Fundamentals of Management Control

Category: Livres,Etudes suprieures,Classes prparatoires et grandes coles

Fundamentals of Management Control Details

Fundamentals of management control: techniques and principles presents the fundamental elements of a performance management process in a structured way. It focuses on the managerial dimension of this process and is therefore aimed at managers or future managers in various functions. The book is structured around the issues involved in performance management and not around control tools:·        This means that the tools are first presented in terms of their purposes and functions, before being examined from an operational point of view.·        This also means that a given tool may appear in several chapters if it is connected with several performance management issues. For example, dashboards are presented in part 1 because they help to shape the company’s performance dimensions, but they also appear in part 2 because the setting of performance objectives and monitoring of results is based on the indicators previously chosen.Three main topics are investigated in the book: -         The qualitative definition of the performance sought by organisations and its operational translation into suitable measurement systems (part 1):This first part describes what is covered by the notion of performance and how it can be measured. It distinguishes between measurement systems used at the general level of the organisation (financial indicators, dashboards for the organisation as a whole) from measurement systems at the local level of its different entities (responsibility accounting, cost accounting, responsibility centre dashboards). -         The dynamic management of performance based on this structure of indicators (part 2):This second part defines the principles and objectives of the planning process which are the foundation of the basic performance management tools: budgets, operational and strategic plans. It explains the different methods of variance analysis and their success factors.-         The people involved in the management control process (part 3):The complementary roles of managers and controllers in the control system are examined (for example, a budget or a dashboard should be built jointly by managers and controllers), as well as the issues involved in organisational decisions relating to the control function (for example, the advantages and drawbacks of the different ways the control function can be connected to the management hierarchy). The book is therefore not limited to a technical approach to control tools. Based on an examination of the purposes and functions of these tools, it identifies the principles that they must be built on (for example, responsibility accounting is based on four principles: contractual, controllability, congruence and simplicity). This approach leads to the development of clear and structured conceptual frameworks which serve to guide the construction of performance management systems and also to analyse business practices. In this way the book avoids an overly descriptive approach to control tools, which is of little practical use, without however slipping into an excessively normative approach, along the lines of a catalogue of “best practices”. These guiding principles are not simply presented but also examined and discussed, offering a balance between the operational and critical postures that every manager must adopt. Readers will therefore be able to design and build systems and procedures suited to their context, to customise and make them their own. This is particularly important as there is no such thing as a universal solution, although there are certain trends (marked by a lack of conceptualisation) that are pushing for “readymade solutions”. -         The authors strive to avoid vague management jargon by providing clear and precise definitions for each concept used.Numerous illustrations and case studies from various sectors (industry, services, retailing, the public sector, etc.) are provided to support the different topics dealt with. Two cross-functional case studies drawn from real companies are also included at the end of the book and show the role of performance management systems in strategic decision making: the Costkill case study which describes and analyses the performance management system at an automobile parts supplier and the Environmental Services case study which explores the situation of a household and industrial waste management company.

Reviews

La version franaise (Les fondamentaux du contrle de gestion e-Text) est trs intressante.Mais le lien entre les parties I et II semble manquer.La mthodes BSC est trop rapidement dcrite mon got.Cependant, il donne un bonne vision de ce que peut tre un bon systme de contrle de gestion... en France.La traduction anglaise de la version franaise est un peu dcevante dans sa formulation parfois trop proche du texte mais pas assez de l'esprit.Ceci dit, ce livre a au moins le mrite de prsenter dans la langue de Shakespeare des auteurs franais.