外文翻译--战略成本管理：价值链的角度

外文翻译--战略成本管理：价值链的角度 外文翻译--战略成本管理:价值链的角度 本科#毕业#设计 外 文 翻 译 外文题目 Strategic Cost ManagementThe Value Chain Perspective 外文出处 Journal of Manangement Accounting Research 19924 179-197 外文作者 Jone kShankVijay Govindarajan 原文 Strategic Cost ManagementThe Value Chain PerspectiveWhen Ernst Young surveyed more than 23000 senior members of the US Institute of Management Accountants on cost management and measurement in 2003it elicited a number of confusing resultsAlthough 80 per cent of the respondents rated cost management as strategically important 98 percent admitted that their current practices in that area were leading to cost distortionsThree-quarters reported that they werent significantly constrained by a lack of in-house technical accounting skillswhile nearly 80 per cent agreed that the introduction of new management accounting initiatives was no more than a medium priority for their organisations If so many respondents were reporting that cost management and by extensionmeasurement was important that their current methods were flawed and that they had in-house skills to solve the problem why were so few doing anything about itWe believe that many of the companies covered in the survey had already tried – and failed - to improve their cost measurement methods The rule of thumb is that 70 per cent of such projects do not achieve their long-term objectives Most are abandoned within two years as a result of "death by detail" and a lack of involvement from the operational side of the organisation Operational managers often ask for "better financial transparency so we know which levers we can pull that will have the most beneficial effect on the business" Because the word "financial" is used in such requests they tend to be passed to the CFO Unfortunately these levers drivers of activities are not found in the general ledgerchart of accounts or cost-centre structureThey are found in the operational data Strategic cost management is the deliberate alignment of a firms resources and associated cost structure with long-term strategy and short-term tactics Although managers continue to pursue efficiency and effectiveness within the firmincreasingly improvements are obtained across the value chain through reconfiguring firm boundaries relocating resources reengineering processes and reevaluating product and service offerings in relation to customer requirements Structural cost management employs tools of organizational designproduct design and process design to create a supply chain cost structure that is coherent with firm strategy Executional cost management employs measurement and analysis tools _eg cost driver analysis supplier scorecards_ to evaluate supply chain performance and sustainability Using selected studies in accounting operations management and business strategy we provide an overview of strategic cost management highlight contemporary developments and suggest directions for future research Shank and Govindarajan posit that two types of cost drivers are the basis for strategic cost management structural cost drivers that reflect organizational structure investment decisions and the operating leverage of the firm and executional cost drivers that reflect the efficacy and efficiency of executing the strategy Stated differently structural cost management may be conceived of as a choice among alternative production functions that use different inputs or combinations thereof to meet a particular market demand Executional cost management is concerned instead with whether for a given production function the firm is on the efficient frontier Tomkins and Carr link the two modes of cost management positing that cost driver analysis is a catalyst for improving existing processes _ie executional cost management_as well as a catalyst for reengineering processes to create a different cost structure _ie structural cost management_ Structural and executional cost management have always been central to profitable firmsIncreasingly firms are applying principles of strategic cost management to the supply chain as an important avenue for profit growth Structural cost management opportunities are evident in partner selection processes in the way that governance and control systems are designed to align partner interests Executional cost management opportunities are evident in the performance measurement and management processes that are used to evaluate and improve transaction-level performance relationship-level performance All these factors were on our minds when the CFO of Barclays UK Retail Bank asked us to create financial transparency including end-to-end process capacity and cost measurements differentiated by product and channel across the organisation We knew that doing this would depend on achieving operational transparency so that was our starting point We duly found a reasonable customer segment data structure a product family data structure an organisation data structure captured by cost centres and a resource data structure captured by the general ledger chart of accounts Butalthough a process data structure was key to the CFOs end-to-end process cost requirement we were unable to find one Stage one data structure Some people refer to a data structure as a taxonomy similar to that which describes relationships in the animal kingdom The main reason for needing a process data structure is that the process defines the customer experience It is also the basis for capacity and cost measurementBuilding a