Book Cover

Step 5: Never Apologize for Focusing on Profits

# Review

I was very interested in reading this book as it's reputedly given by the Brazillian PE firm 3G Capital to the managers of the companies they acquire. 3G is well-known for cutting costs and raising profits for the companies they acquire, so I was curious about their approach and mentality towards running businesses.

The book is written in 78 chapters, with each chapter esposing an idea or advice which will either help a business drive revenue or help a business cut costs (or both). The ideas are concise and are backed by anecdotes from Fifer's own business. There were many ideas I liked, such as building excellent organizations (by only hiring the best) and cutting unnecessary fat (zero-based budgeting). This book is full of wisdom and common sense; some of the suggestions, such as firing unnecessary employees and outsouring peripheral functions, may seem daunting or ruthless, but the suggestions are all backed with reason and logic.

There were some suggestions, however, that did not age well. For instance, the advice for reducing the number of computers used by the business clearly does not apply today. Other suggestions are more in the grey area; for instance, many suggestions ask to cut down on corporate perks such as luxury business travel. This is clearly counter the approach taken by most (tech) companies nowadays to attract talent. There are, however, companies (such as Amazon) which forgo many of the perk in order to offer employees more pay; I'd be curious whether paying employees more is better than offering employees less pay but better perks.

# Conclusion

A very informative book, a bit Machiavellian at times, but definitely very effective.

# Overall rating: 7.8

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