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Three strategies for retail management
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Groupon is an American ecommerce company that was derived from another business known as Point. Point was a web based company developed to help people fight for a cause or goal. Andrew Mason the founder of Point, was determined to make this platform success. The company was established in Chicago were it was not able to take off as Andrew expected (www.groupon.com). After a moderate spark to the company, the group decided their cause would be to save money. Their plan was to purchase the same product but at a discounted rate. After establishing a partner by the name of Eric Lefkofsky, Lefkofsky wanted to focus more on group discounting and that is how they came up with the name Groupon (www.groupon.com). Groupon’s first customer was Motel Bar, a company that was located inside the same building as Groupon’s office. Motel Bar offered two pizza’s for the price of one as their special discount on Groupon. Business started to grow, within one year and the company started hiring more employees, as the company grew at a rapid pace (www.groupon.com). Groupon were able to convince more businesses to sign up on their site, after sixteen …show more content…
With the demands of keeping up with competitors and customers these conditions will help them to stay on top of the economy. Even though ABC cost system is a managerial cost tool, e-commerce companies can use EAD (expense activity dependence) and APD (activity product dependence) matrix. These are two tools associated with ABC costing will allow Groupon to use the data provided from the company to trace overhead expenses such as: web design and maintenance, order processing, product marketing, telephone support, product handling and product shipping. The main activities identified to trace Groupon’s overhead will be determined by the level of accuracy and reliability
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that is usually used as a supplement to a company’s usual costing system, and is therefore used for internal decision-making. It is designed to inform managers of costing information for decisions (strategic and others) that potentially affect capacity and consequently “fixed” as well as variable costs. In addition, ABC can also be used to pinpoint activities that would benefit from process improvements.
The group had an organization structure with directors and leaders for their different areas of coverage, such as a West Coast Coordinator. The group’s financial sources are not clear in general, but it is known that they were self-sustained (Jewish Defense League (a)). It is known that the group shares members and is allies with Kach, a terrorist group out of Israel, while it is suspected that the group is also allies with the Zionist Action Group (Jewish Defense League
According to Steve Jobs, article of urban outfitters article the business start up with the three
An organization costing system is a system that helps the management with the strategy planning while the system plays an important role in providing accurate cost information about the products and customers (Curtin, 2006). UPS utilizes the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system. ABC assumes that activities cause costs and that cost objects create the demand for activities (Marx, 2009). The key to cost allocation under ABC is to identify the activities that are performed to provide a particular service and then aggregate the costs of the activities (Gapenski, 2012). This is a marked departure from the practice of sharing overheads costs equally or overheads becoming part of the overall profit-loss estimate instead of component product pricing (Nayab, 2011).
Citizens of the United States are traditionally given unlimited freedom of speech, press, and assembly. These American privileges allow interest groups to express their perspectives by using the media and other sources that are accessible to the public. In definition, an interest group is a group of individuals who organize to influence the government’s programs and policies. The main goal of these groups is to have the government both listen and respond to their interests (Shin 243). Historically interest groups have and continue to play a crucial role in American politics; especially since it is an effective form for citizens to interfere with government decision making. Two current interest groups in the United States are the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda and the National Council of La Raza. These particular interest groups demonstrate how interest groups directly and indirectly influence public opinion and the political process.
Interest group is a group of individuals who organize to influence the government’s programs and policies. (Ginsberg, Lowi, Weir, Tolbert) There can be many different types of interest groups. The most common being business and agricultural groups, labor groups. and professional associations. These are usually represented by a specific business or type of business who wish to lobby the government in ways that supports what their business is doing. Then you have the public interest groups which claim that they are just looking out for the well being of the American public rather than trying to promote a single issue. Ideological groups more rally for a way of life, or a set of ideals than going for any particular issue. This could include a certain, religion, or political group. Somewhere in all these kinds of interest groups almost every stance on almost every issue is represented. In fact, many will be represented by multiple groups.
The definition of interests groups is an organization of people who share a common interest and work together to protect and promote that interest by influencing the government. Interest groups vary greatly in size, aims, and tactics.
