Music

If you order your custom term paper from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on Music. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality Music paper right on time.

Our staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in Music, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your Music paper at affordable prices with cheap essay writing service!

Many organizations are designing and implementing new strategic management initiatives, such as reengineering (Hammer and Stanton, 14). Reengineering and other strategic management initiatives have become popular since the publication of Hammer and Champys (1) Reengineering the Corporation A Manifesto for Business Revolution. However, the cost management system has been almost completely ignored from the discussion. Activity-based management (ABM) is a modern cost accounting and management model that is consistent with the concepts of strategic management and reengineering. ABM is both an accurate cost accounting system and a performance improvement tool (Turney, 11). Like reengineering, ABM focuses on business processes, which are collections of activities or work that result in valuable output. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and implementation of an ABM system. The design and implementation steps are applied to an actual organization.

Overview of activity-based management

Business process reengineering (BPR) is a management tool for redesigning business processes in order to obtain dramatic improvements in performance measures, such as cost and quality. The idea behind BPR is to fundamentally revise all aspects of performing activities, from a revision of strategic goals and operating objectives to an alteration of work methods. Under BPR, work should be focused on processes and not functional tasks. BPR begins with a clear mission statement and continues with a redesign of processes in line with the mission statement.

Activity-based management (ABM) is similar in nature to BPR but adds the analysis of the cost management system. ABM consists of two primary viewpoints a cost view and a process view. Under the cost view, ABM is a cost accounting system (called activity-based costing). It is a system that is used to more accurately determine the full costs of services and products. This system allows for the cost analysis of service activities (such as payroll accounting and duplicating), costs of core activities (such as production processes) and costs of products, services, and other cost objects.

Buy cheap Music term paper

Under the process view, ABM is used to develop financial and non-financial performance indicators for the output of each activity center. The two viewpoints of ABM are summarized in Figure 1. The goal of the cost view is to determine the cost of a product or service, while the goal of the process view is to measure performance. The attractiveness of ABM is that the same information system accomplishes both goals.

The principles of ABM can be used for budgeting, performance evaluation, and resource allocation decisions. Like reengineering, ABM is more concerned with planning and controlling the various activities or processes of a company, rather than its functional tasks.

Under an ABM system, a two-stage process is utilized. Resource costs are first assigned to activities, and then activity costs are assigned to cost objects (see Figure 1). In the first stage, the ABM system is designed to trace costs to activities or processes (i.e. activity centers). All tasks or work performed that result in a valuable output are grouped together into an activity center. Using ABM, the costs of operating each activity center is determined and reported. In the second stage, the costs of activity centers are traced to cost objects (i.e. products, departments, divisions, customers, or other defined services). In both stages, cost drivers are utilized to assign costs. The cost drivers have a causal relationship between the activity and the cost object.

Designing and implementing the process of ABM

Implementation steps

The steps necessary for designing and implementing the process view of activity-based management are outlined below. The steps are based upon procedures espoused by Hammer and Champy (1) and Cooper et al. (1). The steps follow

1Develop a clear and succinct mission statement. What is the organizations raison dêtre?

Determine the core processes and the major cost objects. What are the processes that are central to the mission of the organization? What are the items to be ultimately costed?

Determine the supporting processes. What are the processes that sustain the core processes, such as certain administrative activities?

4Form the process teams. What teams should be in place to perform the core and supporting processes? As espoused by reengineering theory, the process teams essentially replace the old function-oriented departments. Each team consists of employees trained (or to be trained) to accomplish the activities within each process.

5Define the strategic objectives of each process. What are the long-term strategies and goals of each process?

6Set the major operating objectives of each process. How can the long-term strategies and goals be achieved?

7Identify the main activities in each process. What are the activities (work to be performed) that encompass each process? In ABM terminology, these are the activity centers.

8Develop key performance indicators for each process and activity. How should performance for each process and activity center be measured? The performance indicators may include both financial and non-financial measures.

Define the cost drivers for each activity. What is causing resources to be consumed by each activity and cost object?

10Take steps to ensure the acceptance of the new system. Employees must be oriented and trained to implement the new system and understand its output.

