Profit Margins In The Era Of Unprofitable Tech Platforms

The profit margin is a financial profitability ratio given by the net income divided by the net sales and multiplied by a hundred. That is expressed as a percentage. That is a key profitability measure as, combined with other financial metrics, it helps assess the overall viability of a business model.

Aspect	Explanation
Definition	Profit margins are financial metrics that measure a company’s profitability by evaluating the relationship between its net profit and revenue. They are expressed as a percentage and represent the portion of each dollar of revenue that remains as profit after all expenses, including production costs, operating expenses, interest, and taxes, have been deducted. Profit margins provide insight into a company’s efficiency, pricing strategy, and financial health. There are various types of profit margins, including gross, operating, and net profit margins, each focusing on different aspects of a company’s profitability. Evaluating profit margins is crucial for assessing a company’s financial performance and comparing it to industry benchmarks and competitors.
Key Concepts	– Net Profit: Net profit, also known as the bottom line, is the total profit a company generates after deducting all expenses. – Revenue: Revenue, also referred to as sales or income, is the total amount of money generated from selling goods or services. – Profitability: Profit margins gauge a company’s profitability by measuring how efficiently it converts revenue into profit. – Percentage: Profit margins are expressed as percentages, making it easier to compare across different companies and industries. – Types: Different types of profit margins focus on various aspects of profitability: gross margin, operating margin, and net profit margin.
Characteristics	– Percentage Form: Profit margins are always presented as percentages, typically ranging from 0% to 100%. – Varied Types: There are multiple types of profit margins, each providing different insights into a company’s financial health. – Benchmarking: Companies use profit margins for benchmarking against industry standards and competitors. – Earnings Indicator: Profit margins serve as indicators of a company’s ability to generate earnings from its core operations. – Financial Health: Consistently high profit margins are often associated with financial stability and growth potential.
Implications	– Financial Performance: Profit margins directly reflect a company’s financial performance and its ability to generate profit from its operations. – Pricing Strategy: Companies with higher profit margins may have more flexibility in their pricing strategies. – Competitive Advantage: Higher profit margins can indicate a competitive advantage in cost management or product pricing. – Investor Confidence: Healthy profit margins can boost investor confidence in a company’s financial strength and future prospects. – Sustainability: Sustainable profit margins are essential for long-term growth and stability.
Advantages	– Performance Assessment: Profit margins provide a straightforward way to assess a company’s financial performance. – Comparative Analysis: They facilitate comparisons with industry peers and competitors. – Strategic Decision-Making: Profit margins inform strategic decisions related to pricing, cost management, and product development. – Investor Attraction: Healthy profit margins can attract investors seeking profitable opportunities. – Financial Health Indicator: They serve as indicators of a company’s financial health and sustainability.
Drawbacks	– Limited Scope: Profit margins alone do not provide a comprehensive view of a company’s financial health. – Industry Differences: Comparing profit margins across different industries can be misleading due to varying cost structures. – Short-Term Focus: Overemphasizing short-term profit margins may lead to neglecting long-term growth strategies. – Manipulation: Companies may manipulate profit margins through accounting practices. – External Factors: Economic conditions and market dynamics can impact profit margins.
Types of Profit Margins	– Gross Margin: Gross margin measures the profitability of a company’s core operations by subtracting the cost of goods sold (COGS) from revenue. It focuses on production and manufacturing efficiency. – Operating Margin: Operating margin assesses the profitability of a company’s core operations and operating expenses. It excludes interest and taxes, providing insights into operational efficiency. – Net Profit Margin: Net profit margin represents the final profitability after accounting for all expenses, including interest and taxes. It reflects the company’s overall financial health and efficiency in generating profits.
Use Cases	– Investor Analysis: Investors use profit margins to evaluate companies’ financial health and assess investment opportunities. – Competitor Benchmarking: Companies compare their profit margins to those of competitors to gauge relative performance. – Pricing Strategies: Profit margins inform pricing decisions by helping companies understand the impact on profitability. – Cost Management: Identifying areas with low profit margins can guide cost-cutting efforts and process improvements. – Financial Reporting: Profit margins are essential components of financial statements and annual reports, providing transparency to shareholders and stakeholders.

