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Are Finance, Ops, and Sales

All Speaking Different Languages? 

Cementing Profitability: Smarter Business with Performance Management
A Blog Series by Ramy Sedra

In every ready-mix concrete operation I’ve encountered—from regional producers to national players—there’s a recurring challenge that quietly erodes performance: misalignment between Finance, Operations, and Sales. 

Each team has its own KPIs, its own definitions of success, and—most critically—its own version of the truth. 

Sales might celebrate record volumes. Operations might flag those very jobs as logistically inefficient. Finance might report margin compression, despite apparent growth. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong—it’s that they’re not working from the same playbook. 

This fragmentation is costing you. 

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A study by McKinsey found that cross-functional alignment is one of the strongest predictors of financial performance—companies in the top quartile for alignment outperform peers by up to 20% in EBITDA margin1. For ready-mix producers operating on razor-thin margins, that spread can be the difference between survival and dominance. 

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When Legacy KPIs No Longer Keep Pace 

Many ready-mix producers—especially family-owned or legacy businesses—have used the same core performance indicators for decades. These metrics often get passed down generationally and eventually become embedded even within national operations. 

Take Volume per Truck Hour (VTH) as an example. It's a widely used KPI in the industry, designed to measure fleet productivity. But while VTH can highlight how much concrete a truck delivers per hour on the road, it doesn't always reflect profitability, nor does it capture the complexity of real-world trade-offs. 

  • A job that maximizes VTH might look efficient on paper but could involve delivering to an unprofitable customer far from the plant. 
  • Sales might push to boost volume without visibility into the higher delivery costs or plant idle time it creates. 
  • Finance might flag margin erosion without understanding the operational choices driving it. 

These KPI blind spots—while well-intentioned—create disconnects. They encourage each team to optimize locally, not collectively. 

In today’s environment—where demand is volatile, competition is fierce, and every load counts—legacy KPIs often fail to provide the nuanced, real-time insights that decision-makers need. What worked in slower, more predictable markets no longer works when speed, adaptability, and precision are essential.  

Why BPM Systems Help Reframe Performance 

Business Performance Management (BPM) systems realign the business by: 

  • Connecting traditional KPIs with financial impact 
  • Making operational decisions visible in financial terms 
  • Replacing siloed dashboards with shared, dynamic model
The outcome? Sales, Ops, and Finance can move from optimizing for different metrics to maximizing shared value—profitability, efficiency, and growth. 

Self-Check: Are You Aligned? 

Ask yourself: 

  1. Does your Sales team know which customers are unprofitable? 
  2. Can Finance see how operational decisions—like load size or delivery time—influence margins? 
  3. Are Operations making decisions based on total cost-to-serve, or only on logistics efficiency? 
  4. Do your teams use the same data to prepare their reports? 
  5. Are strategy meetings focused on reconciling numbers—or on solving problems? 
If you answered “no” or “not sure” to more than two of these, misalignment is almost certainly costing you money. 

Further Reading: 

For a deep dive into the power of organizational alignment, I recommend “The Advantage” by Patrick Lencioni. Though not specific to our industry, it’s a powerful blueprint for building clarity, trust, and performance across functional boundaries. 

The concrete you pour is only as strong as its foundation. The same is true for your decision-making. Shared data, shared definitions, shared direction. 

It’s time to start speaking the same language. 

Author's Note: If you found this article helpful, stay tuned. In my next post, I’ll explore the cost of reactive decision-making in ready-mix operations—and what it takes to shift from reacting to anticipating.
RAMY

Footnotes 
1Source: McKinsey & Company, “Why Cross-Functional Collaboration is Critical for Margin Growth” 

 

At C60, we offer a solution to these challenges and more. The C60 Opportunity Platform provides a holistic understanding of a company's operations, presenting actionable insights for decision-making. With our software, producers can identify opportunities in dollar terms and make data-driven decisions. Contact us today! Email sales@c60.ai or call +1 (760) 219-8718 or 1 (514) 909-9231.

 

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