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Return on Assets (ROA)
Profit earned for every rupee of everything the company owns — factories, cash, loans, the lot. Return on Equity counts only the shareholders' money, so a company can flatter it by borrowing. ROA cannot be flattered that way, because borrowed money is in the total.
Example
Two companies both earn ₹100 Cr. One does it on ₹500 Cr of assets (ROA 20%), the other needs ₹5,000 Cr (ROA 2%). The first is far more efficient with what it owns.
Worth knowing
NEVER compare ROA across industries. A bank of 1% is doing well — banks sit on enormous balance sheets — while a software company at 1% would be in trouble, since good ones run above 20%. Read it against the company's own past and its direct rivals, never against the market as a whole.