Modern Cost Management Practices In The Management Of Business Logistics Costs

Nowadays, the productivity develops at very fast speed, the socialproduct is greatly abundant, and market competition among theenterprises is abnormally fierce. The potential of "the first profits source"through improving the productivity and lowering the production cost, andof "the second profits source" through raising the labor productivity oradopting the mechanization and automatization to lower the manpowerdepletion is already smaller and smaller. As "the third profits source", theenterprises' logistics is attracting people's attention increasingly. As animportant aspect of logistics management, logistics cost management canhelp the enterprises lower cost continuously and strengthen thecompetition ability. The study in logistics cost management is still at theentry-level in China, and there are lots of shortages in the ideas, theoriesand actual works which have prevented the enterprises from liberatingproductivity and developing "the third profits source". Therefore it isnecessary to introduce the modern logistics ideas and advanced costmanagement methods into logistics cost management realm, study thepractical experiences, and strengthen research in the theories andapplication. In the contemporary supply chain environment, frommicrocosmic views, the paper summarizes domestic and internationalenterprises' successful cases and advanced experiences, mainly researchesthe application of some modern cost ideas and advanced costmanagement methods in enterprises' logistics cost management. Then, itputs forward some new representative logistics cost management modesand applied methods. The paper consists of the following four parts. Chapter one: the outline of enterprises' logistics cost management.This part is the foundation of the whole paper's theories. At first, itreviews the history of the domestic and international logistics costmanagement, mainly introduced the logistics cost managementdevelopment circumstances and experiences in America and Japan, andthe conditions and problems at present in our country. Then it elaboratesthe basic concepts of logistics, logistics cost and logistics costmanagement, and introduces the main logistics cost management theoriesincluding "the dark continent" theory, the logistics cost iceberg theoriesand etc. Chapter two: the new modes of enterprises' logistics costmanagement. This part combines some new cost principles, modernmanagement ideas and ways with logistics cost managements. Throughanalyzing the domestic and international successful cases, six kinds oftypical modes are put forward, including the modern cost consciousnessmode, the cost benefit mode, the cost economization mode, costavoidance mode, cost driver mode and the currently popular logisticsepibolic mode. Chapter three: the application of Activity Based Costing in logisticscost management. Firstly, this chapter introduces the development ofActivity Based Costing and the reasons that applying it into the logisticscost management. Then it elaborates the concepts, principles andprocedures of the Logistic Activity Based Costing, and puts an exampleto analyse. Chapter four: strategic cost management's application in the logisticscost management. Relating the methods system of strategic costmanagement with the characteristics of logistics cost management, it putsforward preliminary conception of the strategic logistics costmanagement, including value chain analysis and Activity BasedManagement, the logistics strategic orientation and etc. The paper concentrates on the applied modes and thoughts of thenew modern cost management ideas, theories and methods applied in thelogistics cost management. In the paper, the enterprises' logistics costmanagement theories shows innovative and prospective. The paper hasmain characteristics as follows: 1. The paper adopts a research means which combines theories withmethods, theory discussion with case analysis, descriptive analysis withnormative analysis. 2. The paper is prospective, embodying the development orientationof modern logistics management in t...