How can you incorporate industry trends and benchmarks into your P&L presentation?

2 Analyze your P&L against trends and benchmarks

The second step is to analyze your P&L against the trends and benchmarks that you identified. You can do this by using ratios, percentages, or graphs to show how your revenue, expenses, and profit have changed over time and how they compare with the industry average or the best performers. For example, you can calculate your gross margin, operating margin, or net margin and compare them with the industry benchmarks to see how efficient and profitable your business is. You can also use trend analysis to show how your sales, costs, or earnings have grown or declined over time and how they align with the market demand or supply.

3 Highlight your strengths and weaknesses

The third step is to highlight your strengths and weaknesses based on your P&L analysis. You can use colors, symbols, or labels to emphasize the areas where you excel or lag behind the industry trends and benchmarks. For example, you can use green to indicate that your revenue growth is above the industry average, red to indicate that your operating expenses are too high, or yellow to indicate that your profit margin is below the benchmark. You can also use arrows, stars, or circles to point out the key drivers or factors that affect your performance, such as new products, customers, or markets.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?