By the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

• Understand the nature of business strategy
• Understand and apply various Management Accounting techniques appropriate to developing and monitoring strategy, including: value - chain analysis; accounting for competitive position; costing product attributes; modern approaches to costing and cost management - especially activity based costing; processes and problems of performance measurement, including the balanced scorecard approach; the balanced scorecard as a tool for implementing business strategy
• Understand the historical development of business strategy and the roles of accounting in that development
• Demonstrate a technical grounding in recent and current approaches to using management accounting systems to support the development and implementation of business strategy
• Understand the use of strategic cost analysis and shareholder value analysis through such techniques as Customer Profitability Analysis, Direct Product Profitability and Shareholder Value Techniques
• Demonstrate a critical awareness of accounting in its organizational context, the strengths and limitations of strategic planning, and the roles of accounting within strategy formation and practice
• Apply management accounting tools and methods for strategic management by products, responsibility centers and activities
• Design performance measurement system supporting strategic, tactical and operations level of management
• Prepare management reports for strategic performance analysis and suggest steps to issues solution
• Demonstrate an insight into possible new alignments between strategy, accounting and decision-making
• Understand and evaluate potential future developments across the strategy / accounting / management interface in the light of historical and current trends
• Achieve continuing professional development (CPD) while updating their management accounting skills
• Understand the nature of modern strategic management and the roles played by accounting in both supporting and shaping it
• Develop your technical understanding of the range of ways in which accounting is deployed to achieve both supporting and shaping outcomes
• Have an insight into the way in which management accounting can add value to a business through a more positive and proactive involvement in the strategic decision making process
• Understand the way in which many financial techniques can be used strategically to enhance or evaluate competitive advantages

Introduction to & Definition of Strategic Management Accounting

• Understanding the relations of Strategy to Accounting
• Role of strategic management accounting (SMA)
• Business performance factors and their influence on management and management accounting
• Context of traditional tools and methods of management accounting
• Relationship between management accounting and strategic management tools
• SWOT analysis
• Value chain analysis
• Portfolio analyses                           

 Strategic Performance Measurement

• Basic conceptual approaches to performance measurement
• Criteria and definition
• Revenue and cost analysis for strategic management

The Calculation of Costs and Prices

• Target costing, establishing a target price and its relation to the pricing strategy
• Life-cycle costing (LCC), context, pros and cons
• Life-cycle contribution assessment and its impact on investment projects
• LCC and management of research and development costs

Implementation of Strategic Management Performance Tools

• Costing system for tactical and operational level
• Strategic, tactical and operational levels of analysis (standard costing and variance analysis)

Activity-Based Management

• ABM, Value/Based Management, Just-In Time, Total Quality Management
• Activity-based accounting tools: ABC, ABB, zero-based budgeting, customer-profitability analysis

Quality Management

• Management accounting and its relationship to internal audit and total quality management
• Quality and quality management as a corporate performance issue
• Identification and optimization of quality costs

Management Control Systems

• SBU performance measurement
• Centralization and decentralization from the perspective of strategic management
• Understanding the relations of Strategy to Accounting: Strategy as accounting
• Organizational structures and strategic management information support
• Balanced Scorecard Performance Management Systems, including the Balanced Scorecard
• Performance Measurement
• Management and Improvement in Service Businesses
• Strategic Management
• Risk Management
• Leadership, Change and Management Accounting

Senior managers with responsibility for or involvement in the development or implementation of competitive strategy, Financial managers with a close involvement in a different functional area (e.g. marketing accountants), Finance staff providing supporting information for strategic decisions