Literature Review On Cost Management

Assuming that the company’s goal is to maximize profits, the current cost system is not an appropriate tool for strategic planning. The ambiguity of the overhead costs per product makes it difficult to accurately analyze the cause and effect relationships of changes and/or improvements to specific product line.

"Strategic management is a set of managerial decisions and actions that determine the long-run performance of a corporation" (Wheelen & Hunger, 2006, p.3). The benefits of strategic management helps the firm focus on the objectives and develop the steps involved in obtaining the vision and financial wealth of the organization. An effective strategic management plan should include the following three questions: (1) Where is the organization now? (2) If no changes are

Cost has traditionally being a major influence on all business as all businesses desire to achieve maximum efficiency as it is a vital factor for businesses in order to reach the ultimate goal and success. Businesses sees cost as the key value to success and aims to become as much cost efficient as possible, by implementing a cost-leadership style approach to the operations variable cost or fixed cost ,while maintain the expected profit margin, business is able to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors in their target market. This is called cost-based competition. By determining the break-even point and applying cost saving strategies, to reducing cost, businesses who apply cost-based competition in their operations is able to maximize the profits and lead business to success.

Pearce, J. A. II, & Robinson, R. B. (2009). Strategic management: Formulation, implementation, and control (11th ed.). [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved August 20, 2011, fr

Strategic Management is the theory and practice of making decisions that shape the future of the firm. This course looks at the content and process of strategic decision making from the perspective of managers who are responsible for an entire business unit. These may be individuals who are acting in the capacity of a Chief Executive of a company, divisional General Managers, or departmental heads. It is also the perspective most

Various terms are used to describe costs. Having an understanding of these terms will provide a better insight to managers and companies on making budget decisions, efficiently. Not only the ones described above should be considered, but also all types of costs related to the decision in effect. Efficient managers will considered all aspects related to the analyses in question.

Cost allocation is a very crucial procedure for many companies- not just production companies, but also in companies that provide service. Cost allocation has one purpose and that is to enable the determination of the cost of a product per unit in production companies and the cost of a provided service in service companies. Therefore, methods for cost allocation directly affect the service or product profitability assessment and at the same time sway segment and company profitability. The main problem is the choice of the cost allocation accounting approach. There are certain methods for cost allocation that do not apply the same to every company. If the method for

Session 1 Date September-4 Topic Introduction, overview, group assignment, product costing systems (concepts and design) Process costing systems Managing and allocating support service costs Inventory decisions Strategic issues in investment decision Managing quality and time to create value Midterm Exam Cost management and strategy The nature of management control systems Understanding strategy Strategy, balanced score card, incentive systems Organizational design & responsibility accounting Case presentation Case presentation Case presentation Case written report is due at the beginning of session 13 Final exam Chapter 1 (H) Chapter 1 (A) Chapter 2 (A) Chapter 20 (H) Chapter 18 (H) Reading Chapter 2 (H)

Cost leadership strategy is used by firms to surpass their competitors by reducing their cost from production of goods or services and is part of the business level strategy (Hills et al, 2007). There are four factors that influence a company’s ability to build and sustain a competitive advantage: efficiency, quality, innovation and responsiveness to customers. These factors allow a company to (1) differentiate its product offering to create greater perceived customer value and (2) lower its cost structure, which will then build a competitive

Pearce and Robinson describe strategic management as the art of making complex, long-term, future-oriented decisions and taking actions that result in the formulation and implementation of plans designed to achieve a company's objectives. The process focuses on the belief that a firm's mission can be best be achieved through a systematic and comprehensive assessment of both its internal capabilities and its external environment (Pearce & Robinson, 2005). In the article Strategic Management, the strategic management process is described as the implementation of the company's strategy by executive management considering its resources, circumstances, and environment to position the organization to complete is mission in a

Bhimani, A., Horngren, C., Datar, S., Rajan, M. et al. (2012) Management and Cost Accounting. 5th ed. Edinburgh: Prentice Hall, p.369 - 378.

The purpose of this paper is to answer a few important questions: Why do companies allocate costs? How do companies allocate costs? And how this cost allocation can affect the decision making of the company. It is important for the companies to find the proper method to allocate the costs. Cost allocation is an important issue in many companies because many of the costs associated with designing, producing and distributing products and services are not easily identified with the products and services that are created. It would have been easier for companies to allocate cost if costs were directly traceable with the products and the cost allocation would have been minor issue for the company. The decision-making

A successful cost leadership strategy usually provides the entire firm with high efficiency, low overhead, limited perks, intolerance of waste, intensive screening of budget requests, and wide span of control efforts. However, some risks of pursuing this strategy are that competitors might imitate the strategy, thus, driving overall industry profits down; that technology breakthroughs in the industry may make the strategy ineffective; or that buyer’s interest may swing to other differentiating features besides price.

According to an accounting textbook, cost is defined as a resource sacrificed or foregone to achieve a specific objective. It is something given up in exchange. It is necessary for project managers to understand project cost management since project costs money and consumes resources.

Managerial costing time line Used with permission by the author A.van der Merwe Copyright 2011 All Rights Reserved.