The Reality of Doing More With Less

 

Every company has resources to allocate, but not every company allocates them efficiently. On this episode of the MarketScale Retail Podcast, Mike Murphy, Chief Financial Officer for Personiv, sat down with host Sean Heath to break down a few ins and outs of intelligent resource allocation.

There are three primary areas in which a company generally spends its resources: customer acquisition, product/service delivery, and G&A (General and Administrative). They are not of equal importance, explained Murphy.

“When you’re looking at the G&A function of the business, that’s generally where I want to spend the least amount of my money. If I can spend more money acquiring customers and more money delighting my customers, the better off overall I’m going to be, in terms of the value I’m returning to my shareholders,” he said.

The size and development stage of a company is, generally speaking, a contributing factor to the functional efficiency of its allocation practices, said Murphy.

“It’s the companies that are smaller or kind of earlier stage, where they’re starting to win customers, they’re starting to get growth. That’s an area where you can just imagine, they’re throwing money at different initiatives to try to grow the business. They continue to put money in areas that may not be producing the ROI,” he said.

Murphy also described that the way to leverage the most valuable resource any company has, good employees, is by using resources to free them for other tasks.

“What you’re basically doing is kind of flipping the switch a little bit. You’re trying to empower that person by providing some less expensive resources, that can do the transactional work so that he or she can be spending their time focusing more from a strategic perspective,” Murphy said. “That’s what a good CEO, and that’s what a good board is going to be looking for: somebody who is able to deliver that.”

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the AEC Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @AECMKSL
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Higher Education
From Measuring Memory to Measuring Thinking: How Simulation-Based Learning Could Reshape Higher Education
June 15, 2026

As artificial intelligence continues reshaping the workforce, higher education faces growing pressure to demonstrate its value beyond content mastery. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report, employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change or become outdated by 2030, while 69% identify analytical thinking as the most essential workforce skill. As…

Read More
safer HVAC chemicals
The Future of the Trades Depends on Mentorship and Industry Veterans Passing Down the Craft
June 15, 2026

Across the United States, industries are grappling with a skilled labor shortage. According to industry research, millions of trade jobs are expected to go unfilled in the coming years as experienced workers retire faster than new ones enter the field. At the same time, trade school enrollment has steadily increased. The conversation around skilled trades—once…

Read More
outlet
From Power Shopping to Place-Making: Tanger’s Stephen Yalof on the New Outlet Experience
June 15, 2026

For decades, the outlet trip had a familiar rhythm: get in the car, drive beyond the city, hunt for deals and come home with bags full of discounted finds. But that old model is giving way to something more layered. As retailers reinvest in store experiences to give consumers more reasons to visit, outlet…

Read More
career
How Relationships Build a Career, Deepen Service and Define Purpose
June 10, 2026

In a workplace still shaped by hybrid schedules, remote communication and shifting expectations around professional growth, relationships have become more than a soft skill — they are a career advantage. Gallup’s latest workplace reporting shows that global employee engagement has fallen to 20%, reflecting a broader challenge for organizations trying to keep people connected,…

Read More