The CVP optimizer uses the Markowitz-Sharpe approach as applied to planning, logistics and marketing models to increase profitability of a company’s production and trading activities. Any purchases and sales are regarded to be portfolio investments with predicted returns on the investments optimized.

The program shows how to plan prices and how to schedule product output volume so as to maximize the rate of monetary income flow. The program constructs a graph for a group of products as well as for each individual kind of product taken separately; based on the information on cost price, pricing and demand, the graph represents the relationship of the marginal income expectation and the variable expenses (the variable expenses are understood to be the direct unit cost multiplied by the production volume).

The demand forecast may be based on interval prediction, i.e. a probabilistic forecast, depending on prices as it is well known to be the case in real practice. Each point plotted in the graph corresponds to strictly related specific values of the optimal price, the maximum rate of income flow, the output volume for each kind of product, the variable expenses as well as to parameters for the inventory control system.

The expert can use this program to pre-plan, marketing investigations, forecast and optimize income, ascertain pricing, compare investment projects, optimize the existing inventory control system and make a more accurate estimation of prices for options and futures contracts.

This program can be regarded as a final step in forecasting or as an initial step in planning. If the CVP analysis results provide information about the least acceptable production volume, then for any given market conditions, the CVP optimizer allows to provide an estimate for a realistically optimal volume of the goods produced. This program is capable of using a whole variety of input data sources (Excel).