Wiley Cost Management Series – serie

A practical guide to the ABCs of ABB This unique resource takes an in-depth look at creating valuethrough activity-based budgeting (ABB). As most organizations aredissatisfied with some aspects of their performance, ABB has becomean increasingly popular process for which many companies areabandoning traditional methods that no longer meet their demands.Emphasizing the importance of budgeting by activities and featuresrather than by cost elements, Driving Value Using Activity-BasedBudgeting offers a complete overview of feature costing, atechnique used in conjunction with ABB, as well as the underlyingprinciples of ABB, including linking strategy to activities,forecasting revenue, capacity management, and gap analysis. Withnumerous examples and case studies, it shows how to usestate-of-the-art tools for achieving strategic goals, such ascustomer survey, core competency analysis, benchmarking, house ofactivities, reverse engineering to cascade strategy so everyone canact to create value for the organization. In today's highly pressurized business environment, creating valueis the number one priority for organizations. The key to achievingthis is having a budget and accounting system that supportslong-term goals. More and more organizations are now turning toactivity-based budgeting (ABB), an innovative approach that canhelp organizations become more competitive by linking the budgetingprocess to organization strategy. Explaining the importance ofbudgeting by activities rather than by cost elements, thisgroundbreaking resource--the first book of its kind--is a practicalhow-to that covers the essentials of Driving Value UsingActivity-Based Budgeting. Beginning with an overview of the fundamentals behind drivingvalue, James Brimson and John Antos examine what exactly value is,how it is created, and why traditional planning and budgeting oftenlead to the destruction of value. Following a clear outline of theproblems posed by the traditional budgeting process, the authors goon to explain that many companies have contemplated abandoning italtogether. In doing so, however, they must set performance targetsand identify actions to achieve the targets: "Once those actionsare implemented, there is a need to monitor the execution.Therefore, to drive value creation, organizations are implementingactivity-based budgeting (ABB)." This comprehensive guide offersin-depth coverage of ABB and feature costing, a technique used inconjunction with ABB. ABB creates value by translating the businessstrategy into the activities necessary to implement that strategy.Feature costing creates value by understanding sources of productand customer variation and relating this variation to expectedworkload. Along with the benefits of using ABB and feature costing,Driving Value Using Activity-Based Budgeting addresses suchessential topics as:* Translating strategy into a process and activityframework--performing activities and cross-functional processesthat support strategy and assessing current performance againststrategic goals* Forecasting revenue, volume, and workload--customer demographicsand needs, the competition exploding a bill of activities,determining workload for special projects* Capacity management--capacity defined, managing capacity,capacity management methodology, handling excess capacity* Getting started--creating a business process budget, budgetreview panels, rank and select activities, cost budgetedactivities Filled with numerous examples and case studies, a completeglossary, and an appendix of target-setting techniques, this ismust reading for everyone in your organization since allparticipants must continually ask themselves how they create value.

* A practical, cost-effective guide to ABC for small to medium companies.* Identifies the key cost related issues in organizations and shows how to develop a cost-flow structure that reflects the organization's cost behavior.* Feature an ongoing case study throughout the book documents the model-building process.* Provides a spreadsheet model blueprint that details data flows.* Shows how a cost model of an organization can be developed using basic spreadsheet software on a PC.

