MBA 520: Managerial Accounting
Performance Measurement at Lipton:
Evaluation and Recommendations
-------------------------------------------------
Nick Arens
Chris Lance
Ryan Moore
Rob Sloan
Summary
We at ALMS Consulting Co. have been hired to analyze the way product lines and product managers are being evaluated at the Thomas J. Lipton, Incorporated (“Lipton” or the “Company”) entity. We will review the performance metrics utilized at the corporate level of Lipton, explain the current methodology utilized to evaluate the individual product lines, and then detail the benefits and potential downfalls of the methodology proposed by Don Logan. Finally, we will provide our own recommendations and opinions as to how
…show more content…
Historic cost depreciation is being used which leads to skewed numbers that misrepresent how well a product line will continue to operate in the future due to understated replacement value of fixed assets.
Also, the cost of working capital is not being included; as a result, Trading Profit is not indicating the amount of cash and other current assets being tied up in each particular product line. We think that the opportunity cost of utilizing (tying-up) working capital is not reflected on each individual product lines’ final results, enabling product managers to utilize potentially excessive levels of working capital without poorly affecting their Trading Profit.
Finally, Mr. Logan concluded that there are expenses that are not being allocated at all or are being allocated improperly:
There is a corporate unallocated Other Income and Deductions (“OI&D”) account that includes charges that pertain to the different product lines.
The allocation of the New Product Development costs is also questionable. Even though these costs are being utilized to create new products, the established products are bearing the costs based on their profits.
Manufacturing overhead is based on planned and not actual production.
Don Logan felt that all of these factors played a role in not presenting a true measure of how each product line and each product manager was doing within Lipton. We tend to agree that the current process is not accurately reflecting how
• Lack of incentive for employees to continually reduce their costs throughout the year as a result of the annual calculation of overhead allocation.
If some research is undertaken that provides evidence that capital markets do not always behave in accordance with the Efficient Market Hypothesis, does this invalidate research that adopts an assumption that capital markets are efficient?
Because the absorption-costing model only deducts the fixed manufacturing overhead costs for units sold in the current period, the COO was able to show an increase in profits between 2002 and 2003. What the COO failed to report to the stakeholders on the 2003 income statement was the outstanding fixed manufacturing overhead costs for the remaining 35,000 units
a service department’s costs have been allocated, costs are not reallocated back to it under
According to the fact of this case, Parent Co. (Parent) wholly owns Poor Son Co. (Poor Son) as a legal subsidiary, and both of them all nonpublic companies. However, in January 2007 Poor Son filed a voluntary bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code because of its inability of meet obligations as they became due. Then, Parent claimed the loss of control of Poor Son and deconsolidated Poor Son from its financial statement. Through the bidding process in May 2009, Poor Son and OtherCo, the winning sponsor, filed a joint plan of reorganization to the bankruptcy court, but the plan was rescinded by OtherCo later due to significant market value shrink of Poor Son. After that, the
Without efficient resource allocation & lack of communication between R&D and Brands, the conflict between departments generated in following steps. Even more, each steps make overall inefficient resource management.
Henri, Jean-Francois. (2010). The Periodic Review of Performance Indicators: An Empirical Investigation of the Dynamism of Performance Measurement Systems. European Accounting Review, 19(1), 73-96. Retrieved from https://ehis-ebscohost-com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7872c1c7-369c-4f36-9a1c-81cea4558aa7%40sessionmgr11&vid=8&hid=1
Due to the information, 20 acres of land equal 80 sheep according to the exchange rate of last year, a one-room cabin equal 3 acres of land and equal 12 sheep finally, a plow equals 2 goat and equal 2/3 sheep according to last year’s exchange rate and 2 carts which were traded with a poor acre of land equals 8 sheep plus 400 sheep. So Deyonne’s total assets are 500(2/3) sheep. Deyonne’s liabilities and assets deduction are 35 sheep plus 3 sheep, which will come to 38 sheep,
Financial Statement Analysis Project -- A Comparative Analysis of Kohl’s Corporation and J.C. Penney Co
Because more categories and more refining provide more accurate information, but it is really difficult and costly to track more categories. The best option is to simplify the categories, in result, reducing the cost of ABC system.
Company operates in the Industrial Sector – Services, and Industry – Regional Airlines. According to the Standard Industrial Classification System (SIC), company belongs to the industry group 451: Air
with a number of strategic issues facing a capital-intensive, mature industry. Their product costing system was
In addition, Pittman would also take over the travel, entertainment and advertising costs of $1.7 million. This decision would also decrease administrating costs by $75,000.
Product and brand failures occur on an ongoing basis to varying degrees within most product-based organizations. This is the negative aspect of the development and marketing process. In most cases, this “failure rate” syndrome ends up being a numbers game. There must be some ratio of successful products to each one that ends up being a failure. When this does not happen, the organization is likely to fail, or at least experience financial difficulties that prohibit it from meeting profitability objectives. The primary goal is to learn from product and brand failures so that future product development, design, strategy and implementation will be more successful.
Top management can help to set an ethical tone in the organization by ensuring that the company has a code of ethics and demonstrating its support for the code, but more importantly by leading the organization with ethical behavior.