(TIỂU LUẬN) however, as just founded in the end of 2020, there are still some issues lying in the managing costing system, which will also be discussed with the corresponding recommendations

Subject code

ACCT2160

Subject name

Cost Analysis and Organizational Decisions

Campus

Saigon South Campus SGS

Assessment name

Assignment 3- Business Case Study Part A
and B- Report (Group)

Lecturer

Dr. Jain Upasana

Group

8

Student name & ID

Bui Dac Loc – s3754449
Nguyen Anh Kiet Anh Tien Gary – s3635033
Tran The Anh – s3777273
Nguyen Duc Hoang Long – s3754708

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Contents
PART A.................................................................................................................................................3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................3
FINDINGS & DISCUSSION................................................................................................................3


COST STRUCTURE.................................................................................................................3



COSTING METHOD................................................................................................................4



PRICING METHOD.................................................................................................................5



ISSUES UNDER COST MANAGEMENT..............................................................................5

CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................6
PART B.................................................................................................................................................7
INDUSTRY TALK REFLECTION......................................................................................................7
REFERENCE.......................................................................................................................................9
APPENDIX.........................................................................................................................................10

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PART A
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The aim of this report is to analyze the costing and pricing method that a Vietnamese services company,
called Paradigm Shift, practically applied after its establishment in 2020. As a services provider, Paradigm
Shift’s cost structure is mainly composed of the Salary of Employees and the Administration Costs to
support the working environment & transportation & meeting with clients. With the job costing and target
cost-based pricing strategies, the company has managed to coordinate and control the costs and profits.
However, these strategies contain potential issues for the loss in the long run, as they are considered to
failed controlling costs in the large scale.

INTRODUCTION
Paradigm Shift Trading Company Limited is an example of Vietnam liaison servicing company, which
was founded in the end of 2020 and located at the address of No. 41 Lot L, Street 2, Phu My Residential
Area, Phu My Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, with the main business to assure the smooth
communication and negotiation between textile & clothing manufacturers and clothing retailers.
Fortunately, we honorably can conduct an interview and discuss with Ms. Bui Thi My Linh, who is the
founder of the company. Since classified as SME, Paradigm Shift Ltd. is operated by a small but highly
skilled group of employees, offering liaison services for well-known international retailers, such as H&M.
She confidently stated that the professionalism as well as the broad customers networks (from domestic to
international) are the selling point of the company to differentiate itself from competitors in the industry.
The company is aiming for development in long term to enhance the bond of potential garment factories
in Vietnam to meet requirements for famous international partners. The content of the interview mainly
focuses on the costing and pricing methods, and how the company sufficiently control these elements.
Therefore, the following sections will meticulously analyze the costing structures and pricing techniques
of Paradigm Shift based on the financial performance statement together with the specific costing and
pricing sheets for different product range. However, as just founded in the end of 2020, there are still

some issues lying in the managing costing system, which will also be discussed with the corresponding
recommendations.

FINDINGS & DISCUSSION


COST STRUCTURE

Before analyzing the costing & pricing methods that Paradigm Shift applied, the cost structure should be
considered based on the Financial Performance of the company. As discussed, the owner agreed to
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provide our team the monthly Financial Performance of February 2021 (Appendix 1), including all the
information about the profit and expenses that the company earned and incurred. From that, our team
started to calculate and come up with the pie chart, representing the cost structure of Paradigm Shift, as
figure 1 below.

Figure 1: General cost structure of Paradigm Shift in February 2021
Since Paradigm Shift is just recently established, the cost structure is comparatively straightforward, as it
is largely composed of the net Salary of Employees, Administration Expenses and Selling Expenses, with
the proportion of 48%, 48% and 4%, respectively. It is reasonable for the largest proportion of Salary of
Employees from a company with the main business of liaison service as Paradigm Shift that the
management board is aiming to maintain the skilled and hard-working team, to handle the increasing
orders. For small deals, the managers plan to allocate 2 employees to connect with clients, while there
will be up to 4 employees to manage the larger deals. To support the employees, Administration Expenses
are decided to be the second important expenditure of the company, as the Rental Fee and Public
Relations Expenses accounts for 14% and 61% of Total Administration Expenses. Due to the nature of the
liaison, as interviewed, the Paradigm Shift’s employees are required to connect and negotiate directly
with the clients from both sides (manufacturers and retailers), hence, the cost spending Restaurant is also

significant, increasing the proportion of Public Relations Expenses.