process data structure was our first step towards establishing operational transparency We called our Structure the process classification framework We mapped activities in all departments to a process in the frameworkWe also identified more than 30 channels through which customers could contact the bank and through which it could contact them - eg face to face in branches on the telephone online via cash machines etc When the process is connected to the channel the end-to-end process is defined Stage two data control Our primary control for financial data was the general ledgerWe needed a comparable control to validate operational dataReconciling the demand for capacity to the supply of capacity became our controlCapacity represents resources -ieemployees andor equipment There is a demand for capacity and a supply of capacity They are defined using the following equations Demand for capacity in time activity volume X process time Supply of capacity in time number of full-time equivalent resources people or equipment x average days at work in a year x average time available to perform the primary work by subtracting time required for meetings and breaks for people and maintenance for equipmentManaging supply and demand is crucialtoo little capacity will result in customer dissatisfaction and lost business while too much will result in costly and uncompetitive processes Because demand for capacity can be computed without knowledge of supply and because supply of capacity can be computed without knowledge of demand the reconciliation of demand and supply validates these two independent sets of operational data and becomes the primary control for operational data transparency Secondary controls include accounting for all volumes and all resources and use of the data by salesdistribution and operations Stage three application The sales process provides an example of how we have been integrating the process classification framework supported by demand and supply data quality controlTo this end we have Established a working relationship with the sales management team Using the banks standard list of products and processes drafted a survey seeking the average times taken by the sales team to work on each product and process -eg selling fulfilment and servicing Tested out the survey with two or three sales associates Conducted the survey with focus groups representative of the whole sample Collated the data removed outliersreconciled demand and supply obtained approval from sales team and sought permission to present the findings to the head of the department The presentation of this operational data becomes another control because it demonstrates that the sales team accepts the data Our experience at Barclays has taught us that operational transparency which is a prerequisite for financial transparencycan be established by combining a process classification framework with operational data control The project we worked on to achieve this has also highlighted idle capacity process times that could be improved and non-selling activities performed by the sales team Another benefit from this approach to financial transparency is that it can improve the management accountants ability to speak the language of the sales distribution and operations functions - and to learn more about the drivers used in financial transparency During the last years issues of strategic management accounting have received widespread attention in the accounting literature Yet the conceptual foundation of most proposals is not clear This paper presents a theoretical analysis of one of the most prominent approaches of strategic management accounting ie Target costing We analyse three distinct characteristics of this strategic management accounting tool namely its market orientation its use as co-ordination instrument and its interaction with other factors affecting long-term cost structure in the form of strategic learning The analysis shows that the more strategic dimensions are added to the problem of cost management the less valid are strategic management accounting proposals in terms of the usual way target costing is employed The more strategic factors are included in the problem of long-term cost managementthe less clear are the relationships between these factors We showed this for three aspects usually considered important in the literature on strategic management accounting namely learning processes employee incentives and market orientationThe analysis also hints that results concerning target costings applicability to various industries may depend on the kind of learning prevalent in these industries In the light of our resultsthe numerous contributions to the literature exploring target costings use in different industries may seem quite justiBut clearly some empirical investigation is needed to support this view The third feature results from the fact that target costing is considered a strategic management accounting system This implies that its main focus is on long-term cost management rather than the short-term focus adopted by more traditional cost accounting systems Consequently we can summarize target costings three distinct features as market orientation effort co-ordination and long-term cost managementFrom a theoretical point of view these three characteristics give rise to a number of questions The approach used by target costing to accomplish market-orientation is the subtraction method Though of some intuitive appeal one might