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Displaying 1-30 of 39 results
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Activity Value Management (AVM) in Greater China
- Article
- 01 Oct 2023
- Anne Wu
Activity value management, a cost management system, has helped many companies save money and improve performance. Anne Wu explains how she built up the system through 33 years of integrating academic research, teaching, and practical implementation in the manufacturing and service sectors.
Exclusive
How to improve quality with software
- Article
- 01 Aug 2023
- Michelle Bangert
Software drives many of today's manufacturing trends. The article discusses how software can play a crucial role in improving manufacturing quality, amid challenges like labour shortages. It emphasizes the importance of using software's capabilities to drive continuous improvement in manufacturing processes, highlighting that even a small investment in education and feature adoption can lead to substantial cost savings and enhanced efficiency.
Exclusive
Cost cutting to make you stronger
- Article
- 01 Jul 2023
- Vinay Couto, Paul Leinwand, Sundar Subramanian
How the most resilient companies position themselves to grow - by seeing costs as investments, and weeding out the poor investments while keeping the good ones. The authors provide five critical steps for succeeding at cost transformation.
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A balanced approach to optimize working capital
- Article
- 01 Jul 2023
- Don Freitas
The article describes a balanced approach to improve available working capital. Don Freitas suggests that the three pillars of working capital optimization should be: release cash, reduce cost, and improve service. He discusses how to improve inventory-related factors that can contribute to poor working capital performance and explains some solutions to improve working capital optimization.
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Traditional vs contemporary management accounting practices
- Article
- 01 Jun 2023
- Lu Jiao, Kevin Baird, Abubakar Nuraddeen Nuhu
Results of a survey examining the direct and moderated effects of traditional and contemporary management accounting practices on organizational performance and competitive advantage. The survey investigated the effectiveness of several practices, including: capital budgeting, standard costing, activity-based management, balanced scorecard and strategic cost management.
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How AI and automation can streamline procurement
- Article
- 25 Apr 2023
- Cliff Saran
The article explains the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in streamlining procurement, reducing costs and dealing with economic slowdown.
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Design thinking for innovation
- Article
- 01 Feb 2023
- Kristine Brands
How management accountants can apply the 'design thinking' approach to innovation to achieve a competitive edge. According to IDEO's Tim Brown, this human-centred approach can be used to integrate people's needs, technology, and business success factors to achieve innovation.
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The key to a successful business scale-up
- Article
- 01 Jan 2023
- Martin Kupp, Jeffrey F.Rayport, Davide Sola
How to master the “extrapolation” stage, when business start-ups begin to focus on profitability, not just growth. The authors share their advice, based on their experience teaching business school courses on scaling up enterprises and their analysis of dozens of rapidly growing start-ups.
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The importance of working capital management
- Article
- 01 Dec 2022
- Logan Arumugam
Tips for practical ways an SME can optimise its working capital without using external finance. Recommendations include making a biweekly, 13-week rolling cash forecast; creating separate cost/profitability models for vital processes; and nurturing customer/supplier relationships, which will positively influence cash management.
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RPA: intelligent evolution of a productivity bot
- Article
- 13 Sep 2022
- Marc Ambasna-Jones
The article discusses that robotic process automation (RPA) software is expected to take people's jobs but is focused on tedious but necessary repetitive tasks. RPA helps in increasing productivity, reducing costs, and freeing up valuable employee time, the key business drivers for automated processes.
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Armanino LLP advises businesses on planning for recession
- Article
- 08 Sep 2022
- Michael Cohn
Advice from business consulting firm Armanino on how to reduce costs without making desperately needed employees redundant. The firm advises clients to look at internal metrics such as cash flow, revenue per employee, average days to close new business and accounts receivable payments.
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Resilience through value-stream mapping (VSM)
- Article
- 01 Aug 2022
- Javvadi H.Rao
The author explains how management accountants can leverage this tool to identify key value-creating opportunities in the business value chain and gain competitive advantage. VSM offers a beginning-to-end view of transactions in terms of value-based pricing and cost optimization.
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A collaboration between operations and accounting at Dublin Airport resulted in the optimization of life cycle costs of fixed assets
- Article
- 01 May 2021
- Dan Bumblauskas, Paul Bumblauskas, Kayla Hahn, Amy Igou, Ben Vaske
How Dublin Airport gained a complete picture of its fixed assets, including more accurate information about potential maintenance costs. Life cycle costing (LCC) was carried out to consider all costs throughout a fixed asset's entire life cycle.
