Here's a question to test your prospects as a business leader: How does your company make money?

    If you can't answer it, you're hardly alone. Many MBAs can't answer it. Many CFOs and vice presidents can't answer it. Experienced CEOs sometimes struggle to answer it.

    What I'm testing with this question is your business acumen.

    The Universals of Business

    At the core of every successful business, from a global giant to a corner store, are the same fundamentals of moneymaking: cash, margin, velocity, return, and growth. And at the core of every successful business leader is an intuitive understanding of the relationships among them.

    It's easy to think the basics of business are for beginners. Everyone knows what cash is, and that companies must make a profit.

    But business acumen isn't about knowing definitions. It's about keeping the basics of moneymaking in sharp focus and balancing them in a way that's healthy for the business.

    When you have business acumen, you realize the importance of every job at every stage of your career. A mailroom clerk with business acumen knows that getting checks to the accounts receivable department more quickly will ease the company's cash flow. And a sales rep with business acumen knows that higher-margin products will increase the company's return.

    Moneymaking Basics

    As the complexity of your job increases, it's easy to lose sight of the fundamentals. If your business acumen doesn't develop, you can stumble -- focus too much on revenue growth and overlook cash, or focus too much on cash and overlook growth.

    That's why you should never consider it beneath you to revisit the moneymaking basics. They should be front and center in your diagnosis and decision making in every job you have.

    Here are the basics:

    Cash

    No business survives long without it. You should know how much cash your business generates and how much cash it consumes.

    What are the sources of it? What drains it? What's the timing of the inflows and outflows and how is it changing? More revenues （sales） often means more cash. But growing a business consumes cash. How fast can the company expand without straining its cash flow?

  Margin

    When people talk about the bottom line, they generally mean net profit margin -- the money the company earns after paying all its expenses, interest, and taxes. But gross margin is important, too.

    Gross margin -- the difference between a product's selling price and what it costs to make the product （the "costs of goods"）, expressed as a percent of the selling price -- can signal important shifts in a business. When PC makers saw their 32 percent gross margins decline to 20, they knew （or should have known） the competitive landscape had changed.

    You have to know how changes inside or outside the business affect gross margin. Are there new entrants in the market who are winning customers? A competitor who's found a clever way to reduce costs and prices? A change in the pricing power of suppliers?

    Velocity

    Velocity refers to speed, turnover, or movement.

    How much revenue do you turn over, or generate, for each dollar of inventory? If you have $1 million in inventory for the year and revenues of $10 million, your inventory velocity is 10. This tells you how fast you're moving raw materials through the factory, turning them into finished products, and moving those products off the shelf to customers. The faster, the better.

    Service businesses can track velocity, too. For banks, velocity of equity -- how much revenue is generated per dollar of equity -- is a useful measure. The concept applies to every business.

    Return

    Margin multiplied by velocity equals return. If your return is lower than your cost of capital, your business is likely to be in trouble. That's when shareholders get concerned.

    How do you boost your return? See if you can boost your margin or increase your velocity -- or, better yet, both.

    Growth

    Every business needs to grow to stay in business. How do you grow in a way that keeps the other aspects of moneymaking in balance? There's no formula -- people with business acumen figure it out.

    Where Business Acumen Counts Most

    Street vendors in villages around the world use business acumen every day. They have to -- their next meal often depends on it.

    In companies, business acumen is crucial when the external world changes and there's a need to reposition the business.

    Like when Hollywood studios started selling videocassettes directly to the public at the same time it sold them to video rental companies. That's when Blockbuster's rental business started to slide.

    People wanted to buy movies, not just rent them, so Blockbuster started selling them. But the moneymaking was completely different.

    Blockbuster was used to buying videocassettes on credit and making payments with the cash from renting them. Returns were high.

    Selling videocassettes meant laying out the cash up front, holding lots of inventory, and waiting for the cash to come in when the videocassettes were sold. Cash flow, velocity, and return were all adversely affected.

    Where Do You Want to Go?

    You don't need business acumen to make a meaningful contribution to a business. But you'll need it to rise through the leadership ranks.

    You can't acquire it at a seminar or in a quick read. You learn it by using it in real business situations.

    Start now by applying it to your company. Ask for the numbers or pull them from the annual report. Precision isn't necessary -- knowing what to focus on is.