wonder why cost-reducing efforts should cease exactly at the point prescribed by this procedureThereforethe subtraction method can only be justi This implies a trade-off between expenditures on costly efforts today in order to reap future bene The second question we want to address concerns target costings function as a co-ordination tool How can design engineers be motivated to exert the cost-reducing efforts necessary to bring standard costs in line with allowable costs This question obviously concerns the rms internal incentive structureIn particular it must be assumed that the design engineers will not supply cost-reducing efforts for free but must somehow be compensated for these efforts Furthermore the engineers will generally have better information about a products cost-saving potential than corporate or division headquarters trying to co-ordinate these cost-reducing efforts The third question concerns target costings value as an adequate tool for successful long-term cost management To address this issue we have to consider that cost-reducing efforts during the design stage are by no means the only factors affecting long-term product costTaking a broader perspective this point concerns the question of interdependencies between factors considered important for long-term cost management such as the method used target costing and other factors affecting long-term cost learning Obviously because of the numerous interdependencies between the issuesthese questions can only be addressed simultaneously Our main result is that a simultaneous analysis of market orientation co-ordination and long-term cost management in the framework of target costing can yield Unfortunately cost management skills are in short supply As the earlier quote makes clear strategic cost management skills are in high demand For management accounting educators this is both a threat and an opportunity Although traditional tools of executional cost management remain important in an economy that is the midst of radical restructuring and structural cost management is rarely about mastering a set of tools Indeed Mintzberg argues quite emphatically that we have overemphasized tools at the expense of a richer understanding of business context Technique applied with nuance by people immersed in a situation can be very powerful But technique taught generically out of context encourages that rule of the tool Give a little boy a hammer and everything looks like a nail Structural cost management is relevant for both accounting majors and general business students With structural cost management skills and the broader framework of the value chainaccountants are more likely to earn a place at the top management table where strategy is developed And unlike traditional cost accounting much of which has been displaced by technologystructural cost management requires analysis that is neither routine nor repetitiveOf course features that make structural cost management skills the purview of knowledge workers also make it challenging _but also rewarding_ to teach In sum although our review indicates promising developments in accounting research on both structural and executional cost management in supply chains we believe that accounting education must make comparable strides in augmenting executional cost management training with teaching aimed at building structural cost management skills The broader mandate of strategic cost management applied to the full value chain enlarges the domain of management accounting research and education SourceJournal of Manangement Accounting Research1992 4 179-197 译文 战略成本管理价值链的角度 当安永会计师事务所于2003年在成本管理与测量中调查了超过23000名美国管理会计师协会高级成员它引出许多混淆的结果虽然80的受访者认为战略上的成本管理是重要的但98的受访者承认在那个领域他们现行的方法会导致成本扭曲四分之三的人声称他们并没有因为缺乏的内部的技术会计技能而受到限制而近80的人同意引入新的管理会计措施只不过是为了他们组织更具优先地位 如果这么多的受访者说成本管理并推而广之是重要的他们目前的方法有漏洞而他们有内部技巧来解决这个问题为什么做的却这么少呢我们相信调查中涉及的许多公司已经尝试提高他们的成本计量方法并且失败了经验上有70的项目无法达到他们长期的目标大多数在两年内由于致命细节和缺乏参与该组织的运作方面而被遗弃了 业务经理经常提出由于更好的财政透明度所以我们知道采取什么手段能在业务上产生最有利的影响因为财务这个词语使用于这类请求所以他们往往要传递到CFO不幸的是这些手段 驱动程序的活动 在总账会计科目表或成本中心结构中并未找到他们在业务数据中被发现 战略成本管理是一个企业的资源长期战略和短期战术相关的成本结构虽然管理者继续在公司内部效率和效益通过重新配置企业边界搬迁资源再造流程重新评估有关的产品和服务产品以客户的要求整个价值链改善假定这两种类型的成本驱动的战略成本管理的基础反映组织结构结构性成本驱动投资决定与公司经营杠杆成本驱动和执行人员反映的有效性和执行战略的效率不同结构性成本管理可能被设想作为替代生产函数中使用不同的输入或它们的组合以满足特定 市场需求选择执行人员成本管理方面不是对于给定生产函数该公司是在有效前沿链接成本管理的两种模式成本动因是改进现有进程的催化剂结构性成本管理成本管理结构和执行人员一直是公司的核心盈利公司运用战略成本管理的原则来作为利润增长的重要途径 第二阶段数据控制 我们对财务数据进行主要控制的是总账我们需要相当的控制来验证操作数据调和供应需求的能力成为我们的控制及时需求的能力 活动量X处理时间及时供货的能力x一年中的平均工作时间x平均可用时间中减去执行会议和人们休息和设备维修所需时间管理供应和需求是至关重要的能力太少会导致客户的不满并丢掉生意第三阶段 销售过程中我们提供了一个如何整合过程分类框架支持需求和供应数据质量控制为此我们有 建立了与销售管理团队的工作关系 利用银行的产品和工艺清单起草了一份调查销售团队工作在每个产品和过程的平均时间检验两三个销售代表的调查 以集中代表的整个样品开展该调查 收集整理的数据移除异常值越战略因素长期的成本管理问题这些因素之间的关系不清楚我们发现了战略管理会计文献中通常被认为重要的三个方面从事实的结果第三个特征被认为是一个目标成本战略管理会计体系这意味着它的主要焦点是长期的成本管理而不是短期通过传统的成本会计系统 因此我们可以总结目标成本的三个显着特征市场导向努力协调和长期成本管理从理论的角度看这三个特点带来一的问题通过目标成本实现市场导向是减 法的方法虽然一些直观的吸引力有人可能会奇怪为什么降低成本的努力应停止正是在这点规定的程序第二个我们想陈述目标成本的作用是作为一个协调的工具如何才能设计工程师可以主动地发挥降低成本的必要努力使之符合标准允许的成本费用这个问题显然涉及RM的内部激励机制特别是它必须假设设计工程师将不免费提供降低成本的努力但必须以某种方式得到补偿这些努力此外工程师一般会更好的了解一个产品的成本节约潜力 第三个问题是关于目标成本的否成功的长期成本管理的工具我们的主要结果是以市场为导向协调和长期成本管理目标框架不幸的是成本管理技能是供不应求早些时候的表明战略成本管理技能有很高的需求管理会计教育工作者这既是一个威胁一个机会尽管执行人员成本管理的传统工具仍然是重要的在一个经济结构重组中结构性成本管理是很少掌握了一套工具事实上明茨伯格强调我们过分强调在更丰富的业务范围内的理解工具 人们运用技术的差别使沉浸在一种形式可以非常强大但是一般地教技术断章取义的鼓励给一个小男孩一把锤子一切看起来像一个钉子 结构性成本管理是会计和随着结构性成本管理技巧和价值链框架会计师更容易赢得策略设计与开发的最高管理层的一席位 不像传统的成本会计其中大部分已经技术结构性成本管理需要的分析既不是例行的也不重复当然功能结构使成本管理技能的知识工人的范围挑战虽然我们的审查表明会计研究无论是在供应链的结构和执行人员的成本管理充实教学建筑结构与成本管理成本管理技能的执行人员的战略成本应用到整个价值链的管理更为广泛的任务扩大管理会计的研究和教育领域 - 1 -