Thinking about labour costs
Paul Downs is a US business owner who writes on the NY Times Small Business blog. Here is a nice post in a series he wrote on “the numbers I track”. In this post, he focuses on the importance of tracking labour costs. This quote from the post gives a good summary of Paul’s thinking:
“I’m not sure what to think about my labor costs. I have two conflicting theories running through my head. The first: pay people what they deserve. The second: pay people just enough so that they don’t leave. In reality I’m somewhere in between the two. Payroll is our biggest single expense, and it’s easy to let it get out of control and suck up all of the profit in the company”
I’m sure many small businesses experience this same sentiment. Read the full post for more.
The effect of volume on viability – a CVP and investment example
In January 2011, a long-planned €350 million plan to build a 600,000 tonne incinerator near Dublin port finally seen work commence on the build. As you might imagine there have been many protests against the project, which would be privately operated. At the same time, the four Dublin local authorities were also planning a land-fill site north of the city. However, in January 2012, the Irish Times reported that the land-fill site plan has been scrapped. It seems that the volume of waste now being generated in Dublin does not merit a new land-fill site. And, indeed the need for the incinerator too is being questioned. It seems that due to a combination of increased recycling and lower economic activity that the volume of waste has decreased dramatically. As a management accountant, I think of this from two angles. First, from a capital investment view, someone had to decided the ultimate size of an incinerator. This would be based on a combination of commercial viability and waste volume I assume. Second, from a cost-volume-profit (CVP) view, I wonder has anyone considered the effects of volume on the “profit” (i.e. viability) of the incinerator. According the to the Irish Times article, the volume of the incinerator should be halved – which I think should mean a full re-examination of the costs and investment involved. Of course, the counter argument is it is better to have spare capacity for cover for future increases in waste generated (e.g. improved economic activity, increasing population)
Costs, volume and profits – an example from the taxi sector.
Back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when I was young enough to be frequenting pubs/clubs around Dublin city centre, one of the biggest problems was getting a taxi home. At that time, the number of taxi’s was regulated, with (if my memory serves me right) about 1,200 taxis for a city of about a million people. The effect of this was a market for taxi licences. Many taxi drivers depended on this for their pensions, with a licence yielding IR£ 60,000- 80,000 (about €75-100,000). Now, Dublin has a de-regulated taxi system and has more taxi’s than New York (see here for a taxi-eye view). The price structure is also heavily regulated, and a common price structure applies to all fares throughout Ireland. And, of course, a taxi licence is nowadays worth very little.
Why and I writing about taxis you might ask? Well, while on holiday near Leipzig (Germany) over the Christmas period, I read an article in a local paper (Doeblener Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec 27, p.7) about how a taxi firm is dealing with rising costs. The taxi sector in Leipzig is de-regulated too as far as I know, and competition is strong. The article interviewed a manager from a local taxi firm, 4884. Rising fuel prices seem to be a major problem for the firm – and indeed for Dublin taxis too. However, as I read on I realised that Dublin and Leipzig taxi firms/owners, while having a lot in common (over/high supply, rising costs, relatively declining static/declining market), the Leipzig firm 4884 seemed to adapt well to become attract and keep customers. For example, in June 2011, 4884 launched an app to order taxis (using GPS). They also (according to the Dec. article) regularly train and annually update their drivers on things like customer service skills – it is even written into the drivers’ contracts. In Dublin too, there is at least one taxi app I am aware of (Irish Taxi), but I am not sure it is as advanced in terms of GPS. London too has a GPS service available for ordering a taxi.
So what’s the management accounting point? Well, if we compare the market for taxis now to compared to the past (in most countries, but certainly Ireland), there is a far greater supply (volume). The cost structure is typically beyond the control of all taxis. Most costs are fixed – radio rental, advertising, taxi licence fee, insurance – with fuel being the main variable cost. With more taxis in supply, a static market, fixed prices and little ability to control costs, then the ability to earn a profit is likely to be more difficult now. So what can be done by taxi owners/firms to sustain profit. Most have joined forces to create firms/co-ops, which can share some costs (e.g. central booking). Other options are to increase customer retention through things like apps and improved customer service. At the end of the day, with so many costs beyond their control, taxi drivers/firms can only but be adaptive to stay in business. If they are not, they can (and do) go out of business.
What is a manufacturing execution system (MES)?
