I received this interesting insight into Dignity’s profitability the other day from a good friend of the GFG, Andrew Plume.
I was mulling over some Dignity stats the other day.
Much is made of 65,000 funerals having been carried out for year ending December 2009. Given that they merrily declare having “546 funeral locations” in the UK, are those figures really that strong?
This equates to 119 funerals per branch per year. That’s hardly impressive and looking at the name firms that they trade under, some of whom were fantastic names when long ago independent, I would personally be very unhappy with these results. As I’ve said before, some of these branches simply have to be considerably under performing. Dignity reckon that their market share last year was 11.8%. Is that really such a good ‘return’?
Compare this to at least two independent family firms that I know well. They both own their own buildings and each only trade from one location. Both are on course for 550-600 funerals this year, possibly more. Each of them have minimal advertising costs and no vast amounts of area management to pay for, which is the case with Dignity. Both of these firms are cheaper than Dignity.
Not difficult to draw conclusions on profitability?
Hmnn…
Thanks, Andrew!
[…] is profitable, but it is also leveraged. And, as Andrew Plume pointed out a while back, its figures in many branches are very low. The business pages of UK newspapers customarily talk up […]