We are a hardware/software/services company with $160m annual revenues. I am looking for G&A spending as a % of revenue benchmark data not including special items or FAS123R expenses. We are at 12%. Any further breakdowns by function would be appreciated as well.
G&A benchmarking
Answers
The potential list is extremely long as you know. Are you including:
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We include HR, IT, Facilities, Finance and legal. IT/Facilities get allocated out to the other functions as do recruiting and IP costs. I am looking for the net G&A expense which includes IT and facilities components attributable to G&A.
Check this one out: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22But+are+my+finance+costs+typical%3F%22+(benchmark+of+finance...-a021119262. Seems to have some reasonable data on the finance component alone and provides a good perspective on the benchmarking process and framing of the outcome.
Very tough coming up with solid benchmarking w/o spending a lot of money with an outside firm. Even then I have found there are so many subtle differences company-to-company that it is almost impossible to do apples to apples comparisons.
In the past i have tried to target one or two companies in my industry who seemed to run the tightest ship. Not the cheapest operation, but rather the most profitable on a consistent basis. Rather than getting averages which may or may not mean much, I would find the best and compare. To do that I would use publicly published reports and people in my network including
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FP&A