Cost Analysis On Pearson Plc

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Cost analysis Costa analysis can be examined from different dimensions. Operating leverage is one of these dimensions. It is a measure of leverage. It measures how a company’s revenue growth translates into operating income growth, and of how risky a company's operating income is. Operating leverage is defined as Fixed costs / Total costs. Fixed costs are business expenses that are not dependent on the level of goods or services produced by the business. Variable costs are the vice versa. Total costs include both fixed costs and variable costs. There are detailed breakdowns of operating expenses in annual reports of Pearson plc. Utilisation of inventory, advertising, promotion and marketing, and other costs and income can be classified as variable costs. Others include depreciation, amortization, employee benefits etc are fixed costs. Year |2010 |2009 |2008 |2007 |2006 |2005 |2004 |2003 | |Fixed cost |3252 |3005 |2734 |2301 |2305 |2110 |2031 |2073 | |Variable cost |1709 |1546 |1426 |1310 |1316 |1236 |1278 |1367 | |Total cost |4961 |4551 |4160 |3611 |3621 |3346 |3309 |3440 | |Operating leverage (FC/TC) |0.656 |0.660 |0.657 |0.637 |0.637 |0.631 |0.614 |0.603 | | The operating leverage of Pearson is quite high, it is always above 0.6. This means fixed costs always contributed more than 60% of total costs. With such high degree of operating leverage, the potential danger from forecasting risk is also greater. Small error sales forecasting can be magnified into large errors in cash flow projections. Tighter cost control on fixed costs should be implemented. Notably there is a constant high costs in employee benefit expense, a restructuring operation may be needed to deal with this situation. |2010 |2009 |2008 |2007 |2006 |2005 |2004 |2003 | |Employee benefit expense |1849 |1725 |1553 |1288 |1280 |1177 |1154 |1156 | | Another dimension to analyse

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