Question

How does the focus on the value chain impact managerial cost accounting?

Answer 1

Value chain analysis is a strategy tool used to analyze internal firm activities. Its goal is to recognize, which activities are the most valuable (i.e. are the source of cost or differentiation advantage) to the firm and which ones could be improved to provide competitive advantage. In other words, by looking into internal activities, the analysis reveals where a firm’s competitive advantages or disadvantages are. The firm that competes through differentiation advantage will try to perform its activities better than competitors would do. If it competes through cost advantage, it will try to perform internal activities at lower costs than competitors would do. When a company is capable of producing goods at lower costs than the market price or to provide superior products, it earns profits.

A value chain is a business term describing the full range of iterative activities a company uses to create a product or a service. The purpose of value-chain analysis is to increase production efficiency so that a company can deliver maximum value for the least possible cost.

Companies use value chain analysis to deliver the most value for the least possible total cost.

If a company can create efficiencies by analyzing one or more of the five primary value chain activities, it can gain a competitive edge and boost profits.

A chief disadvantage of this type of analysis is that a company's overall vision and strategy may get lost or muddied when operations are broken down into fine segments.

Value Chain Analysis: An Overview

Companies conduct value chain analysis by scrutinizing every production step required to create a product, with the ultimate goal of delivering maximum value for the least possible total cost. There are many advantages of value chain analysis, all of which result in a company's ability to understand and optimize the activities that lead to its competitive advantage and higher profit levels.