Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Cost Management Teams - Cross-functional Cost Management for Each Cost Center

 

Each cost center must have a cost management team.

1. Cost center operations manager

2. Immediate deputies of Cost center operations manager

3. Industrial Engineer

4. Cost and Management Accountant

5. Information Systems Person


The idea was first proposed in.

Managing Cost - Cost Management - Seminar Presentation - Additional Information.
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2025/12/managing-cost-cost-management-seminar.html


Cost center cost management team proposes cost reduction projects to the capital budgeting team of the company.

Each of the team members may propose projects or cost reduction ideas. But the first three members have the maximum responsibility.

The team can conduct study sessions where they may discuss published research papers, concept papers and case studies.


What are the roles of these team members?



Functional Cost Optimization Teams for Business?

Published: 31 March 2020


Summary

Ensuring optimum cost performance management across functions is a key priority for organizations. Executive leaders must create and leverage cross-functional teams to successfully drive cost optimization initiatives.

Gartner

How Important Are Cross-Functional Cost Optimization Teams for Business?


BCG

https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/cost-management





The relevance of IT cost management and transformation in Japan

https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/gx/en/insights/2021/it-cost-transformation.html


The seven principles of effective cost management

Cost management includes effective strategy implementation and is the central measure of accountability for business leadership.

November 7, 2004

https://www.supplysidesj.com/business-resources/the-seven-principles-of-effective-cost-management


Strategic Cost Management—A Review of Research Status at Home and Abroad

Yong Wang

School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=90572


Should Cost Management: Why? How?

How to Develop Cost Management Best Practices for Your Team - FasterCapital


Quadrupling Your Odds in a Cost Transformation | BCG


Real-time Cost Management: Connected Teams and Connected Systems, Built with Control - Articles - CFMA


Data Leadership: Maximizing Team Success Through Cost Management | Secoda


Designing Cost Management Systems to Support Business Decision-Making ... - Google Books


Cost Management in Supply Chains - Google Books



Behavioral Aspects of Cost Management - SMA


Minimizing cost is a core aspect of organizational success. While effective planning and control systems must be developed and implemented, positive cost reduction results will be achieved only when there is a commitment on the part of all key stakeholders to take responsibility for cost management. Some organizations seem able to achieve this and remain competitive while others struggle.


Ultimately, costs are controlled by line managers and individuals who make effective day-to-day decisions that drive cost. To deliver on effective cost reduction, there must be the behavioral commitment as well as provision for and understanding of the necessary cost information.


Effective cost control is not achieved by short-term program approaches but by making frugality and cost containment a value that is integrated into the culture of the organization. This must start at the top and be reinforced by the behavior of every manager who demonstrates and encourages cost containment. 


An Effective Framework for Cost Management


Senior financial leaders and others members of the C-suite must respond to the need for cost reduction, 
and in many cases the senior financial manager (the CFO or equivalent) leads the charge. But typically 
the CFO doesn’t actually manage organizational costs. This is controlled by the actions and approaches 
of line managers and the people who work for them within an organization. 


Thus, the CFO’s success in implementing cost reduction can only come through influencing the action 
of others. 


management:

They are built within a culture where control and improvement of cost is an embedded part of the 

organizational DNA;

They inspire and support caring about cost by encouraging ideas for improvement, sharing the 

benefits, and having an aversion to waste; 

They communicate cost information effectively by having appropriate costing tools and systems to 

track, monitor, and report costs;


They encourage collaboration through process thinking and cross-silo communication and 

cooperation; and

They provide a continual focus on cost improvement that includes life-cycle thinking, continuous 

improvement, and avoidance of cost reduction as a program. 

These five aspects form the foundation of the 5C’s framework for effective cost management.


Management accountants are expected to play a central role in ensuring that all aspects of cost are effectively planned, controlled, and continually assessed for reduction. 


COST MANAGEMENT - A Notes


MEANING OF COST MANAGEMENT:

Cost management is used to describe the approaches and 

activities of managers in the short term and long term 

planning and control decisions that increase value for 

customers and lower cost of products and services.

In other words, Cost Management identifies collects, 

measures, classifies and reports information that is useful 

to managers in costing, planning, controlling and decision 

making.


Cost Reduction is defined by CIMA London as “the 

achievement of real and permanent reduction in the unit 

cost of goods manufactured or services rendered without 

impairing their suitability for use intended” 


Cost Management Essentials - Chapter 1

Cost Management: Control and Profitability


In various ways, all

business professionals manage cost, and most managers engage in

capital investment decisions, forecasting, pricing, and product or

service management. Cost-related tasks consume a significant

amount of management time at all levels of the organization.


A business professional must understand the organization’s cost

accounting practices to competently manage a specified area and under

stand how personal accountabilities are calculated and tracked.


The Profit Imperative: Defining the Objectives 

of Cost Management 

Profitability, variously interpreted as net income, equity value, and

return on investment is a results-focused indicator watched more care

fully than any other performance measurement category. 


At the core,

profit has only two components: revenue and cost. 


Cost management system (CMS). An expenditure information

architecture that tracks, monitors, reports, and provides decision

quality information and insights.


A CMS sets direction for resource consumption priorities 

and makes course corrections by emphasizing operations first

and accounting practices second. A CMS specifically answers

the demands of the profit imperative when it aligns employee

spending behaviors with the organizational strategy. The pur

pose of the CMS is to understand the nature and behavior of

cost, and thereby manage valuable assets wisely through optimizing

limited resources.


The chief CMS responsibility is to promote improvement in

cost structure. The CMS should:

• Support understanding of the nature and behavior of

cost (and the humans doing the spending).

• Promote, track, and give feedback on value creation

and continuous improvement.

• Assist management in wise use of resources.


Operations Focus Is Primary

The primary focuses of an effective CMS are operations and the sup

port of management decision making. In addition to routine book

keeping (see Chapter 2), the CMS objectives include, but are not limited,

to ten characteristics. A CMS that supports decision making must:

1. Display past, present, and future expenditures.

2. Mirror the organization’s cost structure and behaviors to support

ongoing improvement and control.

3. Support realistic, reliable strategic planning and explicit manage

ment intention.

4. Influence individual and team behaviors toward goal accomplish

ment.

5. Monitor and control resource use against mission and strategic

intentions.

6. Provide warning when unhealthy financial thresholds are immi

nent.

7. Facilitate the repositioning of resources.

8. Hold specific individuals and groups accountable for standards of

performance.

9. Assist in analyzing key discrete points of profitability: customer,

process, product, and region.

10. Display a 360-degree unbiased view of the organization’s cost

structure, one that is understood and actually used in decision

making by all executives and managers.

The cost management responsibility is equally clear: Promote improvement in cost structure.

The importance of CMS design extends throughout the entire
organization. Dr. CJ McNair summarizes the situation eloquently.“What
cost management chooses to make visible—the focus of its work—will
inform and constrain the organizations of the future. In choosing a
future for cost management, the future of business will be shaped.”
(CJ McNair,“Defining and Shaping the Future of Cost
Management,” Journal of Cost Management 14, no. 5 (2000):
32.)
Cost management system design is a conscientious and deliberate
process that avoids irrelevant detail and integrates seamlessly with the
financial system.









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