This book, probably the first written from the perspective of software professionals, attempts to introduce them to the mysteries of strategic managerial accounting (SMA). The common view in the industry is that "accounting is for the accountants", despite the fact that IT professionals are regularly confronted by financial situations such as project pricing, performance measurement, risk estimation, costs allocation etc. While it is desirable and even necessary that every proposal be vetted by respective specialists, the speed and reliability of the process could improve if the people who originate the proposal had knowledge of the fundamentals that go into the decision making. Unfortunately most books on management accounting, whether strategic or otherwise, are written from the perspective of the manufacturing industry. The IT and services industry on the other hand has a unique cost structure, quite distinct from manufacturing, which needs to be dealt with from a different perspective. This book focuses on SMA in context of the IT software industry, and seeks to equip the IT professional with some basics of SMA to assist them in making more informed decisions.

Increasing business competition is compelling managers not only to develop realistic and achievable strategies but also to analyze goals in financial terms and to evaluate performance. But where do you, as a manager, learn about the key methods and techniques of strategic cost analysis? This text explains in simple language the methods and techniques of cost analysis that can be applied strategically at any level in an organization—be it manufacturing, service, or the nonprofit sector. Since the interaction of the organization’s activities, the influences of the external world, and your responsibilities as a manager need to be captured in financial terms to help plan, control, and make decisions, this book is what you’ll require in today’s world.

This book is intended for practitioners, students, and researchers who are interested in designing, using, assessing, and researching performance management systems. Managerial personnel involved in such activity will hold many beliefs about how their organization functions. This text uses the philosophy of pragmatic constructivism to show how managerial beliefs that underlie action can be made explicit and so facilitate their assessment and improvement. This involves recognizing and integrating the four dimensions (facts, possibilities, values, and communication) that represent how managers relate to the reality in which they operate. When managerial beliefs are based on an accurate representation of reality, they are more likely to be successful. Problems occur where reality is misrepresented in managerial beliefs. This is especially so in performance management, as the book illustrates using real-world examples. Specific topics addressed include planning and decision making, performance management of investment center managers, strategic performance management, and operational performance management.

It would generally be safe to assume that finance and accounting especially strategic managerial accounting (SMA) would be anathema to the software professional. This book, written from the perspective of a software professional, attempts to address that belief. SMA is a prognostic as well as a diagnostic tool and therefore useful for making key day-to-day decisions. However the common view, especially in the IT industry, is that accounting is for the accountants, despite the fact that IT professionals are regularly confronted by financial situations such as project pricing, measuring performance, estimating risk, allocating costs, and so on. This means that every proposal needs to be vetted by the respective specialists. While this may be desirable and even necessary, the speed and reliability of the process could improve if the people who originate the proposal had knowledge of the fundamentals that go into the decision-making process. Another distinguishing feature of the IT and services industry is their unique cost structure, quite different from the manufacturing industry on which traditional managerial accounting is based. Different categories of the industry such as software products, software development (outsourcing), online services, and IT-enabled services have their own distinct cost structure requiring different metrics. The situation is becoming further differentiated as most IT companies shift to the cloud and software ownership is replaced by licensing. These aspects are not adequately addressed by existing books on managerial accounting which are generally manufacturing centric. The online services and mobile app industries constitute the fastest growing and most exciting segment of this industry. However there is hardly any published literature in this area for the software lay person. One chapter is entirely devoted to this subject. This book focuses on strategic managerial accounting in context of the IT software industry, where activities are typically organized as projects which have specific goals and finite life. It seeks to equip the IT professional with some of the knowledge and skills that are generally delegated to the managerial accountants, in an attempt to assist them in making more informed decisions.

Modern management for the fulfilment of sustainable development goals requires support provided by controlling, especially 'green controlling', whose core focus is on environmental and social issues. This book presents controlling within the concept of sustainable development as an element contributing to the increase of enterprise value. The authors of this monograph have explored topics in connection with environmental and social determinants, at the same time presenting their financial consequences for company business. As a result, the publication demonstrates, in the theoretical dimension, that activities undertaken in an organized and coordinated fashion with a view of sustainable development goals may and should be regarded in connection with finance.