COSTING METHOD

After the breakdown of the cost structure of Paradigm Shift, our team discovered that the cost will be
systematically allocated according to the deal value, meaning that the company will allocate additional

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costs into the deals with the larger values. To be more specific, the manager will evaluate the possible
profit of each deal, then suitable number of employees will be added into the larger deal, or the cost will
be transferred into that deal, followed by the Administration and Selling Costs. Therefore, the costs of
different deals will be widely diversified, inferring that the company uses the job costing method with the
direct allocation. When being asked about the reason behind the costing method, the owner replied that it
is the most suitable method for the company right now, and convenient for the team as they practiced it
before. Since Paradigm Shift is a newly founded company with the simple cost structure, it is logical to
apply the current costing techniques, helping to track the specific cost and revenue per each project or
deal (Mulumbi 2020). After digging into the Financial Performance and combining the helpful
information from the interview, we found out that the variable costs hold particularly small proportion of
the total costs, while the fixed costs are made up of Salary of Employees, Rental, and other Utilities
Costs. Therefore, it is unchallenging for controlling costs because the managers only need to focus on the
Public Relations Costs for meeting in restaurant.



PRICING METHOD

The principle for Paradigm Shift generating the profit is the various commission rates for a specific
product, which can be derived from the costing sheets, indicating the costs of creating of that product.
Hence, the firm agrees to use cost-based pricing as the costs a product will be recognized, then evaluating
the possible total costs for the deal. It can be inferred that the price of each deal will be diversified
depending on the value of the products and the commission rates that the company accept to apply. This
pricing technique is appropriately imposed into the system due to the small scale of orders.



ISSUES UNDER COST MANAGEMENT

During the process of thoroughly examine the costing and pricing method of Paradigm Shift, there are
three major issues that possibly affects the short-term as well as long-term performance of the company in
the future. First, job costing method is currently chosen by the company due to its simplicity. However,
this method is just applicable for small numbers of deals that the company is handling. To keep the
growth aligned with rapid expanding vision, the quantity of valuable orders will surge, then there will be
a possibility of failure of the costing method, since it demands for highly developed and skilled
accounting department with absolutely high cost (Achary 2014). Besides, in the large scale, job costing is
lacking with helping users to efficiently track the costs, as the method is basically based on the initial
prediction in the beginning of each month, leading to the feasibility of wrong cost allocation.
Secondly, the pricing method of Paradigm is only operated in such a primary implementation, as the
company just apply for a specific commission rate based on the range value of each deal without proper
calculation and valuation the amount of work and time needed for each deal. Therefore, looking at long5|Page


term profitability, the company could phase inappropriate pricing for their services, which the price will
be either undervalued or overvalued.
Thirdly, the company have not operated any plan on analyzing the customers’ profitability and
satisfaction, which is the golden bridges for enormous revenue. This can possibly result in the loss of
profitability from potential customers as it has allocated inappropriately the costs and services (Humbly,

Narrayandas & Libai 2002).

CONCLUSION
Based on the meticulous analysis above, the costing and pricing system of Paradigm still inherently holds
the issues, which can negatively influence the profitability of the firm in the long run, although it seems to
greatly balance the costs and profits in the short run. We believe that ABC costing method integrated with
job costing, would help the company have a better understanding of how activities contribute to the
revenue to come up with the reasonable commission rates (Reyhanoglu 2004). Moreover, Kaizen pricing
strategy is considered to positively effect on the current pricing method because of the clear and detailed
steps of pricing process (Edwards 2001). In addition, give them an insight on the flaws of their customer
profitability plan and how they can improve upon it, which is the most important relationships for a
services provider (Mulhern 2000).

