Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

Cloud service providers are increasingly proxies for utilities — they require 100% uptime, significant quantities of their own power, and predictable variable cost (which for renewables is nearly zero). Sales/Becoming the Vendor of Choice. He's absolutely right.

Energy 16

Energy Variable Costs Travel Operations 16

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 20, 2012

Instead, companies seeking to improve the lives of the world's poor should focus on a more realistic route to profitability: They need to elevate gross margins far above the company average by pushing down variable costs and boosting the price consumers are willing to pay for a unit of product.

Variable Costs 15

Variable Costs Banking Sales Sales 15

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 29, 2015

This makes financial sense in industries with high fixed costs and low variable costs: larger sizes enable the company to charge higher prices that, even if they are just slightly larger, absorb a higher portion of fixed costs, while reducing packaging cost per volume and attracting value-minded consumers.

Fixed Costs 14

Fixed Costs Variable Costs Marketing Sales 14

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 27, 2015

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos recommends looking for opportunities to convert capital and fixed expenses into variable costs. So look for industries where upfront costs are high and new technology could offer similar services with little or no upfront commitment.

Small Business 15

Small Business B2B Variable Costs Scaling 15

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 4, 2015

Since theme parks are high fixed cost/low variable cost entities, revenue from discount-enticed new customers is virtually all profit… free money. ” There are plenty of other industries–such as restaurants, barbershops, and health clubs–that can also benefit from surge pricing.

Variable Costs 12

Variable Costs Fixed Costs Implementation Travel 12

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 5, 2014

That said, organizations could recognize that the additional benefits from a larger, quicker move to onsite renewables — including having a hedge on fuel prices, inspiring employees and customers, and building resilience to extreme weather and grid outages — adds up to real value, even if it’s hard to measure.

Assets 13

Assets Energy Variable Costs Government 13

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 11, 2014

But he missed an important opportunity because much of what he was talking about — particularly investing in renewable energy — does in fact have strong ROI benefits, just not ones we can always measure. ” Most importantly, none of these benefits are directly about tackling what NCPPR calls “so-called” climate change. .”

ROI 10

ROI Variable Costs Energy Benefits 10

Harvard Business Review

JULY 9, 2014

Thus, Uber is pricing below its variable costs. Interestingly, if Uber had a large market share (which to be clear, it doesn’t), pricing below its variable costs would have put the company at risk of being charged with predatory pricing by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Variable Costs 8

Variable Costs Transportation Government Telecommunications 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 25, 2017

Selling experiences provides intangible benefits that are hard to quantify and measure, often focusing on meeting the needs of one single customer, preventing any mass production. It is easier to price a product, for which most of the fixed and variable costs are known, than a project, which is influenced by many external factors.

Revenue 8

Revenue Variable Costs Sales Sales 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 18, 2018

per month per subscriber, and three movie tickets costs nearly $30, on average, meaning it’s losing nearly $20 per month per subscriber on a variable cost basis. Superconsumers clearly care about seeing a new release, but they seek many more benefits. The problem is that MoviePass collects only $9.95 They are 2.5x

Advertising 8

Advertising Variable Costs Revenue Operations 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 3, 2018

The company should separately present fixed and variable costs, and to the extent possible, detail the variable costs associated with a unit of activity. For example, Twitter provides “cost per ad engagement.”

Variable Costs 8

Variable Costs Revenue Assets Cash Flow 8

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 11, 2017

Financial measures report variable costs broken out by a few major categories (including supplies, drugs, and staff) along with revenue and margin measures. The clinical team works together with finance and quality-measurement staff to update this box score every week.

Manager 8

Manager Hospitality Variable Costs Implementation 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 7, 2015

It’s up to you to figure out which problems your product is solving or benefits it’s providing by appreciating how your product or service fits into your customers’ lives. Then you can move on to quantifying those benefits in order to figure the calculation. There are, of course, other needs as well.

Benefits 14

Benefits Variable Costs Hospitality Marketing 14

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Capital-intensive factories have a high-fixed-cost, low-variable-cost operating model. If you greatly reduce the production volume, the cars that do come out have to absorb more of the fixed costs, and that eventually sends the product into a profitability death spiral.

Fixed Costs 14

Fixed Costs Assets Cash Flow Variable Costs 14