“Incremental degradation” is a term used to describe what happens to a business after an initial spurt of success. In an effort to increase profits by controlling costs, product quality is lost by a gradual diminishing of the quality of the ingredients. Ultimately sales volume drops to an unsustainable level and the business fails. This scenario is most often evident when the bottom line is the primary focus of a business manager, as opposed to making the customers the primary focus. Most well managed businesses place the customer first with the bottom line controlled through good purchasing practices and appropriate selling prices and margins.