Businesses need to stop making excuses when it comes to performance. Over the last 3 decades the 2.3 million businesses in this country have produced about 3.7% in after tax profit. Australian businesses produce half the profitability of US businesses on average and one third of local businesses ran at a loss! If you include all of your assets and not just bricks and mortar or equipment then you should be calculating your ROE on the total figure.