Petr Novak, MSc., Department of Enterprise Economics, Tomas Bata University Zlin, Mostni 5139, Zlin, 760 01, Czech Republic
The paper objective is to analyze relations between changes in business environment and activities performed by the enterprises and their cost structure. In last two decades, changes in the structure of costs have been analyzed by numerous authors. The aim of this paper is to analyze those alterations in conditions relating to Czech enterprises. Attention is primary paid to the portions of direct and indirect costs, but also to other cost categories. Another objective is to analyze the factors affecting an enterprise’s cost structure.
Three sources of data are to be used for the analysis. Firstly, a review of the literature on this subject will be performed. Many authors have been concerned with the issue of the changing structure of costs and related consequences. Such sources will be used as a theoretical basis and then compared with other research results. Secondly, two surveys have been conducted by the Tomas Bata University, gathering data about the cost structure of hundreds of companies in the Czech Republic. Thirdly, a detailed analysis of costs has been carried out in the past two years at several industrial companies, so as to describe the structure of costs, activities performed, and their relations. These analyses will be used to define the links between cost structure and the activities performed.
Two major results are described in the paper. The first is the comparison of the established cost structure in present Czech businesses with that of the rest of the world. The second is to analyze the relations between changes in operations and activities in Czech enterprises as well as their cost structure.