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PART B
INDUSTRY TALK REFLECTION
During the guest lecture, Mr Trung who currently is Chief Financial Officer at eDoctor, shared his
experience with us about the Mining as well as Food and Beverage industry in general and their key
costing technique in specific.
First, during the example of Nui Phao Mining company, he stated that Cost Centers must be identified as
well as accurately allocated to each stage among the 7 stages of mining activities in Nui Phao. Then, Mr.
Trung introduced the stripping ratio used in the mining industry to compare the volume of waste versus
the volume of ore in the specific square meter. In the Nui Phao Mining, the ideal stripping ratio (SR) was
1.8. If the actual stripping ratio is calculated to be above 1.8, it leads to the capitalization of mine asset
and the extra cost of mining waste will account as an asset does not profit and loss in the financial
statement. In the reverse situation, where the mine asset is under stripped, the business must add in
depreciation. The overall cost of ore mining, in this case, was estimated to be $112,000. Then, in the 7
stages of production, the allocation of the common cost will be established; there are 3 stages that are not

considered to produce output for the business, so they will be combined and accounted as common cost
and allocated as the cost for the organization's production (tungsten, flour spar, copper, etc.). Then, the
total cost will be calculated by combining common cost with specific cost of production. Meanwhile, the
Unit cost will be equal to the total cost divided by the total output of the product. For this costing method,
the company must predict the selling price for the whole year to hedge for the fluctuation of cost.
In the Food and Beverage industry's costing, basic analysis of revenue and fixed cost (leasing), variable
cost (workers, materials) are expected to calculate for the gross margin, payback time to produce a report
to assist executives in decision making. Due to industry norm, the percentage cost of sale for products is
sensitive so that the company is trying to keep it stable to deliver quality services for the customer while
profitability is ensured. However, Customer Profitability Analysis can also be implemented in food and
beverage industries due to the huge number of customers with different segmentations in terms of
Demographic, Psychographic, Geographic, and Behavioral (Camilleri 2017). Moreover, CPA can enhance
decision-making for the manager to establish marketing strategies, promotion to attract the appropriate
segment of customers to maximize the potential profit (Mulhern 1999).
Cost managers may achieve some benefits because of new technologies and digital trends. By
implementing big data, can aid business in terms of data insight, prediction for future outcomes as well as
automate non-routine tasks (ICAEW n.d). The second benefit of high tech is cloud computing, which
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allows the visibility of data and accountants can collaboratively monitor and analyze from anywhere. And
the last advantage is taken from the automaticity of a computer which can track location and data
analytics so they can save times of analysis. Uber was taken as an example, thanks to the advance of
technology, the cost of travelling, consisting of cost of minutes, miles and booking fee are calculated
before the trip is started.

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REFERENCE

Achary, S 2014,’ Job Costing: Meaning, Advantages and Limitations’, Your Article Library, 31 October,
viewed 10 May 2021,< />Camilleri, Mark. (2017). ’Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning ‘, Travel Marketing, Tourism
Economics and the Airline Product, Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management, p. p 69-83.
Edwards, J.B. 2001,’ Kaizen: The leading edge in cost management strategy’, The Journal of Corporate
Accounting & Finance, vol.12, no.3, pp.1-4.
Gary Fox (2019),’ Customer Segmentation – How To Segment Customers A Step By Step Guide For
Growth’, Garyfox.co, viewed 10th May 2021, < .
Humbly, C, Narrayandas, D & Libai, B 2002,’ Toward an Individual Customer Profitability Model: A
Segment-Based Approach’, Journal of Service Research, pp. 69-76.
ICAEW THOUGHT LEADERSHIP, n. d, ‘Big data and analytics: the impact on the accountancy
profession’, ICAEW database, viewed 12 May 2021,
< />%20different%20areas.>
Mohammadi, S., & Mohammadi, A.A. 2014, ’Effect of Cloud Computing in Accounting and Comparison
with the Traditional Model’, Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, vol. 5, pp. 104-114.
Mulhern, F.J,’ Customer Profitability Analysis: Measurement, Concentration, and Research Directions’,
Journal of Interactive Marketing, vol. 13, no.1, pp. 25- 40.
Mulumbi, A.K. 2020,’ JOB COSTING AND ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING AND MANAGEMENT
AND COST CONTROL’, Research Gate, viewed 10 May 2021,
< />Reyhanoglu, M 2004,’ Activity-Based Costing System Advantages and Disadvantages’, SSRN, viewd 10
May 2021, < />
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Interview session with Paradigm Shift:

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APPENDIX

APPENDIX 1: The financial statement of Paradigm in February 2021.
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APPENDIX 2: Traditional operating model. (Mohammadi 2014)

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APPENDIX 3: Cloud-based operating model. (Mohammadi 2014)

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APPENDIX 4: Segmentation of Customer (Fox 2019)

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