"costdata can often save a trip to the business consultant!"
Interview with Frank Weinert, CEO of costdata GmbH
A stringent cost calculation is an essential basis for competitive pricing. This, in turn, requires a reliable data base, the procurement, extension, and ongoing updating of which poses challenges for many companies. At this point, the company costdata, whose know-how is particularly in demand in times of rapidly rising prices, provides support.
Already in the development phase, a company must calculate exactly what the product will later cost in order not to miss the market – this has become a matter of course, not only in times of differentiated target costing systems. Yet too often, this objective is not fully accounted for, because sometimes there simply isn't a reliable data basis.
Reliable market data instead of management consulting
An important step towards solving this issue is the offering from costdata GmbH. This company provides comprehensive software tools for product cost calculation as well as detailed and current databases with information on labor, capital, and manufacturing costs, specifically for various regions and industries. Additionally, there are extensive consulting services. With this, the data specialist has become an indispensable partner in internal decision-making for many of its customers.
"In the future, we want to impact our clients' companies even more deeply and save them the trip to the management consultant, especially when it comes to increasing their competitiveness," describes Managing Director Frank Weinert the future vision of costdata.
A Benchmark for Competitiveness
"It is not uncommon for a company to be reflected in the market that the quoted prices for a certain product are too expensive and thus not competitive," Frank Weinert begins to describe the basic problem. "This feedback reaches the decision-making process via the sales staff, while the development and manufacturing departments often counter that the required prices are due to the general cost reality and are quite usual for the market. To resolve this conflict, a consultancy firm is often brought in, which consumes a lot of money and, in the best case, only offers a decision based on reliable benchmarks. This is exactly what a look at costdata can do today – without this unnecessarily long slog."
Especially in times of generally rising prices, the company's know-how remains in high demand: "Lately, we have often created half a dozen market analyses per day, on the basis of which our clients could reliably assess whether the price increases of their suppliers were justified by the general market developments – and the challenges in cost calculation will continue to increase," says Frank Weinert.