Activity Based Management: Improving Processes and Profitability

Citation

(2001), "Activity Based Management: Improving Processes and Profitability", Work Study, Vol. 50 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2001.07950gae.004

Activity Based Management: Improving Processes and Profitability

Activity Based Management: Improving Processes and Profitability

Brian PlowmanAshgateAldershotISBN: 0566081458£45

Product – and particularly customer – profitability is a black hole in most managers' understanding of their business. Identifying customer revenue is easy but identifying what they cost – so we can understand whether or not they are profitable – is much more difficult. This is what Activity Based Management (ABM) allows you to do.

Put simply, ABM helps businesses address:

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  how to better position themselves in the market by having accurate knowledge of product and customer profitability; and

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  how to improve their internal capability and lower their unit costs through changing the procedures, systems and processes that create and deliver products and services.

This book explains this power of using ABM to increase the profitability of your business. It provides step-by-step guidance on basic principles, comparisons between traditional methods, definitions of processes, activities and cost-drivers as well as details of data collection techniques and implementation steps. The book uses a number of detailed examples to build up a logical picture of how to obtain the benefits that ABM can deliver. On its own, ABM will change management decision making: but this book goes further by showing how ABM also supports other profit improvement initiatives such as Business Process Reengineering, Shareholder Value Added and Customer Relationship Management.