by Robert S. Kaplan, Robin Cooper
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Product Description
Two of the most innovative thinkers in the field present a work that represents the single best resource for understanding and implementing activity-based cost management. Kaplan and Cooper reveal that most companies don't know how to measure accurately, influence, or understand the fundamental cost drivers in their businesses. They then provide a detailed and comprehensive blueprint that will enable managers to make better decisions and to promote organizational learning and improvement. Cost and Effect takes the management, finance, and accounting fields to an entirely new level, as the authors demonstrate how the principles of activity-based costing and other advanced cost management techniques, such as target and kaizen costing, can drive business performance. Using lively examples from a variety of leading companies worldwide--including Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, the Swedish wire manufacturer Kanthal, Kirin Beer, and Procter & Gamble--they show how to create integrated, knowledge-based systems that provide meaningful information on current and past performance. The innovation systems described in Cost and Effect will help you:
* Determine where improvements in quality, efficiency, and productivity will have the highest payoffs.
* Assist front-line employees in their learning and improvement activities.
* Make better product mix and capital investment decisions.
* Negotiate more effectively on price, product features, quality, delivery, and service to promote win-win relationships with your customers.
* Choose low-cost suppliers who are truly low cost, not just low price.
* Design products and services that meet customers' expectations-and that can be produced and delivered at a profit.
* Integrate your activity-based cost system into reporting and budgeting processes to reveal the sources of excess capacity. Everyone involved in running a business-from general managers and strategic planners to financial executives, IT professionals, and operations managers-must read this book to learn how innovative cost and performance measurement systems can enhance their organizational profitability and performance.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Classic work on activity-based costing, management and strategy, 2007-12-18
Robert S. Kaplan and Robin Cooper's work on activity-based costing has achieved the status of a minor classic in managerial accounting literature. First published in 1997, it explained why activity-based costing has advantages not only for accounting, but also for management and strategy. Moreover, it linked the advantages of activity-based costing to what, at the time, seemed to be novel ideas about economic value added and enterprise systems. Nearly 10 years after its initial publication, the book seems surprisingly fresh and relevant (notwithstanding the authors' enthusiasm for the "information age" and the potential of enterprise systems). The authors present the case for activity-based costing in a clear and straightforward manner. The book is well-organized and surprisingly free of jargon. We recommend it as a good introduction to managers who are new to the subject. Even those familiar with the concept and practice of activity-based costing may find useful reminders of basic principles in this book.
5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
 What's good in it?, 2004-10-25
First of all, this book doesn't give the pleasure of good reading. C'mon, what kind of pleasure do you expect from a 500 pages book with very small fonts?
I would like to review on pages 183-189 regarding case at Kanthal. It said that according to ABC calculation, Kanthal has found that customer #199 records loss, unfortunately customer #199 is in the top three in terms of sales volume. If ABC is really a good tool, then Kanthal should fire customer #199. But Kanthal didn't do that. They don't believe in ABC?
Customer #199 implemented JIT and they've got substantial improvement in productivity and efficiency. With JIT concept they place order to Kanthal in small quantity and frequent orders. According to ABC, this makes the cost for Order-to-cash activities at Kanthal is quite high, so that it eats the margin.
The funny thing, the book said JIT is appropriate in Japan, not in Sweden. Don't they look at automotive industry around the world that successfully implement JIT?
So what's the solution described in the book? The solution is to cut the cost of order-to-cash activities by using electronic B2B concept. And it claims that customer #199 turns to be profitable for Kanthal after that. So simple and...so wrong!
Maybe ABC calculation shows that result is good at Customer #199 level. But still, the company bottom line remains the same. Do they cut sales persons' salary? No. Do they fire a sales person who handle customer #199? No. Do they reduce transportation cost? No.
Probably by using B2B, there's small fraction of cost saving on order processing activities, but it won't be significant enough to increase the net profit for the company.
If B2B does reduce the cost of order processing cost significantly, why they don't use it for all customers?
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
BEST ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITY BASED COSTING AND HOW TO GUIDE, 2003-11-23
Kaplan and Cooper have put together an outstanding guidebook for managers to follow in order to reap the most significant benefits from activity based costing and other cost management techniques. The great merit of this book is that it does not preach to the reader the latest management fad, but rather goes through a thorough analysis of budgeting processes, highlighting benefits and drawbacks of each. They do not claim ABC is the best approach, and even praise some simpler methods that are more adequate for certain companies. Instead, they point to the circumstances in which ABC can provide outstanding results to companies.The book structured first with an analysis of the most often used systems of managerial cost accounting. It highlights the shortcomings of these, proceeding then to present certain productivity improvements that could contribute to performance. These are mostly related to the quality movements (TQM, 6 Sigma, etc), which are presented in a very understandable way. These are complements to the existing usual cost management systems. These improvements can be made even without implementing ABC systems. Then the authors proceed to describe activity based costing and its benefits in terms of choosing customers, suppliers, and product breadth. They present many examples that would be very relevant to any practitioner, in industry or service. There is a specific section focusing on services, which makes the appropriate adaptations to the systems for the peculiarities of it. Overall, an outstanding work, to help anyone involved in cost management, whether they are interested in activity based costing or more traditional standard costing methods.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
The very best book on activity-based management., 2002-10-25
I have read this book cover to cover and have re-read chapters. Kaplan ensures that you grasp the fundamental concepts by keeping things simple. He illustrates the concepts with easy to understand examples. I gained very little knowledge from the first 3 ABM books I read, but after reading "Cost and Effect," I felt that I had a good enough grasp of the fundamentals to actually implement a costing system.
5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Cooper and Kaplan: my heroes, 2001-12-27
After reading several academic papers concerning activity based costing I still wasn't convinced about the usefullness of the methodology. After reading Cost & Effect I revised my opinion on Cost Management. This book gives all the answers to effective Cost Management. It takes you from the ABC Age to the Activity Based Management Age and clearly helps you to understand what costs are alle about. Once you really understand the topics of this book you will be able to face and manage costs in whatever business you are in. Read it!
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