Select any 1 industry of the following and explain with practical examples with names of companies within that particular industry as to how current issues in management accounting are affecting those particular companies.

UK SUPERMARKETS

A . Morrisons Supermarket

Management decisions in Morrisons Supermarket can be divided into two types . They are the long run and the short-run decisions . Long-run decisions are defined as decisions whose outcomes commit the enterprise or have direct influence on its numerous future-period activities . The long run is thought of as a span of time sufficiently long for the planning , implementation and running of the enterprise 's significant project or program . Short-run decisions , on the other hand , are decisions whose outcomes commit the enterprise or directly influence its actions

for perhaps only a year at most (Palmer 3 . The latitude available in the selection of short-run alternatives is restricted considerably by the commitments made by the enterprise in past long-run decisions

Given the objective of profit maximization in the long-run , the success of Morrisons Supermarket in the long-run hinges on the ability of the management in the identification and implementation of the most promising product lines , projects , and programs within its capabilities as well as its environmental and money-capital limitations . The active seeking of opportunities is the first requisite to success . It is done to assist , either in providing new and better products /services , or in the development of new and better means of production (Hough 3 . The former requires at least some minimal level of involvement , in the research of present markets and consumer /industrial preferences , plus on the research on product development . On the other hand , the latter requires at least some involvement with industrial engineering as well as organizational , institutional , and behavioral research . All of these are essentially information- seeking activities contributed by specialists other than accountants . The accountants ' contribution comes into play in the selection of the most promising set among the identified alternatives . This is another important requisite to Morrisons Supermarket 's success in the long run

B . Waitrose Ltd

The discovery and application of cost and revenue behavior patterns are relevant in producing information for all types of management decisions in Waitrose Ltd . As noted earlier , one important task of managerial accounting is the association of financial (money ) flows with the resource flows that are expected from various decision alternatives (Callahan 3 . Costs measured in money terms are associated with these alternatives in to evaluate them in the context of the enterprise 's long-run goal , which is profit maximization

The basis of associating these costs in Waitrose Ltd with particular decision alternatives is usually cost behavior patterns derived by the cost behavior analysis . A cost behavior pattern is a functional relationship between various activities or events that represent a decision alternative and the expected cost to be incurred in connection with that alternative (Berry 5 . Cost behavior analysis , on the other hand , is the process of the discernment and the of the forms of these cost behavior patterns

How are cost behavior patterns used in managerial decision making of Waitrose Ltd ? First , the cost-behavior implications of various activities and events are used in constructing an overall cost-function for a decision alternative...