Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

A virtuous cycle is baked into their strategy: use these resources to achieve scale in ways that help achieve even more scale. Greater scale bestows greater competitive advantage. Adding a profile on Facebook has little to no impact on Facebook's operating costs. More usage funds more infrastructure.

Advertising 16

Advertising Variable Costs Scaling Media 16

Harvard Business Review

MAY 8, 2012

Bharti's innovative business model converted fixed costs in capital expenditure to a variable cost based on usage of capacity. Through the outsourcing arrangements, Bharti dramatically lowered its costs while ensuring high quality for customers, since vendors had world-class competencies in their domains.

Balance Sheet 12

Balance Sheet Variable Costs Telecommunications Fixed Costs 12

Harvard Business Review

MAY 9, 2013

In every part of the industry, the open innovation model is changing the economics of advertising by switching significant fixed costs to variable costs and sourcing creative from more relevant and, many times, lower cost sources.

Advertising 13

Advertising Variable Costs Media Fixed Costs 13

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

And the fixed cost from “touchpoint-to-pilot” are immense. For example, in the case of a $100 million CVC fund, which can close five to 10 investments a year, these costs typically range from $1 to $2 million per startup — not including the administrative and variable costs of the pilot itself.

Fixed Costs 8

Fixed Costs Variable Costs Administration Media 8