Numerador versus denominador

Interessante, muito interessante, em Junho de 2014, poder ler-se isto na revista Harvard Business Review, "The Capitalist Dilemma":

"Because they were taught to believe that the efficiency of capital was a virtue, financiers began measuring profitability not as dollars, yen, or yuan, but as ratios like RONA (return on net assets), ROIC (return on invested capital), and IRR (internal rate of return). These ratios are simply fractions, comprising a numerator and a denominator, but they gave investors and managers twice the number of levers to pull to improve their measured performance. To drive RONA or ROIC up, they could generate more profit to add to the numerator, of course. But if that seemed daunting, they could focus on reducing the denominator—outsourcing more, wiping more assets off the balance sheet. Either way, the ratio would improve. Similarly, they could increase IRR either by generating more profit to grow the numerator or by reducing the denominator—which is essentially the time required to get the return. If they invested only in projects that paid off quickly, then IRR would go up.
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All of this makes market-creating innovations appear less attractive as investments. Typically, they bear fruit only after five to 10 years; in contrast, efficiency innovations typically pay off within a year or two. What’s worse, growing market-creating innovations to scale uses capital, which must often be put onto the balance sheet. Efficiency innovations take capital off the balance sheet, however. To top it off, efficiency innovations almost always seem to entail less risk than market-creating ones, because a market for them already exists. Any way you look at it, if you measure investments using these ratios, efficiency innovations always appear to be a better deal."

Podemos recuar, neste blogue, até Outubro de 2006 para encontrar esta linguagem em "Ainda a produtividade" ou até Novembro de 2007 para encontrar "Mitos, mitos e frases feitas. Alguém Já fez um roteiro para uma empresa em particular?"