What are the typical cost drivers?

Case Interview costs MBB
Recent activity on Apr 20, 2019
2 Answers
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Anonymous A asked on Apr 16, 2019

Hello everybody, I heard feedback from a Case Partner that I should name cost drivers faster. So my thinking here is the following: there are fixed and variable cost, and the main drivers for fixed and variable are:


Fixed costs:

  • Rent / Lease / Property / Production site
  • Possible depreciation
  • Administration

Variable costs:

  • Personnel
  • Energy/ Water
  • Unit costs/ material

Now my two questions:

1) Are these the most important cost blocks or have I overlooked something important here? I am interested in an overview of the possible cost sources, which can then be adapted to specific cases.

2) Where would you also assign the terms production costs, operating costs and investment costs to fixed and variable areas?

Thanks a lot!

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Serhat
Expert
replied on Apr 20, 2019
BCG | Kellogg MBA |82% Success rate| 450+ case interview| 5+ year consulting | 30+ projects in ~10 countries
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Sidi
Expert
updated an answer on Apr 16, 2019
McKinsey Senior EM & BCG Consultant | Interviewer at McK & BCG for 7 years | Coached 350+ candidates secure MBB offers

Alright, so let's try to bring some order into this. :)

You first have to understand that there are different ways to classify costs. These can then be layered on top of each other using a matrix or similar if this is considered sensible.

At the highest level, there are

  • Operational costs
  • Costs of capital (usually interest payments)
  • Investments

You are mostly talking about Operational Costs. Depending on the criterion used, there are at least 4 possible categories for subdivision:

  • Contingent on the behavior of costs in the event of fluctuations in production, there are
    • Fixed Costs
    • Variable Costs
  • Depending on the type of production factors consumed, a distinction is made between
    • Personnel costs
    • Operating costs
    • Material costs
  • According to the functional area in the value chain, there are
    • Procurement costs
    • Warehousing/storage costs
    • Manufacturing costs
    • Administrative expenses
    • Direct sales & distribution expenses
    • Aftersales expenses
    • Other costs (such as marketing)
  • Depending on how costs are attributed to the products or services, a distinction can be made between
    • Direct costs
    • Overhead

A couple of important points:

  • Production costs usually cover all costs that can be attributed to the production of produced goods (but interestingly, they are not always direct costs, since material overheads and production overheads can also be included!). This would include the three cost types procurement costs, storage costs and manufacturing costs in the breakdown by functional areas (as mentioned, if directly attributable to the product).
  • Overhead costs and are usually fixed.
  • Investments are not operational costs and should therefore be separated from the above consideration

    Cheers, Sidi

(edited)

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Anonymous B on Oct 17, 2022

Hi Sid, very useful. Quick clarification. In terms of the functional value chain, Im assuming you cannot use P&L items as sub-drivers. How would you break this down further? Thank you!

Sidi on Oct 17, 2022

This is purely context dependent! In a case interview, you need to align with the interviewer and make clear that you understand that this has to be broken down based on information from the client. Only if no information is available, an educated assumption based on the business model can be suggested.

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