19 FINANCEOUTLOOKINDIANOVEMBER, 2025reach 500 rupees, the salary expenses decrease to maybe 250 rupees as a proportion of revenue. This demands the development of operational efficiencies by multitasking processes, process enhancement, and employee capability enhancement. When you train people well and optimize processes, tasks that required eight hours can be completed in six hours, freeing capacity for additional work. It is similar to knowing the path between where you are to where you want to go, the first time is more laborious but after experience and knowledge you are more effective. The issue is how to attain this efficiency gain without reducing the quality of the services or the satisfaction of the employees. It is important to optimize costs in line with revenues. I do not necessarily mean cost control at any cost, but cost optimization, which is the ability to get the structure of our expenses to flex according to the increase and decrease of revenues and retain the capability to serve our clients effectively.How important is budgeting and forecasting to ensure optimal financial discipline in today's competitive media market?Budgeting is absolutely critical. Regardless of your calendar year basis or a fiscal year basis, you have to begin planning two or three months before year-end. You need to make a projection of your revenue next year and, accordingly, estimate on your salary expenses, overhead expenses, and the desired profitability. However, the budgeting process is not a one- time task it is also vital to oversee the budget all through the year. By the end of every month when you have some actual revenue, cost and profit, you must evaluate the implication of that on the remaining months. Are you on track? In case revenues are not coming in, what should be changed? When there is a growth on revenue, then that is great, however you need to know whether it will mean that you will need an increase in the cost or that you can attain better profits using the current cost structure. The point is not to maximize the margins at the cost of customer service level. Budgeting gives the map but proactive monitoring supplies the steering wheel. The absence of either will put you in effect in a competitive market that is already slim-margin by nature and that client relationship is the key to long-term success.What strategies help balance short-term ad revenue targets with long-term business sustainability?The profitability in the short term is the most important objective we should attain first- we should meet our annual financial targets to stay afloat. But it is the customer relationship that will make the difference in terms of long term sustainability. Customers are the revenue drivers and hence we must have a strategic approach towards every client that we serve. Failure to derive value in what I am selling to them would mean the end of the relationship and this would pose serious risks to my organization. On a long-term scale, we need to make sure that our customer grows so that we can grow with them, a win-win situation where both parties are mutually benefiting. This is a positive loop, as clients expand, the agency expands with them, the industry as a whole is also benefitted and so is the economy at large. The short-term profitability keeps us alive and BUILDING FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE IN INDIA'S FAST-GROWING MEDIA INDUSTRY
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