Table of Contents

Do profit margins still matter?

In the era of digital platforms, many of which are unprofitable, the question of whether profitability still matters becomes the subject of discussion here and there.

I want to shed some light on why profitability still matters, and in which exceptions we can give up profitability for something else.

In short, there are some cases, where lack of profitability becomes a deliberate financial and operational strategy, where companies give it up because they are focusing on some other aspects of the business.

Free cash flows in place of profit margins

Jeff Bezos recounted in a shareholders’ letter, back in 2006:

As our shareholders know, we have made a decision to continuously and significantly lower prices for customers year after year as our efficiency and scale make it possible.

This might seem a trivial decision now, that Amazon turned into a tech giant. Yet, back then Jeff Bezos also highlighted:

However, our quantitative understanding of elasticity is short-term. We can estimate what a price reduction will do this week and this quarter. But we cannot numerically estimate the effect that consistently lowering prices will have on our business over five years or ten years or more.

He had an important point, which he could not back up with that, but only with business intuition. As he further explained:

Our judgment is that relentlessly returning efficiency improvements and scale economies to customers in the form of lower prices creates a virtuous cycle that leads over the long term to a much larger dollar amount of free cash flow, and thereby to a much more valuable Amazon.com.

What was puzzling at the time, would become one of the most important choices Amazon made.

aws-revenues — Amazon AWS (cloud) is the most successful business segment within Amazon, and it generated over $90 billion in revenues in 2023, with over $24 billion in net profits compared to $80 billion in revenues in 2022 and almost $23 billion in operating profit. And over $62 billion in revenues in 2021 and $18.5 billion in net profits.

For many years, Amazon has been unprofitable or barely so, as it was deliberately prioritizing, both at the operational and financial levels free cash flows, which could be used to unlock shorter-term growth for its operations.

This is at the core of Amazon cash conversion cycle.

In order for that mechanism to work, Amazon had to make sure to have fast inventory turnover, fast cash collection from customers, and slower payments to third-party sellers/suppliers.

cash-conversion-cycle-amazon — The cash conversion cycle (CCC) is a metric that shows how long it takes for an organization to convert its resources into cash. In short, this metric shows how many days it takes to sell an item, get paid, and pay suppliers. When the CCC is negative, it means a company is generating short-term liquidity.

As a reference, even during the pandemic Amazon managed to unlock substantial cash from operations, which is used to make its inventory level faster, its delivery shorter, and its service more widely available.

amazon-business-model — Amazon has a diversified business model. In 2023, Amazon generated nearly $575 billion in revenues while it posted a net profit of over $30 billion. Online stores contributed over 40% of Amazon revenues. Third-party Seller Services and Physical Stores generated the remaining. Amazon AWS, Subscription Services, and Advertising revenues play a significant role within Amazon as fast-growing segments.

Once again, the lack of profitability, for several years, has been exchanged in place of free cash flows and growth.

The free cash flows unlocked enabled Amazon to build a better infrastructure, further lower its prices, improve the variety of products on the platform, expand globally, and launch new products and segments.

Long-term assets in place of profit margins

netflix-business-model — Netflix is a subscription-based business model making money with three simple plans: basic, standard, and premium, giving access to stream series, movies, and shows. Leveraging on a streaming platform, Netflix generated over $33.7 billion in 2023, with an operating income of over $6.95 billion and a net income of over $5.4 billion. Starting in 2013, Netflix started to develop its content under the Netflix Originals brand, which today represents the most important strategic asset for the company that, in 2023, counted over 260 million paying members worldwide.

is-netflix-profitable — Netflix is a profitable company, with over $5.4 billion in net profits in 2023, an increase compared to nearly $4.5 billion in 2022.

