Should Manitoba Hydro Go Beyond Budgeting?

Budget management analysis is used by mangers as a tool and helps determine that all resources available are being used efficiently. The budgets are determined yearly and are based upon the previous year’s budget and variances. This paper will discuss specific strategies to manage budgets within forecast, compare five to seven expense results with budget expectations, describe possible reasons for variances, give strategies to keep results aligned with expectations, recommend three benchmarking techniques, and identify those that might improve budget accuracy, and justify the choices made.

The budget process is a powerful planning tool for government to make important resource decisions. According the Carney and Schoenfeld‘s article on How to read a Budget, an operating budget is a reflection of government’s financial plans. When a budget is

Another concern identified, is the utilities expense budget for utilities in Year 9 which is $150,000. This amount is identified as a fixed amount and is unrelated to actually production activities and manufacturing efficiency. Considering that production levels and activity fluctuates throughout the year, the budget for utilities should be a variable item. An example; from Year 7 to Year 8, the utilities expenses increase by $15,000 and with this detection, ways to reduce this expense should be investigate. Another concern is a duplicated line item under the Selling, General, and Administrative Budget for Utilities and Utilities and Services. Another issue for concern, Total Variable Cost was reported to be lower; however was not enough for the lack of sales combined with an increase in advertising and transportation which resulted in an overall negative result. The low Net Sales directly impacted the Contribution Margin which decreased by $49,397. Overall, these concerns indicate the need for a flexible budget with variance analysis.

Finally recommendations for the future of the firm will be based on the case study and analysis of Spruce Lake with explanations as to why these were recommended.

This research paper is a brief discussion of budget management analysis. Budgeting is the key to financial management, and is the key to translates an organization goals or plan into money. Budgeting is a rough estimate of how much a company will need to get their work done, and provides the basis for evaluating performance, a source of motivation, coordinating business activities, a tool for management communication and instructions to employees. Without a budget an organization would be like a driver, driving blinded without instructions or any sense of direction, that’s how important a budget is to every organization and individual likewise (Clark, 2005).

Manitoba Hydro is a large business employing more than 6,483 full-time employees across Manitoba (2). Manitoba Hydro’s net

For this task I will be discussing the effects of un-monitoring cost and budgets, and seeing how business could suffer if they are not look after responsibly. I will show disadvantages of not using this method properly.

The federal budget of Canada is constantly evolving to accommodate the ever changing issues of society. Building a budget for an individual can be tricky, but when building a budget for an entire country it can be detrimental to some citizens. Making cuts in one area can make huge impacts whether positively or negatively to a group of people. I think increasing government spending in the child care program would help almost all citizens of the country in one way or another. Increasing the child tax benefit will assist families to move out of poverty and allow for children to grow up in

The assessment task is due on the date specified by your assessor. Any variations to this arrangement must be approved in writing by your assessor.

The city of Huron public works has been evaluated through a QSPM matrix to come up with several strategies that would be effective to the organization. A QSMP matrix is “an analytical technique designed to determine the relative attractiveness of feasible alternative actions. This technique comprises Stage 3 of the strategy-formulation analytical framework; it objectively indicates which alternative strategies are best” (David, David pg. 378). There were many strategies tested in the QSPM matrix to come up with the top two strategies, which are building a new water treatment plant or remodeling the current water treatment plant. In order to decide which strategy was best fitted both of the strategies were put into an EFE and an IFE matrix. The outcome of an EFE and IFE matrix, SWOT analysis, and QSPM matrix, will determine which strategy will be best to implemented for the City of Huron.

A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.

A big part of WWR’s business revolves around the creation of a reliable budget, based on the above characteristics and focuses of the firm. When creating budget’s with clients, there is a lot of work that goes into making sure it is accurate and efficient. In our interview we were informed that a large part of making a budget with a client is getting their input on it. The use of participatory budgeting is very key in these scenarios to make sure that they are as accurate as possible. In addition to just making sure that it is accurate, WWR cited that a sense of ownership is another positive benefit that comes from participatory budget. Having a strong client relationship is vital to the business that WWR does, so rather than just presenting their business units with a budget, giving them a voice in the creation of it goes a long way.

Budgets serve five main purposes; planning, facilitating communication and coordination, allocating resources, controlling profits and operations and evaluating performance and providing incentives. The budgeting process requires both technical and interpersonal leadership skills to achieve each of these purposes effectively. The director’s memo demonstrates several short comings in the budgeting process. The director instituted the “responsibility accounting system” as a means of evaluating performance. However, the DPW director has not consulted Sam in the budget process. Sam understands that his total expenditures are impacted by relatively unpredictable events that contribute to an uncontrollable element of his cost. The

Consequently, Target exceeded only 10 of its 20 goals, but a few goals were shy of the actual goals set (See Successes, Challenges, and Setbacks). “We fell short in more places than we would have liked…we’ll look at our material issues, our resources and the business and societal changes we’d like to see to inform the goals and metrics we set for the future” (Target, 2015).

The 20’s century saw the use of budget involve due to a change in the environment. Indeed the control of output used to be obtained by the dissemination of tasks and so traditional budgets were very much highlighted, with a significant top-down influence. As an example of the importance of budget in the 1970’s IBM had about 3,000 people involved in their budgetary process. During the same period, the oil crisis brought concerns about rising in costs and led to the introduction of zero-based budgeting (ZBB), which can lower cost by avoiding blanket increases or decreases to a prior period’s budget. The increase in business uncertainties was in discrepancy with the stifling effect of fixed plans, promoting the use of rolling budgets. The 1990’s saw the growing influence of shareholders and steered the focus on a budget that included a wider view of organisation results, answering the investment community for quarterly updates on results and expectations (Bill Ryan, 2005). Budgets then started being used as a communication tool between the financial community and the organisation, allowing the corporation to be integrated in the capital market. Moreover companies started using flexible budgets rather than static budgets as nowadays various levels of activities can be observed in most organisations. The use of flexible budgets then enables firms to be consistent with their new environment and the market.