Lecture 5: Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis In this module, we are going to discuss a simple concept yet a powerful financial planning and decision-making tool for managers. This concept is called CVP analysis or cost volume profit relationship. Profits are the difference between revenues and costs. Both revenue and cost depend on the volume of operations. So, in the short run whether you make a profit or a loss depends upon the volume of sales you make. What is the unknown for a manager when he or she tries to project profits for future? The managers know the costs and the selling price. So the only unknown is the volume of sales. The importance of CVP analysis flows from the fact that it emphasizes the inter-relationship between costs, volume of sales, and selling price, and therefore it represents a unified picture of all financial information in a simple framework.

What effect on profit can American Airlines expect when it adds a new flight on the Dallas Chicago route? How many patient days of care must Dallas Children’s hospital provide in order to cover all of its operating costs? How will the profits for Texas Instruments change if it sells 10% more of its DLP chips? Each of the above questions concerns the effect on cost and revenues when an organization’s activity changes. CVP analysis summarizes the effects of changes in organization’s volume of activities on its costs, revenue and therefore profit. Although the word profit appears in CVP analysis, this analysis is not confined to profit seeking businesses. It is equally useful for non-profit seeking organizations as well. The backbone of CVP analysis is the characterization of profit equation for a firm. Let us assume that a firm sells its output for a unit price of ‘P’ and let ‘V’ be the unit variable cost. Also assume that ‘F’ represents the fixed costs and ‘N’ represents the number of