It was the year 1987 when the Gartner Group popularized the form of full cost accounting named Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)(author, Gartner Total Cost of Ownership). Originally TCO was mainly used in the IT business sector. This changed in the 1980’s when it became clear to many organizations that there is a distinct difference between purchase price and full costs of a products ownership. This brings us towards the main strength of conducting a TCO analysis, besides taking the purchase costs into account, which consist of the amount a money an organization pays for the required service, product or capital outlay. It also considers 1. Acquisition costs; these can consist of sourcing, administration, freight, and taxes. 2. Usage costs, which consists of the costs associated with converting the given product or service into a finished product. And finally 3. End of life cycle costs; the costs or profits incurred when disposing of a product. TCO can be seen as a form of full cost accounting; it systematically collects and presents all the data for each proposed alternative.
This, in order to identify what are the true costs of each customer and each order, enables the company to fully understand its cost structure thereby providing the base for better business choices and higher profitability. These are very sensible goals indeed. Even though the company is profitable, implementing a new, activity-based cost accounting system will allow the company to improve its margins and become even more focused and competitive in the future. 2.2. What is the difference between a.... ...
The contained paper has been prepared with objectives of elaborating over the three different costing methods namely, Absorption/Full Costing, Variable/Marginal Costing, and Activity Based accounting. The first segment of the report seeks to define and illustrate the costing methods based on the personal understanding of the writer gained through the class room and the academic readings. Part two of the report takes a form of short essay, written critically to evaluate the application of standard costing and variance analysis to any size of business, and concludes with a verdict that whether or not standard costing and variance analysis is applicable to each business with consideration of its costs and benefits of the system.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that is designed to provide managers with cost information for strategic and other decisions that potentially affect capacity and therefore “fixed” as well as variable costs. Activity-based costing is mostly used for internal decision making and managing activities while traditional costing method is used to provide data for external financial reports. Most organization uses activity-based costing as an addition system for using traditional absorption costing as sometimes the traditional cost system misleads the product’s profitability. In a company, there are many products on sale, if one product is sold at a high price with low product margin and a product with high product margin at a low price, it may result in a loss. In addition, due to the reason that cost drivers and enterprises business may change, activity-based costing analysis also needs to be revised periodically. This amendment should be prompted to change pricing, product, customer focus and market share strategy to improve corporate profitability.
"Both methods estimate overhead costs related to production and then assign these costs to products based on a cost-driver rate. The differences are in the accuracy and complexity of the two methods" (1) , Now we will discuss why ABC can result in more reliable products costs than conventional labor based product costing system . In recent years, the nature of industrial production has fundamentally altered; we will discuss their characteristics. First we have machine production and capital intensive, Now machines are the main tool and at the heart of production; labors maintain machines and supervise them, and machines are the ones that dictates the pace and rate of production. The second characteristic is high level of overheads relative to direct cost; in modern businesses they tend to use overheads in different ways for example: some products need engineering time and some products require machine time so that products will use overheads differently. The third characteristic is highly competitive international market, transportation including fast freight and relatively cheap; one of the advantages is the use of internet ensures that customers can easily and quickly reach and find products and also cheaply, this environment is highly competitive so companies need to know accurately their range of prices in order to use this information to gain competitive advantage over other
...pplied. Cost estimation and analysis could ultimately determine major decisions in both the business and political worlds today, and play a crucial role even in our day to day lives. Through activity based costing one is able to see what areas need improvement and also whether or not a business will be successful after considering all the factors. These tools are very powerful in drawing wise conclusions from cost analysis and can be a priceless tool to have even in the field of engineering.
The overall purpose of cost accounting is to advise top administration and the management team on the most suitable and cost effective methods and actions to employ based on cost, capability and efficiencies of a given product or service. It can be defined as the method where all the expenditures used during execution of business activities are gathered, categorized, examined and noted down (Horngren & Srikant, 2000). Once these numbers are gathered and recorded the information is used to determine a selling price and/or to identify possible investment opportunities. Although the principal aim or function of cost accounting is to help the business administration with their decision making and business planning process, the cost accounting data
In management accounting, cost management has a crucial role and finds its foundations in understanding “cost behaviour”. “Cost behaviour analysis” can be defined as “the study of how cost changes when there is a change in an organisation’s level of activity”. (Definition https://www.accountingcoach.com/blog/what-is-cost-behavior).