Exclusive
Beyond cryptocurrency: blockchain as a value creator & connector
- Article
- 01 Sep 2019
- Vikrant Viniak
Article looks at three case studies of blockchain use , showing cost savings and value creation mechanism and demonstrating the possibilities for companies reliant on strategic partnerships or those seeking to increase the transparency of interactions
between consumers or business partners.
Exclusive
Don't manage risk - manage value
- Article
- 01 Jun 2019
- Marinus de Pooter
Changing risk standards pave the way for organizations to bring their experts together to pursue opportunities and cope with threats. The internal audit department can act as an independent advisor, connecting experts effectively and helping to reduce silo-thinking. The author recommends that internal auditors use a 'value management approach' which focuses on the quality of decision-making within the organization.
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Effective financial projections for a startup
- Article
- 01 Mar 2019
- Tiffany Hovland
Practical considerations to help startups develop a business plan with meaningful financial projections.
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Can RPA improve agility?
- Article
- 01 Mar 2019
- Pradeep Raju, Rod Koch
The article discusses the use of robotic process automation (RPA) in accounting firms in relation to the notion of agile organizations. Topics include the relation of RPA to the automation life-cycle process in finance, the relation of RPA to compliance and labour productivity, and the calculation of cost savings and return on investment (ROI) for RPA.
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Patient level costing and profitability: making it work
- Article
- 01 Jan 2019
- Gary Cokins, Raef Lawson, Rob Tholemeier
A look at the patient-level cost management analytics approach for healthcare accounting, written from a US perspective.
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Central intelligence
- Article
- 17 Sep 2018
- Rick Popley
How one business reduced costs and increased revenue during the 2008 recession.
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The chief risk officer: it's not just about managing risk costs anymore
- Article
- 01 May 2018
- Graham Bippart
Paul Ingram, Chief Risk Officer (CFO) at Credit Suisse International, gives his views on the remit of his role.
Exclusive
Creating an inventory control center of excellence
- Article
- 01 Dec 2017
- Stephen J. McNally
Stephen McNally was previously a Finance director/controller at Campbell Soup. He explains how his finance team created an Inventory Control Center of Excellence (COE) to improve the company's inventory management and reduce costs.
Exclusive
Free up cash
- Article
- 01 Sep 2015
- Renita Wolf
Renita Wolf covers best practices to help your company manage working capital effectively.
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Tail risk hedging: State of the market
- Article
- 01 Sep 2015
- Gladys Chow, Jerry A Miccolis
The authors discuss managing cost-effective "tail risk hedges" that attempt to mitigate the impact of rare but potentially catastrophic equity market downturns.
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Hanging on the phone
- Article
- 01 May 2015
- Richard Crump
The acquisition of EE will add a new pillar to BT’s triple-play strategy. Chief financial officer Tony Chanmugam explains how cost transformation enabled the telecoms giant's current direction.
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Measuring and managing customer profitability
- Article
- 06 Mar 2015
- Gary Cokins
Find out how to grow the profitability of your customers. An update to Gary Cokin's 2001 book 'Activity-Based Cost Management: An Executive's Guide'.
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Four keys to winning presentations
- Article
- 01 Jan 2015
Most financial controllers are called upon to present information to their management teams, including financial reports, cost-reduction strategies, and budgets. Financial presentations have a reputation for being dry or confusing, but they don't have to be if you follow some key tips.
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How not to cut health care costs
- Article
- 01 Nov 2014
- Robert S. Kaplan, Derek A. Haas
Health care providers are trying to respond to the tremendous pressure to reduce costs; unfortunately their efforts often result in higher costs.
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Enterprise operations and performance management
- Article
- 01 Oct 2014
- Ian Herbert
Ian Herbert explains the lean approach to cost reduction and examines the potential benefits - and risks - for finance departments planning to adopt it.
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Getting lean and mean at Caterpillar with ABM
- Article
- 01 Jan 2013
- Whitney Cox, David G. DeFreitas, John W. Gillett, Ross L. Fink
A profile of the US engineering company Caterpillar's success using activity-based management and costing methodology.
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Process costing and management accounting in today's business environment
- Article
- 01 Aug 2010
- Jennifer Dosch, Joel Wilson
An exploration of how process costing is carried out in industry, based on interviews.
Displaying 1-30 of 39 results
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