A Silk Purse from A Sow’s Ear
The 16th-century proverb speaks to the impossibility of creating value from poor raw materials. Silk and swine are set as opposites. The proverb's inherent impossibility perfectly encapsulates the concept at the core of this report. In business, indirect costs such as sales, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses, are effectively a sow’s ear, a cost centre, an area perceived to be of low-to-no strategic value. This report demonstrates how our data analysis shows that it is possible to fashion a silk purse from the sow’s ear of SG&A expenses.