Cost Management Is a Strategic Weapon

Excess capacity, improved productivity and marketplace competition continue to increase with no end in sight. In times like these, lowering your company’s cost structure is more critical than ever before. Finance executives need to take the lead in implementing strategies that lower cost and improve profitability. The low hanging fruit has been picked. Therefore, you now need to look beyond traditional costing practices and focus on strategic cost analysis tools such as target costing, activity-based costing (ABC) and life-cycle costing. This program will show you how to implement strategic cost analysis tools at your company in order to gain a competitive edge and increase your profitability.

Identify industry-wide profits and returns, and evaluate a company’s share of these profits.

Guide the cost reduction process by applying activity-based management, target costing, value chain analysis and life-cycle costing.

Recognize situations in which costing tools such as activity-based costing, life-cycle costing and target costing are most useful.

Learn how to apply activity-based costing to evaluate the profitability of products and customers.

Understand the role of life-cycle costing in pricing decisions.

Understand the origination point and drivers of costs in the internal and industry-wide value chain.

Who Should Attend:

This program is designed for middle to senior managers who are heavily involved in their respective company's strategic decisions and the implementation of these decisions, as well as for CPAs and consultants who provide strategic and financial advice to corporate clients. CEOs, CFOs and other financial personnel as well as managers involved in research and development, product design, production, quality control, and marketing will all benefit from this program.

Strategic Cost Management and the Value Chain

Identify opportunities for cost management or revenue enhancement across the industry-wide value chain.

Activity-Based Costing (ABC)

Identify when ABC is most useful.

Use ABC to evaluate product and service profitability.

Cost Management

Activity-Based Management

Use activity-based costing to guide cost reductions.

Target Costing

Determine a company’s target costs.

Evaluate the role of both suppliers and internal functions in achieving target costs.

Life-cycle Costing

Identify product costs over their life-cycle.

Customer Profitability

Use ABC to improve customer profitability.

Understand the role of life-cycle costing in product pricing and customer segmentation.

Bringing it Together

Identify and avoid the pitfalls of strategic cost analysis tools.

Determine which tools work the best in various situations.

Understand value chain configurations.