Reading a P&L bridge in ninety seconds
Six bars between revenue and net profit. Here is what each one is allowed to tell you, and what it is not.
A bridge turns the income statement into a single picture: what came in, what left, and what survived. Read left to right and the whole year is one sentence.
The two bars that matter most are the ones you can act on this quarter: cost of goods sold and operating expense. Finance costs and tax are consequences, not levers.
The shape tells you the problem
A tall COGS bar with a thin opex bar is a pricing or sourcing problem. A modest COGS bar with a tall opex bar is a structure problem. They need completely different responses, and the bridge shows you which one you have before anyone opens a spreadsheet.
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