A very useful book to keep in your top draw. Managers are perpetually making decisions about extra running expenses, material price increases, asset acquisitions, pricing and the like. At the same time they need to manage the business to ensure that shareholders' profit expectations are satisfied. At the end of the day, sales must pay for all additional costs and borrowings. There is no other option. This book is designed to help sales managers and financial managers solve these problems together. "How much must we sell" is the result of the positive response I have enjoyed from thousands of delegates on my courses that have seen this approach as a revelation - a new way of seeing their business. It is both logical and easy to rationalise. "How much must we sell" turns the traditional income statement upside down as we work up from known profit requirements to compute the means of achieving them - sales. This book guides the reader through the basic building blocks using standard excel spreadsheets he or she can easily build for their own use. It provides logical answers to that all important question - "if we do this, how much must we sell to pay for it?
About the Author: Ronnie Davidson was involved in the IT industry for over 20 years starting as a sales trainee with an international IT company and moving up the ranks through sales manager, national sales manager to strategic marketing manager over a period of about eight years. He attended the Graduate School of Business PMD course at the University of Cape Town, and in 1982 received the IMM merit award for Marketing and wrote a paper on "Consumer vs Industrial Marketing" which was nominated for the Raymond Ackerman marketing award. He expanded his knowledge of production and manufacturing by qualifying as a member of the American Production & Inventory Control Society [CPIM] in 1989. He started Business Learning Systems Sa cc in 1990 specialising in Business and Sales Training. He was appointed as the consulting Sales Manager at the Atomic Energy Corporation for the 11 divisions that were entering the commercial market. In 1995 he was appointed managing director of a medium sized engineering company where he was able to successfully implement and test the concepts he taught on his business courses. Within two years the company reduced manufacturing lead times from 16 weeks to three weeks and improved on-time deliveries from being an average of two to three late to 78% being delivered on due day. Sales were also improved by 35% over the period. In 2010 Ronnie successfully completed the CSCP exam certifying him as Supply Chain Professional to add to his CPIM qualification. He later became a Demand Driven Professional by acquiring his CDDP certification. He also worked with Brian Maskell and Associates presenting their workshops on Lean Management and Value Stream Costing for lean manufacturing operations and is their appointed consultant in South Africa. More recently he has also been qualified through the International Purchasing and Supply Chain Management Institute as a Certified International Supply Chain Professional. With qualifications and practical experience in manufacturing, supply chain management, marketing and sales from sales trainee to managing director, Ronnie brings a wealth of practical experience to his training programmes in finance, supply chain and production.