Implementing the new system a case study

To illustrate the design and implementation procedures of an ABM system, the results of an actual organization, a small college, are summarized. Prior ABM research discusses other industries besides higher education. For example, Cooper et al. (1) discuss the implementation strategies of ABM systems for eight companies five manufacturing entities, one distribution company, one financial services provider, and one energy company; however, they did not include a college or university nor did they relate the design steps to reengineering. Anotos (1) discusses ABM for not-for-profit organizations, but is not specifically related to higher education. Hammer and Champy (1) discuss the implementation of business process reengineering for several companies, but they did not include a discussion of the accounting systems. Hammer and Champys reengineering concepts were applied to higher education by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (14). However, the cost accounting system was ignored in this publication.

During the summer of 15, Hood College began to reengineer its work processes and to develop an activity-based management system. Hood College is a private institution of higher learning with undergraduate and graduate enrollments of approximately 1,100 and 00, respectively.

In July of 15, an ABM team was formed, consisting of four members from the faculty and three members from various supporting staff positions. The main charge of this team was to diagnose the existing processes and oversee the redesign and implementation. In preparation for this task, a process inventory was conducted by the team. This consisted of interviewing the head of every functional department on campus, from administrative departments, such as accounting, to academic departments, such as English and Communications. This information was utilized to determine the reporting structures and work processes that were in place.

The results of the ten-step design and implementation of the ABM system follow.

Step 1 the mission statement

Hood College prepares students to excel in meeting the personal, professional, and global challenges of the future. Hood is committed to the integration of the liberal arts and technology, to the exploration of values and community, and to the preparation of students for lives of responsibility and leadership.

Step the core processes and the cost objects

The ABM team determined which processes are central to achieving the mission of the college. This determination was made using various sources of information, such as a survey of the work processes, benchmarking, and individual interviews. Viewing students as the focal point of the college, the core processes are to attract, enroll and keep the students (the enrollment management process); to feed, shelter, and provide for the wellbeing of the students (the student life process); to educate the students (the education process), and to provide the students with a window to the outside world (the external relations process).

The team also determined the cost objects. In a manufacturing environment, the cost objects are normally products or customers. The analogy then is that the academic programs are the product and the students are the customers. Thus, there are two primary cost objects academic programs and students. There are over 0 academic programs at Hood College, including undergraduate, graduate, core, and honors programs. Each of these programs is considered a cost object. There are six classifications of students, including traditional-aged residential, full-time traditional-aged commuting, part-time traditional-aged commuting, full-time non-traditional-aged commuting, part-time non-traditional aged commuting, and graduate students. Each of these classifications is considered a cost object.

Step the supporting processes

The ABM team concluded as to which processes are absolutely necessary to support the core processes. That is, the team determined what processes must be in place to operate the core processes. With the core processes as the focal points, the key supporting processes are to gather, report, and provide information (the management information process), attract, hire, maintain, and release competent personnel (the human resources process), to finance the operations of the school (the financing process), to provide adequate facilities (i.e. the physical facilities process) and to adequately plan and control the strategies and operations of the college (the planning and control process).

Step 4 the process teams

One process team exists for each of the core and supporting processes; thus, there is an enrollment management team, a student life team, an education team, an external relations team, a human resources team, a management information systems team, a finance team, a physical facilities team, and a planning and control team. Except for the planning and control team, each team constitutes a stand alone team and includes a liaison member from each of the other teams. The planning and control team consists of a representative of each core process team, one member of a supporting process team, and the president of the college. Figure summarizes the processes and the process teams.

Step 5 the strategic objectives

Each of the process teams was charged with developing long-term goals and objectives. To illustrate the development of strategic objective, one of the process teams is selected - the physical facilities team. The strategic goal of this team is to develop a long-range, forward-thinking facilities plan to support the programs of the college. The team is to formulate plans, policies, and procedures pertaining to facilities development, allocation, and use. The team has four focal points space utilization and allocation, capital improvements, campus aesthetics, and maintenance.

Step 6 the operating objectives

Please note that this sample paper on Music is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on Music, we are here to assist you. Your cheap custom college paper on Music will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

Order your authentic assignment from cheap essay writing service and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!