    這個問題可以測試你作為一個企業領導的前景：你的企業是怎樣賺錢的？

    如果你不能回答，那么你只是很多人中的一個。許多工商管理碩士不能回答。許多首席財務官和副總裁也不能回答。許多經驗豐富的首席執行官很費力地才能回答上來。

    我這個問題測試的是你的商業智慧。

    企業的普遍原則

    從全球巨頭到街角小店，在每一個成功企業里處于核心地位的都是同樣的盈利基本要素：現金、利潤率、周轉率、收益和增長率。對每一個成功的企業領導來說，最核心的素質就是對這些要素之間的相互關系的直覺理解。

    人們很容易認為企業的基本要素是新手要學習的東西。每個人都知道現金是什么，也知道企業必須要盈利。

    但是商業智慧不僅僅是知道定義，而是機警地關注盈利的基本要素并且以一種對企業有益的方式來平衡這些要素。

    當你擁有商業智慧的時候，你就會明白你每一個職業階段的每一份工作的重要性。一個擁有商業智慧的信房職員知道，將支票盡快送達應收賬款部門將會改善公司的現金流狀況。一個擁有商業智慧的銷售業務員明白，高利潤的產品將會增加公司的收益。

    盈利的基本要素

    當你的工作變得越來越復雜的時候，你很容易忽視基本要素。如果你不發展你的商業智慧，你可能會犯錯誤--過于關注收入而忽視現金，或者過于關注現金而忽視增長率。

    因此你決不能忽視對盈利基本要素的再度審視。它們應該在你每一項工作的診斷和決策中處于首要和中心位置。

    以下是這些基本要素：

    現金

    沒有現金，沒有任何一個企業能夠生存下去。你應該知道你的企業產生多少現金，消耗多少現金。

    現金來源是什么？什么消耗現金？現金流入和流出的時機是什么？流入流出是怎樣改變的？收入（銷售）越多一般意味著現金越多。但是企業的發展需要現金。在不完全使用現金流的情況下企業的擴張速度能有多快？

    利潤率

    當人們談論賬本底線的時候，他們的意思通常是凈利潤率--扣除所有費用、利息和稅金之后公司所賺的錢。但是毛利潤率也是很重要的。

    毛利潤率--產品的售價和制造其所需要的成本（貨物成本）的差額，以售價的百分比來表示--能夠傳達企業的重大變化。當個人電腦制造商發現其毛利潤率由32%下降到20%,他們就知道（或者應該知道）競爭環境已經發生了改變。

    你應該知道企業內外的變化是如何影響毛利潤率的。是否有新加入市場者在爭取顧客？是否競爭者找到了一個降低成本和價格的妙方？是否供應商的定價能力發生了變化？

    周轉率

    周轉率指速度、營業額，或者運動。

    每一美元的存貨，你能帶來多少收入？如果你一年有100萬的存貨，1000萬的收入，那么你的存貨周轉率就是10.這表明你以多快的速度從工廠獲得原材料，將其變為成品，然后將產品從貨架上銷到顧客手里。存貨周轉率越快越好。

    服務企業也能夠跟蹤存貨周轉率。對銀行來說，資產周轉率--每一美元的資產帶來多少收入--這是一個有用的度量。這個概念適用于每一個企業。

   收益

    利潤率乘以周轉率就是收益。如果你的收益低于你的資金成本，你的企業很可能出現問題了。這時候股東會開始擔心。

    如何提高收益？看一下你是否能夠提高利潤率或者周轉率--或者更好的是，兩者都能得到提高。

   增長率

    每個企業都需要增長以在生意場上生存下去。你應該以怎樣的方式增長才能維持其他盈利要素的平衡？沒有公式。有著商業智慧的人們自己決斷。

    商業智慧在何處最重要

    世界各地的街頭賣主每天都在使用商業智慧。他們不得不這樣--他們的下一頓飯經常得靠他們的商業智慧。

    對公司來說，當外部環境發生改變、需要重新定位企業的時候，商業智慧最為重要。

    就像當好萊塢制片廠開始直接向公眾出售磁帶又同時賣給磁帶錄像出租公司的時候，Blockbuster的磁帶出租生意開始衰落。

    人們不只是想租電影，他們希望購買電影。于是Blockbuster開始向人們出售電影磁帶。但是盈利方式完全不同了。

    Blockbuster 習慣了賒購磁帶然后以出租磁帶所得現金來支付欠款。收益頗為豐厚。

    而出售磁帶意味著預先支付現金，持有大量存貨，等待磁帶售出后現金回籠。現金流、周轉率和收益都受到了消極的影響。

    你的目標是什么？

    要想對企業做出有意義的貢獻，你并不需要商業智慧。但是如果你想往領導層爬，你必然需要它。

    你不能通過研討會或是快速閱讀來獲得商業智慧。你只有通過在實際商業場景中的運用才能學到它。

    現在就開始將商業智慧應用到你的公司吧。通過詢問或從年報中獲得數據。精確性不是必要的--重要的是知道應該關注什么。