Pallas Pharma: Profits Down Despite Flat Revenue
Consulting
easy45 min0 submissionsMorgan Stanley
Scenario
Pallas Pharma is a specialty pharma business in US. The CEO has asked for help understanding a sharp fall in profitability.
Revenue moved from $458 M to $444 M over the past year, while operating margin fell from 17% to 11% — a drop of 6 percentage points and roughly $29 M of operating profit.
What the finance team has established so far:
- Sales volume changed by +4%
- Average realised price changed by -6%
- Input costs per unit rose 16%
- Fixed overhead rose 11%
The COO believes the problem is "the sales team discounting too aggressively". The Head of Sales believes it is "procurement failing to control input costs". The CEO wants an evidence-based answer, not an argument.
Supporting data
drivers
- volume change pct
- 4
- fixed overhead change pct
- 11
- realised price change pct
- -6
- input cost per unit change pct
- 16
profit bridge
- revenue last year m
- 458
- revenue this year m
- 444
- operating margin last pct
- 17
- operating margin this pct
- 11
Your task
Diagnose the profit decline and recommend a response. Provide:
- Analysis — structure the problem and isolate what actually drove the margin fall.
- Risks — what your recommendation depends on.
- Recommendation — prioritised actions with expected impact.
Show the arithmetic behind your conclusion.
Ready to move forward? Up next: Should Corveta Motors Enter Brazil?Next question
How you'll be graded
100 points, 60% to pass.
- root cause25
- recommendation25
- problem structuring25
- quantitative analysis25
Hint
Reveal suggested structure
Profit = (Price × Volume) − (Variable cost × Volume) − Fixed cost
- Decompose the change: how much of the margin fall is price, how much volume, how much unit cost, how much overhead?
- Size each driver before forming a hypothesis.
- Test the two stakeholder claims against the numbers.
- Prioritise by size of impact and speed of fix.