"We believe the results of this work deliver up some valuable lessons for any company thinking about ABM, about to start ABM, or recovering from a failure with ABM. . . . We hope our views on the pitfalls that impede successful implementation of ABM help the reader and that by book's end, you'll be as convinced as we are that ABM can be a key weapon in today's international business arena."-from the Preface Now revised and expanded, Activity-Based Management covers the tools and techniques needed to implement ABM as smoothly as possible and use it to its maximum potential over the long-term. Along with revealing case studies from companies across industries, this comprehensive resource includes thirty lessons to be learned in three crucial areas: starting off right, developing the pilot, and moving from pilot to mainstream. Instrumental in decreasing or eliminating misallocation and misinformation, activity-based management (ABM) is a discipline that focuses on the management of activities as the route to improving the value received by the customer and the profit achieved by providing this value. While a host of Fortune 500 and other growth companies are using ABM, not all are doing so with maximum results, demonstrating clearly that proper application requires certain tools and techniques. The fundamentals needed for the effective deployment of ABM are presented and explained in this comprehensive resource, now completely revised and updated. Edited by Steve Player and David E. Keys, with cases written by members of Arthur Andersen's Advanced Cost Management Practice, Activity-Based Management defines what kind of organization should employ ABM, why it should be implemented, and how it can link with other improvement initiatives to enhance a company's management performance. Along with straightforward guidelines on ABM do's, Player and Keys offer important details on the don'ts, highlighting thirty lessons to be learned in three crucial areas: getting off to the right start, developing the pilot, and moving from pilot to mainstream. Covering potential pitfalls, as well as what to do to overcome them, the authors pinpoint such problems as unclear objectives, misallocation of costs, inadequate software, and poor project management. For a frontline perspective, Activity-Based Management features revealing case studies from various corporations. Presenting their experiences with ABM and activity-based costing (ABC), these firsthand accounts examine a wide range of topics, including using storyboarding to develop ABM systems, how to use ABM for profitability, using ABM to support reengineering, and using ABC for target-costing, activity-based budgeting, and benchmarking. In addition, the next wave of tools are examined. These include customer profitability, revenue profitability, performance management systems, target costing, and reporting ABC information. Packed with proven strategies and practical tips, this accessible and exhaustive resource is indispensable reading for anyone looking to implement activity-based management smoothly and successfully. Jacket Design: Andrew Liefer.

Incorporate the Benefits of Activity-Based Costing into the Efficiencies of Your SAP R/3 SystemGiven SAP's dominance in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market, many companies and their managers encounter SAP AG applications in some form or another. Many of these organizations have recognized the value of utilizing Activity-Based Costing/Management concepts to perform more accurate cost assignments or drive performance initiatives. Managers are then faced with trying to determine how Activity-Based Costing can be incorporated into the SAP environment. The 123s of ABC in SAP is the first book of its kind designed to help business managers understand the capabilities of the SAP R/3 business application to support Activity-Based Costing, Management, and Budgeting.Divided into three parts-the conceptual foundation, the capabilities of SAP ABC, and integration with other tools-the book provides readers with the following:* An explanation of how Activity-Based Costing can be used with SAP* Helpful hints for implementing ABC into SAP* Insights into the most common difficulties and potential solutions when implementing ABC into SAP* Summary tables that highlight key decisions to be made, implementation hints, and organizational challenges* Detailed descriptions of SAP software applications to support the Activity-Based Costing approach as well as the integration of SAP R/3 with Oros software* Examples of the tandem usage of Resource Consumption Accounting with Activity-Based Costing

Three things can happen when establishing a product price. A price set too high is a lost sale that could have been profitable at a lower price. A price set too low is rewarded with unprofitable work. Only when a price is set appropriately does a company make both a sale and a profit. Just as activity-based costing and activity-based management revolutionized the cost accounting world, activity-based pricing will bring a disciplined approach to developing pricing. Activity-based pricing examines the relationships between price, cost and sales volume and how this relationship effects profitability. Pricing for Profitability joins the disciplines of marketing, economics, business strategy, engineering and cost accounting to achieve maximum profitability.

Proven strategy for reducing production and operating costs while increasing profits As the growth of the Internet shifts power to consumers, the pressure on companies to keep prices low will continue to mount. Increasingly corporations are relying on "margin management" and supply chain management as a means of keeping prices low while raising profits. Activity-based costing and management (ABC/M) data is key to succeeding in both these critical management strategies. This book explains how executives can effectively use the information furnished by cutting-edge ABC/M systems. The author, an acknowledged expert in the field, clearly defines the ABC/M system and explains how to use the information it provides for best results. He provides a rational framework for understanding the fifteen key defining characteristics of ABC/M and arms readers with an ABC/M Readiness Assessment test along with extremely user-friendly exhibits.