Offering a multidisciplinary roadmap for the design, development, and implementation of a strategic cost system, this book shows how to design a cost system to become a more effective decision-making tool and a source of competitive advantage for the organisation. It describes how to structure a cost systems design project and discuss the issues that should be addressed upfront from a management, operations, and costing perspective. Includes a URL site containing key terms and helpful Excel templates. Highlights the logistics of putting together and managing the project team. Addresses the technical and political issues that may arise as the project unfolds.

During the past years, the limitations of traditional cost accounting systems in today's competitive environment have been widely documented. This text provides material that enables the reader to analyze the defects of existing, traditional systems and offers advice on designing systems.

An indispensable guide for managers concerned with cost, strategy, and business re-engineering. Experts on the strategic use of cost data, the authors show how stategic cost management is revolutionizing accounting practices in leading companies. Includes numerous examples. 120 line drawings.

Providing valuable insight into the latest practice and design philosophies, this collection of readings and cases analyzes the defects that exist with traditional cost management systems, and shows how to design systems that will benefit a wide range of organizations. Opens with a thorough introduction to cost systems - with discussions on their use, product and process costing, operational control, financial reporting, and strategic relevance - and explores target costing, and ABC and product design and development. Considers the foundations of activity-based costing, including its necessity for companies, cost hierarchy, and activity attributes, and dedicates entire sections to the use of cost systems for managing customer and supplier relationships, and for designing and developing new products. Second Edition features include many new cases and a critical study of service industry and activity-based budgeting. For management consultants, CFO's, and controllers.

Costing Systems provides a structured overview of costing system research to explain the co-existence of different costing practices. This body of research has come to prescriptive conclusions, which will of be valuable and insightful to practitioners designing costing systems and managers using reported cost data. The monograph is structured around four primary purposes of cost measurement: decision-making, cost management, inventory valuation for financial and tax accounting, and control and performance measurement. Part 1 of the monograph relates to the production or supply choices made by costing system designers. Part 2 moves onto the demand side for cost information. This monograph aims to be useful both to novices in the costing field who are searching for a primer on this literature as well as for people familiar with the literature who are interested in a structured overview and thoughts on where future research avenues may lead.

Today's technological advances are directly affecting the success of business tomorrow. With recent-- and continual--improvements in technology, many organizations are finding their information systems obsolete, and are having to take a close look at their current Information Systems and answer some tough questions, including: How well are our current Information Systems applications meeting the business needs today? How well can they meet the needs of our business tomorrow? Are we obtaining true value from the investments made in Information Systems? Are we integrating the Information Systems projects that provide the most value to business? What Information Systems mission, objectives, and strategies are necessary to successfully meet the business challenges of the future? A Practical Guide to Information Systems Strategic Planning helps take the "guess work" out of evaluating current and future Information Systems, and provides the necessary tools for maximizing the investment made in new technology. This invaluable guide shows readers how to take advantage of the latest technology available in Information Systems planning, and how to develop a solid Information Systems plan that is directly linked to their business' goals. In an easy-to-follow, hands-on format, this complete reference describes a process for facilitating communication between business management and the Information Systems functions. Both Information Systems Executives and general business executives will find the information they need to develop a successful, value-added Information Systems plan. Readers will find a step-by-step approach to the process of developing an Information Systems plan that helps them gain a competitive edge well into the future.