Outdated accounting procedures based on standard cost methods can derail successful lean business transformation efforts. To sustain the radical improvements they have made in their business processes and avoid undermining the new processes, lean enterprises must align their procedures and technology for managerial and financial accounting with their lean enterprise processes.

But traditional measures of performance based on variance analysis and overhead absorption cannot provide the information financial and operational managers need to control the lean business. That's where SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management can help.

With the SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management application you can gain a deeper understanding of the variables that affect cost and profitability throughout your organization. You can use this software to identify underlying causes of underperformance, test potential impact of business changes, and take decisive action to reduce costs and optimize profitability for a variety of products, customers, and distribution channels based on lean principles.

Take advantage of powerful functionality that can enable:

• Plain-English value stream profit-and-loss reporting based on lean accounting principles
• Informed decision making that optimizes value stream and customer profitability
• Assignment of actual costs directly to the value stream to improve decision making across your enterprise
• Accounting for shared services that provides enterprise-wide cost accountability
• On-demand, what-if scenario analysis to determine the impact of offshoring, product rationalization, or changing business conditions on value stream profitability
• Dynamic monitoring of the drivers for cost and profitability

Armed with a detailed understanding of multidimensional drivers such as value stream, customer, and distribution channel, you can optimize costs and profitability. Matching operational capacity and support with effective execution on strategy can help you improve organizational alignment. And the ability to rapidly identify causes for changes in cost and profitability – and test the impact of potential adjustments – can empower your decision making. So you can improve your bottom line.

Want to Learn More?

"SAP BusinessObjects Profitability and Cost Management: Lean Accounting for the Lean Enterprise" (PDF)