BKF.com provides banks access to sophisticated financial information and analysis via the web, enabling them to instantly evaluate both personal and commercial loan applications. To better focus on its client services, BKF.com is considering outsourcing some of its internal functions. Its controller, Jenny Lee, suggests starting with the company's internal email system. She recently attended a conference and learned that Continental Airlines, DellNet, GTE, and NBC outsource their email function to companies such as Google and Yahoo. Lee began her analysis by identifying the total costs related to last month's in-house email operation, when there were 3,735 employee mailboxes:
Variable Costs Email license $16,434 Virus protection license $6,723 Miscellaneous $16,434 Fixed Costs Computer hardware $24,651 Total $64,242 Lee analyzed the computer hardware costs further and determined that: 48% were allocated costs that will continue even if the email system is abandoned. 18% were non-personnel direct costs that will be avoided if the email system is abandoned. 34% were monthly salaries for two, equally paid interns who worked only on the email system. Mail.com, a leading provider of internet messaging outsourcing services, has offered to host BKF.com's email function for $14.80 per mailbox.
BKF.com will still need to pay for the virus protection software, and it will need one of the interns to maintain the virus protection and quarantine suspicious emails. Also, another company has agreed to rent some of the computer storage space that will be available if BKF.com outsources its email function for $4,100 a month. Finally, Lee estimates that 4,170 mailboxes will be required per month next year. REQUIRED By how much will BKF.com's monthly profits change if they decide to outsource its email function to Mail.com instead of managing the service internally? (Note: if the buy costs are less than the make costs, enter the difference as a positive number; if the make costs are less than the buy costs, enter the difference as a negative number.