# Growth rate

• May 27th 2009, 03:37 AM
sevvastian
Growth rate
A company projects that it receives no profit (zero) in a period. However, it receives the profit in the amount of 300 currency units.

What is the difference between the actual result and plan in percentage? Say, if it projects a profit of 200 and the actual profit is 300, we get (300-200)/200=50% , the actual result is 50% better than the plan.
But what is the percentage result if the beginning value is zero?

Helpe me please! Some say this has no solution. I don't believe it's that bad!
• May 27th 2009, 03:47 AM
pickslides
plan is 0 profit and actual profit is 'a' where $a>0$, so by your calclation projected profit is $\frac{a-0}{0} = \frac{a}{0}$.

This has a zero divisor and cannot be defined.
• May 27th 2009, 05:19 AM
sevvastian
So, there is no solution to this problem and this company's performance cannot be expressed in percent in this case?
• May 27th 2009, 02:46 PM
pickslides
There is no way of finding a percentage increase where the baseline number is zero.
• May 27th 2009, 11:05 PM
sevvastian
Thank you!