Zoos, costs and Covid 19
The are many examples of how Covid 19 is affecting business. An article in the Irish Times of 18/11/2020 provides a nice example, from Dublin Zoo. We all love a visit to the Zoo – well, I certainly do – but we probably never stop to think about the costs of running a zoo.
According to the Irish Times article, Covid 19 has left a €10 million hole in the finances of Dublin Zoo, and it costs €500,000 per month to feed and care for the animals. Looking at recent annual reports, the annual income of Dublin Zoo is about €20m. That would mean about 30% of the the income is used to cover feeding costs (500000 x 12 = €6m). This is a fixed cost, as the animals must be feed and cared for. If income has fallen to zero in recent months due to Covid 19, it is easy to see how Dublin Zoo – or any zoo – could get into financial trouble quite quickly.
The cost of medicines – a quick view
I’ve been quiet recently on here due to some illness. While I’ll and having some time on my hands I began to ponder the cost of medicine and where I live ( Ireland ). I know we are one of the more expensive places to buy medicine in Europe, but here I’m not going to refer to any price indices or similar. Instead I’m going to try to quickly break down the costs of doing business in two countries – Ireland and Spain – to explain price differences. A business manager might do this regularly to gauge the competition. To give an example of the price difference, I know that a common prescription pain killer costs €26 in Spain versus €42 in Ireland. Some medicine I use myself costs about €12, versus €23 in Spain. And just tonne clear, these two examples are for identical nongeneric medicines.
The first is taxes. I found that most medicines in Spain have 4% VAT, whereas most in Ireland are at 0%. So we can rule this out. Second, a tax consultant in Spain told me that to purchase a pharmacy in the city I stayed in would cost about €2 million. This is due to limits on how many pharmacy licences there are. This cost results in high depreciation from an accounting perspective, and is similar to Ireland. Third, by my guess, all other costs like labour, rent, light etc are cheaper in Spain, probably 10-50% less. So this leads me to one remaining thing – profit margins. The profit margin would be spit between the pharmaceutical company, a distributor and the pharmacy itself. Without insider information, it is very hard to know what these margins are. Having said that, they must be a large explanatory factor for the price difference.
And for the fun, to give a more marked price difference. I recently saw a TV programme on the cost of medicine in the US. It not the cost of a monthly supply of insulin at $900. This was quite unaffordable for pensioners on a low income. Many who are near the Canadian borders drive across to Canada, where the price of the same product is CAD$ 120.
Of course, I’m doing a quick and dirty, non- scientific analysis here. But business is full of gut instinct and similar, and my experience and gut tells me profit margins are a huge explainer for medicine price differences between countries.
US Postal Service – reduced volumes = reduced costs
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In February this year, the United States Postal Service (USPS) decided to cease delivering mail on Saturdays. While this may be seen as inconvenient for some personal and business users, in management accounting terms it is probably a simple cost-volume issue.
Mail volumes have fallen globally due to email and other communications media. With falling volumes, a postal service would either have to reduce costs or increase revenues to maintain profits – or keep state subsidies low. Increasing revenues may be difficult given the competition is sectors such as parcel deliveries, which have increased in volumes. It is also difficult to raise postage rates given the political and/or state involvement. So this leave costs, or more specifically cost-cuts, to get things back in balance. Apparently, ceasing Saturday deliveries will save $2 billion annually. You can read more here from The Economist
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