Activity-Based Management

Whether you are a manufacturer, distributor, or provider of services, you'll learn how to quickly set up the best method for getting fast, real-time, detailed cost data. By putting to work the techniques outlined in this handbook, you will finally acquire the kind of team-based information that today's up-and-coming companies need in order to identify - and control! - the real costs of your products. Through the use of "activity drivers," you'll discover and reduce the hidden costs incurred by development, waste, employee downtime, and marketing. And you'll join such successful companies as AT&T, Black & Decker, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, General Motors, and the many others that are using activity-based management right now with dramatic results.Activity-Based Management can help any business owner or manager make his or her company much more profitable. You'll learn how to spot the true winners and losers in your product or service mix; speed up "what if" forecasting and accurately predict financial results; identify up to seventeen missed opportunities for cost reductions; know when to outsource - and when to keep the work in house; improve accuracy in bidding, estimating, and pricing; set up incentives to motivate everyone to operate more efficiently; and design more cost-efficient products or services at a competitive price.