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Cost management a strategic emphasis
We have written this book to help you understand the role of cost management in helping an organization succeed. Unlike many books that aim to teach you about accounting, we aim to show you how an important area of accounting, cost management, is used by managers to help organizations achieve their goals.
An important aspect of cost management in our text is the strategic focus. By strategy we mean the long-term plan the organization has developed to compete successfully. Most organizations strive to achieve a competitive edge through the execution of a specific strategy. For some firms it is low cost, and for others it might be high quality, customer service, or some unique feature or attribute of its product or service. We know in these competitive times that an organization does not succeed by being ordinary. Rather, it develops a strategy that will set it apart from competitors and ensure its attractiveness to customers and other stake¬holders into the future. The role of cost management is to help management of the organization attain and maintain success through strategy implementation. Thus, for every major topic covered in our text there is a larger issue, which is: "How does this organization compete? What type of cost-management information does it need?" We do not cover a cost-management method simply to become proficient at it. We want you to know why, when, and how the technique is used to help the organization succeed.
A strategic understanding of cost management today is so important that many senior financial managers and many CPAs—both in public and in private practice—are coming back to school to learn more about strategy, competitive analysis, and new cost-management techniques. Knowing how to do the accounting alone, no matter how well you do it, is by itself no longer sufficient. Cost management with a strategic emphasis is one way to enhance your career and to add value to your employer, whatever type of organization it might be.
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