Welcome to the Strategic Cost Management E-mail/Listserv Exchange. This e-mail exchange is a forum for IMA members to share best practices, engage in discussions, and foster a community where one can share advice as well as seek it.

Register for this free e-mail exchange. Please refer to the listserv instructions prior to signing up. From there, sign up for this (NewCostings) or any other e-mail exchange that might interest you.

As part of its current research effort, IMA is starting a new e-mail exchange called “New Costing” that will focus on Grenzplankostenrechnung (GPK), a well-established form of German cost accounting, and Resource Consumption Accounting (RCA).

IMA will investigate well-established management accounting techniques and bring the findings to you so you can better serve the organizations you work for. The 2003 Survey of Management Accounting conducted by E&Y and IMA indicated that 98% of U.S. managers did not have confidence in their cost information. GPK has been in wide use in German manufacturing and service companies for more than 40 years, and German managers appear to be very satisfied with the quality of their cost information. IMA has a responsibility to seek out new options such as GPK and RCA, especially since activity-based costing (ABC) hasn't met with the broad success once anticipated, and standard costing is inadequate for strategic use.

Over the past year, IMA has taken significant steps to bring knowledge of GPK into the English-speaking management accounting domain. The launch of New Costing, in conjunction with a number of new case studies and two forthcoming research projects, will encourage and facilitate dialogue on these innovations and lead to a continued development of the best tools and methods for planning, control, and decision-making support.

Raef Lawson, Director of Research at the IMA, and Mr. Anton van der Merwe will serve as subject matter experts for New Costing.

More information about controlling modules.