Abrams Company Case

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Chapter 5 Profit Centers General considerations • A functional organization is one in which principal manufacturing or marketing function is performed by a separate organization unit. • Most business units are created as profit centers, because managers in such units usually control product development, manufacturing and marketing resources. These managers are in a position to influence costs and revenues. Business units as profit centers • Constraints on business units: trade-offs between business unit autonomy and corporate constraints. • Profit centers are seen as controlling three types of decisions: (1) product decision (what product to make and sell), (2) the marketing decision and (3) the procurement or sourcing decision. The more integrated a company is, the more difficult it becomes to assign responsibility for the three types of activities to a single profit center for a given product line. • Constraints from Corporate Management: (1) those resulting from strategic considerations, (2) those resulting because uniformity is required and (3) those resulting from the economies of centralization. Business units must compete with each other for a share of the available funds. Other profit centers • Subunits within business units may be functionally organized. Management’s decision on if a unit should be a profit centers depends on the amount of influence the unit’s manager exercises over the activities that affect the bottom line. A marketing activity can be turned into a profit center. The manufacturing activity is usually an expense center, but could be turned to a profit center. Measuring profitability Two types of profitability measurements used in evaluating a profit center: 1. Management performance – measured by contribution margin, direct profit, controllable profit, income

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