The ABC

What is the ABC? Is it something concerning EPM projects or are we kidding? If you never heard about ABC, here one of the best definition. Activity-Based Costing (ABC) is a method of allocating costs to products and services. It is generally used as a tool for planning and control. It was developed as an approach to address problems associated with traditional cost management systems, that tend to have the inability to accurately determine actual production and service costs, or provide useful information for operating decisions. With these defiencies managers can be exposed to making decisions based on inaccurate data. The higher exposure is for companies with multiple products or services. ABC allows managers to attribute costs to activities and products more accurately than traditional cost accounting methods. The activities responsible for the costs can be identified and passed on to users only when the product or service uses the activity. Some of the advantages ABC offers is an improved means of identifying high overhead costs per unit and finding ways to reduce the costs. The way it works is first major activities are identified in the process system. Next cost pools are created for groups of activities that can be allocated together. Following this cost drivers are identified. The number of cost drivers used vary depending on the balance between accuracy and complexity. After determining the cost drivers, rates are calculated. The rates are then applied to the respective cost drivers for each product or service that is being considered. The overhead cost per unit is then derived by dividing the total cost for the product by the total product units.

Activity-Based Costing makes a lot of sense for companies with multiple products or services who are suffering from inaccurate costing information and need to know which products are really winners and which are losers. For these companies the effort required to successfully implement ABC is worth the time and resources. ABC can identify high overhead costs per unit and find ways to reduce the costs, avoid decreases in head counts due to inaccurate allocation of costs, and measure profitability with higher accuracy than traditional costing that uses direct-labor hours as the only cost driver.

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The three best skills each EPM consultant should have

Somethimes when people starts a new EPM project happens something really strange; people involved in the project doesn't have the right skills and ability required. The reasons can be different but at the end the reality is that some project take the wrong way and bring the projects to failure.

So, which are the three main skills to perform at the top? I think each of us should be:

1. Customer oriented: this mean that we should immediatly understand  the deep reasons that drives our customer to start a new project. Probably that reason concern a personal growth inside the company or simply a gain of time and capacity to give fast and responsive information.
2. Able to be indipendent: of course the best value provided can be offered better if we are able to start and carry forward the whole project: starting with the functional analysis and developing the technicalities the customer need to reach his goal.
3. Passionate and critic: this is the aim of all EPM project. Our passion should be transmitted to our team (both internal and external) in order to make things easier. Passion and criticism are the best way to improve ourselves and communicate our audience who we are, where we are going and why we are there!

How many of this skylls do you have?