We Were Wrong About Who Was Profitable — and We Had the Data to Prove It
In 2003, I was part of Altam Global Intelligence — the consulting practice built on ALG Software's HyperABC platform. A global air express leader came to us with a spreadsheet that said their banking customers were unprofitable. The spreadsheet was wrong. Structurally, causally, dangerously wrong. Pedro San Martín of Asher & Company tells the story of how the CAM-I Cross, 106 activities, and a 16x faster implementation methodology inverted an entire customer profitability ranking — and why that same question drives every Decision-to-Value engagement we do today.
The Planning System That Had Nothing to Plan With
North America's largest home appliance manufacturer spent 30 months and USD 5.1 million building an EPM system that couldn't answer a single strategic question. The problem wasn't the technology — it was the sequence. SAP BPC came first. SAP PaPM came second. The cost model never came at all. Pedro San Martín of Asher & Company shows why building planning before costing is the most expensive mistake in enterprise performance management — and how Oracle EPM fixed it by starting where every model must start: with the cost.
The Pricing Lever Most CFOs Ignore: Why 1% Price Improvement Beats 5% Cost Reduction
A 1% price improvement generates 12.3% ROI improvement — nearly 5x the impact of cutting fixed costs. Yet fewer than 3% of companies manage pricing with the same rigor they apply to cost reduction. This article reveals why pricing is the largest blind spot on most P&Ls, and how connecting cost-to-serve data to your pricing waterfall changes everything.
Getting the Right Level of Detail in a Profitability & Cost Model
Most profitability models fail not because of bad data, but because of bad design. This IMA PCM SIG whitepaper presents nine principles for calibrating the right level of detail — including a case where reducing activities by 88% produced better decisions. By Pedro San Martin, Chair of the IMA Profitability & Cost Management SIG.
The Mismatch Problem: Why Most Firms Sell EPM Software but Can't Answer Your Profitability Question
Most firms sell EPM software and call it profitability consulting. After spending $1.8M on a "profitability transformation," one CFO still couldn't answer a simple question: Is Branch 14 making us money? Here are the 3 questions every CFO should ask before hiring a profitability advisor.
Profitability Without an Owner: Why Banks Fail Where It Matters Most
In a quarterly board session, a CFO asked which strategic projects had improved return on assets. The CFO looked at the COO. The COO looked at the CEO. Silence. "We haven't mapped those links yet — but we're sure they're there." That exchange, from a regional bank operating across five Caribbean islands, captures a problem more common than it should be: organizations running 31 active strategic initiatives with only 5 tied to measurable financial outcomes. Profitability isn't a KPI. It's an architecture — and most companies have never assigned it an owner.
Are We Controlling Costs — or Designing Value?
When a CFO gets handed a 15% opex cut with no reinvestment plan, cost discipline has replaced strategic discipline. This article explores how CFOs can lead strategic transformations using frameworks like Fit for Growth, Cost-to-Serve, and Design-to-Margin. True profitability doesn't come from tightening the belt — it comes from knowing, with surgical precision, where every dollar creates value.AUTHOR: Peter San Martin (ya está bien)