In my former life as a management accountant in industry, I worked in a number of projects which automated either production itself, production planning, or both. A term I was use to at that time was Manufacturing Execution System or MES. So what is an MES and why should management accountants know about them? Well, an advertisement in the November 2011 edition of Financial Management (CIMA’s monthly magazine) prompted me to write about it. AN MES is a system which basically communicates from sales through to the actual making of a product or a the start of a process. An MES may include a sales order module, which would gather customer orders and pass these on to planning modules or directly to process equipment. Typically, an MES will improve a production process as production is scheduled more efficiently and can be monitored for back-logs and jams. Also, an MES will also typically integrate with an ERP system, which means that a businesses systems are fully integrated. According to the advert in the CIMA magazine, Carlsberg (yes the brewer) improved performance in several areas once it used an MES; sales increased bu 1.5%, gross margins up 1.2%, downtime decreased from 28% to 13%, material loss decreased by 1%. All of these translate into increased profitability, which of course is of interest to managers and management accountants. I would argue that understanding how an MES works in a business is a vital piece of kit for any management accountant, particularly if such performance improvements can be made. If you are interested in reading some more, here are two websites I am familiar with which offer MES systems; Kiwiplan and ATS.
Know your costs = know your business operations
When I teach management accounting to students, I am always looking for examples to relate what I say to a real life example. So, a while back I was trying to think of an example which might convey the fact that management accountants are not (or should not be) just bean-counters. The role of a management accountant/business analyst/business partner is much more than just accounting. My experience tells me that a good management accountant (and manager too) get’s their hand dirty i.e. knows a good deal about the business in terms of how things are made/delivered. If you don’t know the business, then how for example can you actually undertake a cost-saving exercise. So now for the example. I read a blog post on The Economist website a while back. The title caught my eye actually “Reducing the barnacle bill”. The article post mentions how barnacles attached to a ships hull below the waterline can increase drag so much that fuel costs increase 40%. The post then mentions several chemical solutions currently available and some being worked on. The point from this example is that should a management accountant at a shipping company know such detail of operations. I’d like to suggest, yes they should. Only such detailed knowledge of the operations would highlight the need to control the “barnacle cost”. I’m sure there are many more similar examples out there.
Knowing the cost structure of your business
When a business or manager refers to their cost structure, they are talking about the composition of the costs of the business. Typically, costs are either fixed or variable. Fixed costs stay the same regardless of what happens e.g. how much is sold. Variable costs increase or decrease in line with business activity e.g. the more product sold, the higher the purchase or manufacturing costs. It goes without say that a business manager needs to have a full knowledge of how their business responds to changes in output and how the business itself actually operates. I read a great example of this back in June this year in the Guardian. The article mentioned how Ryanair had started talks with a Chinese aircraft manufacturer (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) in an effort to build a cheaper alternative to its current aircraft, the Boeing 737. What struck me was not the cheaper cost of the aircraft, but attempts by Ryanair to design the aircraft with exactly 200 seats – about 15 more than the Boeing. Why 200 seats? Simple answer actually, anything above 200 seats and one additional crew member is needed. Keeping the seats at 200 means that each extra seat could yield anaverage profit of about €40 per seat. Now that’s knowing your cost structure and operations in detail
Data theft cost Sony as much as earthquake
I remember some meetings in my past life, when I had to justify expenditure on information to my boss – a chartered accountant with not too much in-depth knowledge of IT. This was in the late 1990’s. Of course, technology has moved on dramatically since then, but I’d be fairly sure that any accountants today would still be questioning the costs if IT/IS infrastructure and software. And today, it is not only the cost of the equipment that needs to be considered, it is the cost of the information held by companies. This is a very difficult thing to cost, but the problems at Sony in recent months gives some idea. In May 2011, the Los Angeles Times wrote about the cost of the first hacker attack on Sony (there was another one in June 2011). The article reports a cost of $171 million, which is believe it or not is nearly as much as the impact of the Japanese earthquake/tsunami earlier that year on the companies profit ($208m). I’m not sure what the hackers did to break in to Sony’s systems, but I bet it would have cost a lot less than $171 million to make their systems hacker-proof. And I’d also bet the hacker’s would be happy to repair the damage for a lot less than $171 million too!
Using Microsoft Excel to estimate costs with linear regression
If you have studied management accounting, you may remember the long-winded formulae to estimate values to put in a linear equation. Well, it’s a lot easier using MS Excel. Take a look at this video I have put together.
Operating leverage explained
Operating leverage refers to relative amount of costs that are fixed and variable in the cost structure of a business. Some companies will have relatively high fixed costs compared to variable costs and are said to have a high operating leverage. For example, pharmaceutical companies incur up to $1billon to develop new drugs over a 10 to15 period[1], whereas the manufacture cost pennies – just think of the price of a pack of paracetemol in your local pharmacy. Low operating leverage means variable costs are a relatively high proportion of total costs. Retailers like Tesco or Sainsbury have relatively low fixed costs and relatively high variable costs – the variable cost of each item sold (e.g. the purchase price) is likely to be much higher than the associated fixed cost for that item. The degree of operating leverage of a company can be used to assess its risk profile. Companies with high operating leverage are more vulnerable to decreasing sales e.g. sharp economic and business cycle swings. Companies with a high level of costs tied up in machinery, plants and equipment cannot easily cut costs to adjust to a change in demand. So, if there is a downturn in the economy revenues and profits can plummet. On the other hand, companies with lower operating leverage can adapt their cost structure more rapidly as it has more variable costs.
