Management Control for Decision Making

Aims of the course

1. to define management control and management control tools
2. to understand management control information
3. to discuss decions made upon management control information

Course syllabus

1. Defining management control
1.1. Definitions from different authors
1.2. Defining efficiency and effectiveness
1.3. Defining decisions and decision-making
1.4. Communicating strategy, strategic objectives and results to all employees
1.5. Relationship between management control and planning: Planning as the basis for management control

2. Management control tools: providing right information for decision-making
2.1. Historical development of management control tools
2.2. Management control tools classification

3. Activity-based costing and management
2.1. Cost distortions in traditional costing systems
2.2. Activity based costing (ABC) as opposed to traditional costing
2.3. Cost drivers
2.4. Activity based management (ABM)
2.4.1. Cost driver analysis
2.4.2. Activity analysis
2.5. From ABC to ABM
2.6. Case study on ABC/ABM

4. Outsourcing decisions: Deciding when to subcontract to outside companies
4.1. Defining the concept of outsourcing decisions
4.2. Analysis: Examples of ‘make or buy’ decisions

5. Target costing and Kaizen costing
5.1. Target costing: Management control during development and design
5.1.1.Target cost definition
5.1.1.1. Price-based cost targets
5.1.1.2. Early cost planning
5.1.1.3. Cross-functional involvement
5.1.2. Target cost process (Implementation) in product/service planning and production
5.2. Kaizen costing: Management control during operations
5.3. Case study on Target Costing use

6. Life-cycle profitability and cost of quality
6.1. Life-cycle profitability: The long-term view
6.1.1. Customer view
6.1.2. Product/service view
6.2. Relationships among life-cycle costing, target costing and kaizen costing
6.3. Cost of quality
6.3.1. Prevention costs
6.3.2. Appraisal costs
6.3.3. Internal failure costs
6.3.4. External failure costs

7. Relationship between management control and integrated performance management
7.1. Traditional and non-traditional performance measures
7.2. Diagnostic and interactive control
7.3. Introduction to integrated performance management
7.3.1. Basics of the Balanced Scorecard
7.3.2. Financial perspective
7.3.3. Customer perspective
7.3.4. Internal perspective
7.3.5. Learning and growth perspective
7.3.6. Other integrated performance management systems (IPMS)

Course director(s)