Blue Skies Inc. is a retail gardening company that is piloting a new strategic initiative aimed at increasing gross profit. Currently, the company’s gross profit is 21% of sales, and its target gross profit percentage is 26%. The company’s current monthly sales revenue is $540,000. The new initiative being piloted is to produce goods in-house instead of buying them from wholesale suppliers. Its in-house production process has two procedures. The makeup of the costs of production for Procedure 1 is 40% direct labor, 45% direct materials, and 15% overhead. The makeup of the costs of production for Procedure 2 is 50% direct labor, 25% direct materials, and 25% overhead. Assume that Procedure 1 costs twice as much as Procedure 2. 1. Determine what the cost of labor, materials, and overhead for both Procedures 1 and 2 would need to be for the company to meet its target gross profit.
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Strategic Initiatives and CSR
Blue Skies Inc. is a retail gardening company that is piloting a new strategic initiative aimed at increasing gross profit. Currently, the company’s gross profit is 21% of sales, and its target gross profit percentage is 26%. The company’s current monthly sales revenue is $540,000.
The new initiative being piloted is to produce goods in-house instead of buying them from wholesale suppliers. Its in-house production process has two procedures. The makeup of the costs of production for Procedure 1 is 40% direct labor, 45% direct materials, and 15% overhead. The makeup of the costs of production for Procedure 2 is 50% direct labor, 25% direct materials, and 25% overhead. Assume that Procedure 1 costs twice as much as Procedure 2.
1. Determine what the cost of labor, materials, and overhead for both Procedures 1 and 2 would need to be for the company to meet its target gross profit.
Cost makeup of Procedure 1:
| Direct Labor | $ |
| Direct Materials | |
| Overhead | |
| Total | $ |
Cost makeup of Procedure 2:
| Direct Labor | $ |
| Direct Materials | |
| Overhead | |
| Total | $ |
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BRIAN: Good point. No, the projected cost of 120 does not include the 100,000 we have already spent. I do want a design that will provide a 15-per-unit profit, including consideration of preproduction costs. CATHY: I might mention that post-purchase costs are important as well. The current design will impose about 10 per unit for using, maintaining, and disposing our product. Thats about the same as our competitors. If we can reduce that cost to about 5 per unit by designing a better product, we could probably capture about 50 percent of the market. I have just completed a marketing survey at Marks request and have found out that the current design has two features not valued by potential customers. These two features have a projected cost of 6 per unit. However, the price consumers are willing to pay for the product is the same with or without the features. Required: 1. Calculate the target cost associated with the initial 25 percent market share. Does the initial design meet this target? Now calculate the total life-cycle profit that the current (initial) design offers (including preproduction costs). 2. Assume that the two features that are apparently not valued by consumers will be eliminated. Also assume that the selling price is lowered to 125. a. Calculate the target cost for the 125 price and 35 percent market share. b. How much more cost reduction is needed? c. What are the total life-cycle profits now projected for the new product? d. Describe the three general approaches that Nico can take to reduce the projected cost to this new target. Of the three approaches, which is likely to produce the most reduction? 3. Suppose that the Engineering Department has two new designs: Design A and Design B. Both designs eliminate the two nonvalued features. Both designs also reduce production and logistics costs by an additional 8 per unit. Design A, however, leaves post-purchase costs at 10 per unit, while Design B reduces post-purchase costs to 4 per unit. Developing and testing Design A costs an additional 150,000, while Design B costs an additional 300,000. Assuming a price of 125, calculate the total life-cycle profits under each design. Which would you choose? Explain. What if the design you chose cost an additional 500,000 instead of 150,000 or 300,000? Would this have changed your decision? 4. Refer to Requirement 3. For every extra dollar spent on preproduction activities, how much benefit was generated? What does this say about the importance of knowing the linkages between preproduction activities and later activities?
