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.

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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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Profitability Analytics

The Whale Curve: Visualizing Hidden Profit

Discover how the Whale Curve reveals that your most profitable customers often subsidize significant losses from unprofitable accounts.

80/20Typical Profit Concentration
150-300%Peak Cumulative Profit
20-40%Customers Destroying Value
InstantStrategic Clarity Gained

What Is the Whale Curve?

The Whale Curve (also called the Cumulative Profitability Curve or Stobachoff Curve) is a powerful visualization that ranks all customers from most to least profitable, then plots cumulative profit. The distinctive whale-like shape reveals a universal truth about business profitability.

The Hidden Reality

In virtually every organization we analyze, cumulative profit peaks at 150-300% of reported net profit. This means your best customers generate far more profit than your bottom line shows, because unprofitable customers erode it back down. The Whale Curve makes this invisible cross-subsidization dramatically visible.

Anatomy of a Whale Curve

Top 20%
Middle 45%
Bottom 35%
Profit Generators: Create 150-250% of total profit
Marginal: Near break-even, high volume but thin margins
Value Destroyers: Erode 50-150% of generated profit
▲

The Ascent

Most profitable customers drive cumulative profit steeply upward. These are your strategic accounts: they consume resources efficiently, order predictably, and generate strong margins. Protect these relationships at all costs.

▬

The Peak

Cumulative profit peaks well above your reported net profit, typically at 150-300%. This peak represents your true profit potential if you could eliminate or transform the unprofitable tail. The gap between peak and reported profit is your opportunity.

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The Descent

Unprofitable customers pull cumulative profit back down to your actual bottom line. These accounts cost more to serve than they generate in revenue. Small orders, special handling, excessive support, and custom requirements drive hidden costs.

How to Build Your Whale Curve

1

Map Activities

Identify all activities involved in serving customers: order processing, production, delivery, support, returns, custom work. Use TDABC to calculate the cost of each activity per time unit.

2

Assign Costs

Trace activity consumption to each customer based on actual resource usage, not arbitrary allocation. Include direct costs, indirect support, and overhead driven by customer behavior.

3

Calculate Profit

Subtract true cost-to-serve from revenue for each customer. This reveals individual customer profitability with a precision that traditional methods cannot achieve.

4

Rank and Plot

Sort customers from most to least profitable. Plot cumulative profit on the Y-axis against customer count on the X-axis. The whale shape emerges immediately.

5

Segment

Divide customers into three zones: profit generators (protect), marginal (improve), and value destroyers (transform or exit). Each segment requires a different strategic approach.

6

Act

Develop targeted strategies for each segment. Protect high-value relationships, reprice or restructure marginal accounts, and address unprofitable customers through service redesign or strategic exit.

Key Metrics to Track

Peak %Peak cumulative profit as % of net
Crossover% of customers before profit declines
Tail LossProfit destroyed by bottom segment
GiniProfit concentration coefficient

Strategic Actions by Segment

SegmentCharacteristicsStrategic Action
Profit Generators (Top 20%)High margins, efficient ordering, predictable demand, low support needsProtect with premium service, deepen relationships, offer loyalty programs, never compete on price alone
Marginal (Middle 45%)Revenue contributors but thin margins, average complexity, growth potentialIdentify improvement levers: consolidate orders, standardize service, adjust pricing, automate processes
Value Destroyers (Bottom 35%)High cost-to-serve, small orders, excessive customization, frequent returns, heavy supportReprice to reflect true cost, restructure service model, set minimum order values, or managed strategic exit

See Your Whale Curve

Every business has a whale curve. Most just cannot see it. Let us build yours and reveal the hidden profit patterns in your customer base.

Request a Free Assessment