When Netflix turned to original programming, back in 2013, it wasn’t a simple choice, it meant the transition from an entertaining platform to an entertaining brand.

That might seem a trivial change, yet this is a whole business model change.

Over the years, as Netflix developed its own content, it had also more control over the format, and how it delivered and distributed it.

Which would lead to binge-watching as a content model, which explains well the Netflix business model.

In short, Netflix was building up the assets that would lead to a whole new business model, with a stronger brand, proprietary content, strong tech infrastructure, a much larger subscription base, better distribution model.

In addition, over the years, Netflix gained more freedom over content formats, programming, and the distribution of that content on its own platform.

Thus, it created a stronger moat.

A business model revolution!

This leads us also to another key point.

Market shares in place of profit margins

Still taking into account the Netflix business model and how it changed over the years.

As Netflix was building up its assets, it was running at lower profits margins and negative cash flows (it still does), but it was also gaining market shares, in a competing industry, with established, long-time players (like Disney).

As Netflix’s business strategy rolled out (this transition took almost a decade) Netflix became as valuable (from a market standpoint) as Disney.

As Netflix gave away operational and financial efficiency, it gained market shares and expanded the video streaming market, thus expanding the overall value of the company.

netflix-market-expansion — Example of how over the years Netflix expanded as a result of surfing and creating new markets. What’s next?

Key takeaway

Profitability is extremely important to evaluate businesses. Indeed, as the market conditions change quickly, the companies that are most sustainable from a profitability standpoint might also be the ones surviving.

However, for a period of time, a company might be giving up profitability as a deliberate strategy to:

Unlock more cash for growth: like Amazon’s case shows, you can pass lower prices to customers, further grow the platform and still have plenty of cash left for expansion.
Build long-term assets that create moats: moats are business defenses that companies build up over the years as they expand their strategic assets. As in the Netflix case study, the company gave up years of profitability (and it still does) in exchange for building up assets that changed and are still changing its business model.
Gain market shares: in some other instances companies might be giving up profitability to gain market shares.

In most other cases, where companies are simply not profitable, because they could not pull off a proper business model, that’s an example of a company that isn’t viable, yet.

Key Highlights:

Understanding Quality Circles:
- Quality circles are teams of employees who regularly collaborate to identify and resolve work-related problems in their specific area.
- These teams, usually consisting of up to twelve members, work under the guidance of a supervisor or manager to improve workplace standards.
- Quality circle participants are often trained in problem-solving methods like Pareto analysis, cause-and-effect diagrams, and brainstorming techniques.
- Solutions derived from analyses are discussed with higher-ups who have the authority to implement changes.
History and Prevalence:
- Quality circles have been employed in business for several decades, with a significant number of large companies using them since at least the 1980s.
- Numerous Fortune 500 companies, including IBM, Xerox, and Honeywell, have implemented quality circle programs.
Objectives of Quality Circles:
- Beyond problem-solving, quality circles offer benefits to employees and organizations:
  - Teamwork enhancement, leading to improved collaboration and problem-solving skills.
  - Personal development, fostering better communication, critical thinking, and leadership skills.
  - Positive attitudes, recognizing employees’ contributions, boosting motivation, and refining processes.
Structure of Quality Circles:
- Quality circle structures are somewhat flexible but commonly involve these stakeholders:
  - Members: Actively involved employees who receive training, propose solutions, and collaborate.
  - Non-members: Employees with valuable ideas who choose not to participate directly.
  - Leaders: Elected members who facilitate meetings and ensure their effectiveness.
  - Coordinator: Responsible for initiating circles, training members and leaders, and reporting to higher management.
  - Steering Committee: Upper management representatives overseeing meetings and acting on employee suggestions.
  - Coordinating Agency: Manages budget, training, and ensures integration of quality circles in business operations.
Key Takeaways:
- Quality circles are employee teams addressing work-related problems.
- Their objectives extend beyond problem-solving to skills enhancement, attitude improvement, and personal development.
- Quality circle structures involve various stakeholders, each contributing to the success of the program.