The Changing Role of Managerial
Accounting in a Dynamic Business Environment
HOW MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING ADDS VALUE?
· Provides managers with information (e.g., the cost of products, budgets, cash flows). The information includes financial and nonfinancial data to help managers with strategic planning and decision making.
· Assists in directing and controlling (analyzing and comparing actual performance to budgeted plans; attention-directing to highlight successful or problem areas).
· Motivates managers to achieve the organization’s goals by communicating the plans, providing a measurement of how well the plan was achieved, and prompting an explanation of deviations from plans.
Ø Motivation is achieved, in part, through employee empowerment—the concept ofencouraging and authorizing workers to improve operations, reduce costs, and improve product quality and customer service.
· Measures performance not only for the entire organization, as in financial accounting, but also for many subunits (divisions, departments, managers).
· Assesses the organization’s competitive position in the rapidly changing business environment. Looks at how well the firm is doing internally, in the eyes of its customers, from the standpoint of innovation and continuous improvement, and financially.
Ø The preceding factors are integrated in a model of performance evaluation known as the balanced scorecard.
MAJOR THEMES OF MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING
· Managerial accountants often facilitate and influence decisions by providing information, rather than make final decisions for managers.
· To function effectively, accountants must have some understanding of human behavior. People often react to the way accounting information is gathered and reported (e.g., employees who provide input into the budget process often work harder to meet that budget).
· There are costs and benefits associated with management accounting information. Managers must determine whether a new technique or report will yield benefits greater than the cost of obtaining the information.
STRATEGIC COST MANAGEMENT & THE VALUE CHAIN
· More attention is being paid to the value chain—the set of linked, value-creating activities, from conducting product research, to manufacturing, to providing customer service.
ü A number of activities occur prior to the production of a good or service (i.e., upstream activities) and several occur after (so-called downstream activities).
· Managers must understand the cost-causing factors (cost drivers) in an organization’s value chain.
· Managing the cost relationships within a value chain to the firm’s advantage is called strategic cost management.
EVOLUTION OF MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING
· Growth of e-business (including supply-chain management and e-budgeting).
· Growth of the service sector.
· Emergence of new industries, such as superconductivity and genetic engineering.
· Global environment and increasing international competition.
· An increased focus on the customer.
· The growing popularity of cross-functional teams.
· Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) that moves production from a labor-intensive process to an automated process. The accounting system must evolve to provide measurements in a new environment.
· Product life cycles that are becoming shorter to keep up with changing technology and more diverse product lines.
· Time-based competition, which is assuming a greater role in business, with customer-response time and time-to-market being critical factors for the truly competitive enterprise.
· Information and communication technology (the Internet, intranets, cellular technology) that increase the key facts supplied to executives so they can better manage their businesses.
· Programs of continuous improvement that strive to eliminate waste, reduce response time, simplify design, and improve quality and customer service.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
· Continuous improvement is often necessary just to remain competitive.
· A number of management approaches to continuous improvement are widely used, including:
•Just-In-Time (JIT)
• Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Process Reengineering
• Theory of Constraints (TOC)
• Balanced Scorecards (BSC).
These basic approaches to continuous improvement have different emphases, but can be used to complement and reinforce each other.
JUST-IN-TIME (JIT)
· Just-In-Time (JIT) means that raw materials are received just in time to go into production, parts arrive at workstations just in time to be assembled into products, and products are completed just in time to be shipped to customers. In a true JIT system, inventories are almost entirely eliminated.
· In JIT, parts and material are pulled through the assembly process as needed.
· At the final assembly stage, a signal is sent to the preceding workstation as to the exact amount of parts and materials needed over the next few hours for the final assembly of products.
· A similar signal is sent back through each preceding workstation. Thus, all workstations respond to the pull exerted by the final assembly stage.
· The pull approach is in contrast to the push approach used in conventional production control systems. In a push system, work in process is pushed through the factory from one workstation to the next with little regard to when it is actually needed. In a push system, the overriding concern is often to keep all the workstations busy.
KEY ELEMENTS IN A JIT SYSTEM
· Initiate JIT purchasing. Suppliers must deliver defect-free goods in just the right quantity and just when needed.
· Improve the plant layout to reduce the distances work in process must travel. Traditionally, all drill presses are put in one location, all milling machines in another, and so on. Instead, under JIT all of the different machines required to make a major component are often grouped together in a “manufacturing cell.”
· Reduce setup time. This permits a reduction in batch sizes, increases the speed with which a company can respond to customer orders, and reduces the need for inventories.
· Strive for zero defects. When defect rates are high, excess work in process is needed to ensure that enough defect-free goods are completed to meet customer orders.
· Develop a flexible work force. Manufacturing cells contain many different machines that each individual should know how to run.
BENEFITS OF A JIT SYSTEM
The following are often cited as major benefits of a JIT system:
1. Funds that had been tied up in inventories can be used elsewhere.
2. Space is made available for more productive uses.
3. Throughput time is reduced, resulting in better responsiveness to customers.
4. Defect rates are reduced.
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)
• TQM emphasizes an unending series of small, incremental improvements.
• TQM is implemented by teams of front-line workers who identify and solve problems.
PROCESS REENGINEERING
• Process reengineering is a more radical approach to improvement than TQM.
• In Process Reengineering, business processes are completely redesigned to eliminate non-value-added activities, reduce errors, and reduce costs.
• Unlike TQM, Process Reengineering is often imposed from above and often involves outside consultants and specialists.
• Managers must take care that Process Reengineering does not have a negative impact on employee morale.
• Changes imposed from above and by outsiders are often resented and resisted.
• Process Reengineering, by simplifying work and eliminating unnecessary steps, may tempt managers to lay off workers.
THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS (TOC)
• A constraint is anything that limits the ability of an individual or organization to attain its objectives.
• If the factory cannot satisfy demand, the constraint is in the factory. The constraint (i.e., bottleneck) is likely to be the workstation that has the lowest rate of output and smallest capacity.
• The rate of output of the entire factory is determined by the rate of output of the constraint.
• The other, non-constraint, work stations have excess capacity.
• Improvement efforts should usually be focused on the constraint.
• Improvements that increase the rate of output and capacity of the constraint will increase the output of the entire factory.
• Improvements that increase the rate of output and capacity of workstations that are not constraints will simply increase their excess capacity.
• If the current bottleneck is improved enough, the constraint will shift. Improvement efforts should then be shifted to the new constraint (bottleneck).
The Balanced Scorecard
Management translates its strategy into performance measures that employees understand and accept.
Performance
measures
Customers
Learning
and growth
Internal
business
processes
How do we look
to the owners?
How can we
continually learn,
grow, and improve?
In which internal
business processes
must we excel?
How do we look
to customers?
STANDARDS OF ETHICAL CONDUCT FOR MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANTS (adapted from IMA)
COMPETENCE
• Maintain professional competence.
• Follow laws, regulations, and standards.
• Prepare complete and clear reports and recommendations after appropriate analysis.
CONFIDENTIALITY
• Don’t disclose confidential information.
• Ensure that subordinates do not disclose confidential information.
• Do not use confidential information for personal gain or advantage.
INTEGRITY
• Avoid actual or apparent conflicts of interest.
• Refuse gifts, favors, or hospitality that might influence objectivity.
• Refrain from subverting the organization’s legitimate objectives.
• Recognize and communicate personal limitations.
• Communicate unfavorable as well as favorable information and opinions.
• Refrain from actions that discredit the profession.
OBJECTIVITY
• Communicate information fairly and objectively.
• Fully disclose all information that could be expected to influence a user’s understanding.
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