Cost Analyst

Cost Analysts research and evaluate costs for a company’s various departments and projects. Cost Analysts can work for a small company or a multibillion-dollar corporation, but either way, their role is very important, and its significance weighs the same to whoever the owner is. That’s because, as a Cost Analyst, you let the business know if it can handle growth, if it can take on that extra account or new project, if it can hire more employees, or if it can afford the current cost of the business at all. Your importance lies not just in the present, but also in the future of the company.

On a daily basis, you crunch numbers, write up reports on your findings, and provide support for cost-reduction plans. Your reports can make or break a new venture, and put a stop to or encourage the progress of current operations. Depending on how large the company is, you may be in charge of all cost analysis, or just one department’s or project’s. You shed light on the reality of things, and give good and bad news every day.

A big part of your process involves market research. You take into account not only how the company is doing, but also how the entire market for that particular venture is doing. Supply, demand, bear and bull markets—they’re all important to you, and you can decipher them like no one else.

And this is where the other main component of your job comes in: translation. You write up regular reports for your Managers, and explain in layman’s terms what the state of the company and its future financial prospects are.