Hello once again. Most if not all of us are constantly being bombarded with information: email, Twitter, Facebook, radio, television, magazines, newsletters and personal interaction. As business owners, we wear numerous hats. One of the most important ones I wear is that of CIO, Chief Information Officer. It is my responsibility to gather information from all sources and then process and cull that information so I can make decisions that set the direction of our company.
Just the other day I received an email newsletter from our former accounting firm that carried the headline, “Budgeting for Profit.” Since I was in the middle of working on next year’s budget I opened it and read it through. My formal education is in business management so developing yearly budgets is standard procedure, but the current economic situation has forced us to spend more time developing our budget and, more specifically, adhere to it.
Unfortunately, during the go-go times we grew a little complacent and developed some bad habits. Budget formation was more of a formality, not a management tool, and adherence to the budget was merely a suggestion. Wow, what a difference a couple of years make! The accounting firm’s newsletter suggested both “bottom up” and “top down” budgeting. We have always used the “top down” method but never “bottom up.” The idea proved a great one that was very beneficial to us.
Information we can benefit from is all around us, we just need to make the time and effort to gather and process the data. Your association’s magazine, “AWCI’s Construction Dimensions,” is one of my favorite sources of information about our industry, but my all-time favorite comes from interacting with my colleagues, vendors and industry partners facilitated by your association, AWCI. Once again, I invite you to get involved or continue playing a role with AWCI because you never know when new information will present itself. A great solution to one of your problems could be on one of the following pages.
Thanks for reading, work hard, work safely, play hard and have fun.
