Page 3 - Cost

Editorial

A well-managed business is absolutely fanatic about continuous improvement; i.e., doing
things better, faster, and cheaper. Customer demands, competitive pressures, and world
economics force us to do things better, faster, and cheaper. Te global business environment
is characterized by intense competition from domestic players and multinational companies.
Tus, formulating the right strategy is inevitable in order to establish competitive advantage.

In the recent past, the country has experienced sufering of public interest due to
weak corporate governance, adversely afecting trust and confdence of investors and
stakeholders. Te Indian economy has to migrate from the current status to the top end
position of the global competitiveness index in a short/ medium time span. Considering
the maturity levels of cost and management accounting in Indian economy caused by the
legacy of protected environment, we have a long way to traverse without luxury of time.

Cost Management and Cost Assurance leads to improvement of the productivity of all the
resources, resulting in optimum utilization of resources and minimization of wastages. Cost
information plays a critical role in transfer pricing, predatory pricing, fxation of margin of
dumping for the purpose of levying anti-dumping duty, free trade agreement, consumer
protection, revival of sick companies and corporate governance. Costing system is required
for strategic planning and decision making as it provides timely warning signals thus enabling
management to take appropriate decisions for sustained growth. Cost information is vital for
providing the necessary inputs for making various Government plans so that the productivity
and efciency of resource utilization is kept in focus. Maintenance of proper cost records is
also essential for fulflling the objectives laid down under National Voluntary Guidelines
(NVG) for economic, environmental and social responsibilities of business as the information
provided by the cost records is compatible with the information requirements under NVG.

Since this is a blazing issue at present, the organizations are focusing on Cost Competitiveness
for their sustainability. It is an attempt of our Directorate as a step to improve cost
efectiveness. We look forward to constructive feedback from our readers for overall
development of this e-Magazine. Please send your mails at research@icmai.in. We thank
all the contributors to this important issue and hope our readers enjoy the articles.