Question - Upper Central Consultancy (UCC) wishes to bid for a market research project. The cost estimates on which UCC will base its bid are shown below:
- 275 hours work in initial data collection and preparation of research questionnaire. The hours are broken down as follows:
- 135 hours are available from existing staff that are not currently utilized. Their total employment cost is £22 per hour.
- 140 hours will have to be bought in from a Temporary Staff Agency for a cost of £16 per hour.
UCC's in-house existing library resources will be utilized to provide data for the project. The research data that will be used was purchased some months previously at a cost of £2,050. The data has never been used before and is unlikely to be used again. An additional updated report will however have to be purchased at a cost of £500.
Printing and postage of questionnaires will incur a cost of £1,100.
The in-house computer processing facility will process returned questionnaires. The computer facility makes an internal charge of £2,000 for each survey it processes.
The consultancy will have to purchase a specialist software package to undertake the sophisticated statistical analysis required at a cost of £1,750 and incur training costs of £600 to learn how to use the package. The package may be used again in the future.
A manager will be involved in the detailed planning, design and logistics for the research. The management time has been costed at 14 days @ £550 but he is very busy and will have to be remunerated through overtime at an additional cost of £3,500 in order for him to carry out other work that he is committed to complete.
A partner will supervise the whole project. An estimate of her time has been costed at £1,600 although the consultancy will not incur any additional costs for the project.
Using all of the above information, calculate the cost for the market research project based on absorption costing principles. Please detail all of your work.