Who We Are

Dedicated to making world-class cost management accessible to every business, from our home in Porto to clients around the world.

Our Story

Founded in Porto, Cost and Profitability Consulting was born from a simple vision: to bring Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) within reach of every business, regardless of size.

Our founders, Miguel Guimarães and Irina Costa, recognized that many SMEs and mid-market companies lacked the tools and expertise to truly understand their cost structures. They partnered to create a consulting practice that combines deep technical knowledge with pragmatic implementation methodologies.

Today, we serve businesses globally, helping them unlock profitability insights and make data-driven decisions. Our work is grounded in rigour, transparency, and genuine partnership with every client.

Professional consulting workshop

Our Mission

Make world-class cost management accessible to every business, enabling informed decisions and sustainable profitability growth.

Our Approach

Hands-on, data-driven, and tailored TDABC implementation that fits your business reality, not a one-size-fits-all template.

Our Values

Transparency, rigour, and partnership. We believe in honest dialogue, meticulous work, and relationships built on trust and results.

Meet the Founders

Miguel Guimarães

Miguel Guimarães

Founder & TDABC Specialist

Engineer by training, Miguel founded Cost and Profitability Consulting to bring Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing to SMEs. With global client experience, he leads our methodology development and client engagements. He is also the co-founder and the architect behind CostCtrl, the most innovative cloud-based AI-driven software to implement TDABC.

Irina Costa

Irina Costa

Co-Founder, Admin and Business Development

Irina drives the administrative and commercial side of Cost and Profitability Consulting. With a strong background in business management, she oversees client relationships, partnerships, and operations, ensuring every engagement runs smoothly from first contact to final delivery.

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Industry Solutions

Healthcare Cost & Profitability

Understand true procedure-level costs, optimize capacity utilization, and improve margins across departments with TDABC for healthcare.

15-25%Typical Cost Reduction
30-40%Idle Capacity Identified
200+Procedures Analyzed per Facility
3-6 moImplementation Timeline

The Healthcare Costing Challenge

Healthcare organizations face unique complexity: hundreds of procedures, shared resources across departments, varying patient acuity, and regulatory pressures on pricing. Traditional cost allocation spreads overhead evenly, hiding the true economics of each service line.

Why Traditional Costing Fails in Healthcare

Most hospitals allocate overhead using simple metrics like patient days or revenue ratios. This treats a routine blood draw the same as a complex cardiac procedure for overhead purposes. TDABC traces actual resource consumption, revealing that some high-revenue procedures barely break even while simpler services generate outsized margins.

Our Healthcare TDABC Approach

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Process Mapping

Map every clinical and administrative process for each procedure type: patient intake, preparation, procedure time, recovery, follow-up, documentation, and billing. Identify all resource touchpoints.

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Time Equations

Build time-driven equations that capture how resource consumption varies with patient complexity, procedure type, and clinical protocols. Account for setup time, active time, and idle capacity.

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Resource Costing

Calculate the cost per minute for each resource group: physicians, nursing staff, OR suites, imaging equipment, lab facilities, and support services. Include personnel, equipment, and facility costs.

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Department Analysis

Analyze profitability at the department level, identifying which service lines create value and which consume more resources than they generate. Map interdependencies between departments.

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Patient Segmentation

Segment patients by acuity, payer mix, and resource consumption patterns. Understand how different patient populations impact departmental and facility-level profitability.

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Capacity Optimization

Quantify idle capacity in OR suites, imaging centers, and clinical staff. Develop strategies to improve throughput, reduce bottlenecks, and optimize scheduling.

Success Story: Multi-Specialty Hospital Group

The Challenge

A 5-facility hospital group with 12 departments needed to understand why overall margins were declining despite growing revenue. Department heads each claimed profitability, but the organization was losing money.

28%
Improvement in capacity utilization across key departments

The Outcome

TDABC analysis revealed that outpatient orthopedic procedures were generating 3x the margin of inpatient cardiac services, which consumed 40% more nursing resources than allocated. By optimizing scheduling and reallocating resources, the group achieved a 15% cost reduction and 28% better capacity utilization within 8 months.

Healthcare Outcomes Comparison

AreaBefore TDABCAfter TDABC
Procedure costingAverage cost per departmentPrecise cost per procedure type
Capacity visibilityAssumed full utilizationQuantified idle time by resource
Service line decisionsRevenue-based rankingTrue profitability ranking
Pricing negotiationsCost-plus estimatesProcedure-specific cost data
Resource allocationHistorical budgetsActivity-based optimization

Transform Your Healthcare Cost Understanding

Stop guessing about procedure profitability. Get the precise cost visibility you need to make confident strategic decisions.

Request a Healthcare Assessment