After going through the details of having costs split in fixed and variable and also in direct and indirect, mentioning a few real life problems we can face in trying to group them in such categories, introducing some statistic functions (Spearman and Pearson) useful in this split but also some Excel functions it is only normal to ask ourselves: and now if we split them (costs), what do we do with them? what follows next?

This course offers several answers. First of all we use them to calculate intermediary profit layers in our P&L. Gross contribution in the case of deducting variable costs from revenues (turnover) and gross profit in case of deducting the direct costs.

Such profit layers can be further used in price structures and price calculations for our products and services since the full P&L view applied on a product is not very lucrative. Another answer is portfolio management. Deciding which products we keep, which ones we take out and which ones we add to our portfolio.

And last but not least, we can use these concepts in trying to understand the development of gross contribution (or profit) from one period to another or against a plan (budget, forecast). That can be achieved through variance analysis, showing for each product how much of the gross contribution development comes from volume, mix, price or cost variance.

A comparison between the gross profit and gross contribution is also available, explaining how they both emerged and which one is better in which conditions.

And because we aim to present our conclusions, findings and recommendations to a broader audience, business partners at various levels and in various functions (Sales, Marketing, Supply chain etc.) which may or may not be numbers oriented, a simple and clear graphical representation of the variance analysis (with a bit of help from Excel) is also available.