1. Standard costing
• Design, document and implement a standard costing methodology across all live SKUs — material, machine hour rate, conversion, labour, packing and overhead absorption
• Establish and maintain the machine hour rate model: cycle times, cavitation, machine tonnage, power, manpower and depreciation
• Set standards annually, hold a documented basis for every assumption, and manage the annual standards revision
• Report standard versus actual variance monthly — material usage, scrap and rejection, absorption and yield — and explain the movements to operations and commercial
• Own the bill of materials and routing accuracy in the system, working with the plant to keep it live
2. New product and investment decisions
• Cost every new product proposal before it goes to a customer, including tooling amortisation, packaging and expected volumes
• Meet a three working day turnaround on costed proposals for private label and OEM enquiries, which is a commitment we make to customers
• Build the investment case for every new mould: capital cost, payback, IRR, break-even volume, sensitivity to price and volume, and the downside case
• Track realised performance against the original investment case for moulds commissioned in prior years, and report honestly where we were wrong
• Support make-versus-buy analysis on sourced and third-party ranges
3. Profitability and commercial analysis
• Build and publish the contribution margin waterfall — CM1, CM2 and CM3 — by product, channel and customer
• Produce the account profit and loss to net realisation for each modern trade customer: gross price through scheme, listing, visibility spend, damages, freight and cash discount
• Analyse promotional return on investment before and after the event, and challenge spend that does not earn its keep
• Maintain the trade spend accrual and claims register, and reconcile accruals to settled claims
• Analyse profitability of export orders including incoterms, freight, duty drawback and RoDTEP, and forex exposure
4. Pricing
• Own the price list as a controlled document, with a defined process for revisions and approvals
• Track polymer and input cost movements against a published index, and flag when a price revision is required rather than waiting to be asked
• Model the margin impact of proposed price changes, trade terms and channel discounts before they are agreed
• Set floor prices for tender and institutional business, and check that no channel is being quoted below the floor
5. Reporting and MIS
• Publish the monthly sales and performance pack by working day three: revenue and margin against plan by product, channel and customer, with variance explained
• Build repeatable, automated data pipelines out of Tally rather than rebuilding reports by hand each month
• Track forecast accuracy and support the rolling three-month sales and operations planning cycle
• Report capacity utilisation, absorption and the cost consequence of running below capacity
• Support the annual operating plan and budget, and the quarterly reforecast
6. Working capital
• Report inventory ageing, slow-moving and obsolete stock, and the provisioning required
• Analyse the seasonal working capital cycle — our pre-season inventory build and the collection profile that follows it
• Track debtor days by customer and support the commercial team on overdue accounts with the underlying analysis
7. Business partnering
• Sit in the monthly commercial review as a full participant, not as a reporter of numbers, working directly with the Chief Commercial Officer on the commercial agenda
• Challenge commercial proposals on the analysis, including when the answer is inconvenient
• Make the numbers usable by people who are not accountants, and teach the commercial team to read their own P&L
• Take on ad hoc analysis as the business requires it — this is a small firm and the questions will not always be tidy.
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