is not always the case, but that the comparison must always be carried out correctly and on a case-by-case basis. The question I posed above must also be put the other way around. Is the service provided by an external service provider that your company uses competitive compared to if this service were actually produced as an internal service? In this case too, the comparison must always be carried out correctly and on a case-by-case basis.
Has your company made comparisons based on the total prices of the services required for your company's business, either as internal services or as purchased services from outside the company?
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I hope that you were interested in this matter and that you can continue to be involved.
I have written four books on creating the conditions for the company's financial management, and they are available in well-stocked bookstores and online bookstores in Finland, for example from BoD (Books On Demand) at:
https://kirjakauppa.bod.fi/catalogsearch/result/?q=jarmo+manninen
Muutosdraiveri Oy &
Jarmo Manninen