[1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/13/blocking-drug-development/ accessed Dec 4th, 2009
Changing product and market landscapes – effects on costs
Bromwich & Bhimani wrote a interesting short book in 2010 called “Management Accounting – retrospect and prospect” (see cimapublishing.com). In the book, they give a number of examples from modern business that makes us think about management accounting techniques. For example, what exactly does a company like Facebook or LinkedIn actually do? Do they offer products, services or what? Changing technologies, business markets and new ways of making/delivering products often causes changes to management accounting. For example recently I read that amazon.com now sells more e-books than paper books. Taking this e-book example, it is easy to visualise a shift in product costs. Arguably, an e-book has almost no variable costs. Instead the vast majority of costs are probably fixed – costs of running a data centre for example. This new way of doing business changes the information management accountants need and how that same information is collated and analysed. I have no idea what publishers or distributors like amazon.com do in their management accounting functions, but it is not too hard to think about how basic techniques like breakeven (CVP) analysis would change due to the changing cost structure.
Rising prices, holding prices – Primark holds retail prices steady
With some commodity prices on the rise, and continued economic woes, some businesses are holding retail prices and reducing margins. Associated British Foods, which includes the low price high-street retailer in Primark (UK/Ireland and some European countries) is an example. In late April 2011, the company reported it wished to absorb material price increases rather than pass them on to end-consumers. Increasing sugar and cotton prices reduce the company’s margins. However the CEO reported that the company did not want to relent it’s status as a low price retailer in the clothing sector.
Australia plans to impose carbon tax
Many young Irish people (and other nations too of course) are making their way to Australia to seek employment and/or better their career prospects. The Australian economy seems to be booming based in its natural resources and its closeness to the Chinese markets – who consume huge quantities of these resources. This boom may be affected somewhat by the imposition of a carbon tax from 2012 on all firms emitting more than 25,000 tons of CO2 per annum. This will increase the output costs, which may affect consumer spending. To balance the affect, the Australian Prime Minister has promised some tax reductions. Read the full story here
Data centres costs – weather is a key factor
(Image from Economist.com)
A few weeks ago I was listening to the radio in the car. A news item came on about why Ireland is attractive to companies like Google and Microsoft to set up data centres. It wasn’t tax, or our educated workforce. Much to my surprise it was the Irish weather. Well, I suppose all three are important, but with an ambient average temperature well below 20 celsius, the cost of cooling the data centres falls considerably. Here’s a post I read earlier from Babbages’ blog on The Economist. It gives some great detail on the costs of running these data centres Data centres: Social desert | The Economist. I have to say, as a management accountant weather conditions would not be the first thing I’d consider in cost decisions – a good reason to talk to other people in the organisation to find out what’s going on.
Who makes what for the iPhone, and how much does it cost
As a management accountant, I’m always interested in what products cost to make. In today’s global manufacturing economy, it’s even more interesting as product components are sources from all over the world. Time [May 16, 2011] provides a great example, the iPhone. According to the article, the total cost of the iPhone 5 is $179. Of this amount, $61 goes to Japanese suppliers, $11 to US suppliers, $30 to Germany, $23 to South Korea, $7 to China [where the phone is assembled], and $48 goes to other unknown sources. Given that the selling price is around $500, this means that the loins share of the added value in an iPhone about, or $321, stays within the US company. I have to say I was surprised that China contributed so little to the final value.
Setting prices in small business
Setting a price for a small business can be a challenge. Cut the price too much and you loose money. Raise the price and you loose business. An article in the New York Times recounts the experience of some US small business. The basic message is that price is not everything. One business owner recounts how the quality customers gained outstrips those lost due to a perceived high price. Here’s one story
“About three years ago a computer error caused all of the prices on Headsets.com to be displayed at cost rather than retail. With the lower prices on display for a weekend, Mike Faith, the chief executive, expected sales to soar. Instead, the increase was marginal. “It was a big lesson for us,” Mr. Faith said.”
The basic lesson from this experience is that customers don’t think price is the be all and end all. The experience of a gluten free flour business showed that competitors prices may not matter as much as one thinks too. The company managed to raise its price by 20% in the first year in business by convincing customers that the product had more added value than competing flour. The most important lesson mentioned is that costs must be covered in the price charged. Seem so obvious, but I have written several pieces on this blog about breaking even.
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