Activity-based management (ABM) is a systemwide, integrated approach that focuses management's attention on activities with the objectives of improving customer value and the profit achieved by providing this value.
Activity-based costing (ABC) is the major source of information for activity-based management. Thus, the activity-based management model has two dimensions: a cost dimension and a process dimension.
This two-dimensional model is presented in Exhibit 12.1. The cost dimension provides cost information about resources, activities, and cost objects of interest sush as products, customers, suppliers, and distribution channels. The objective of the cost dimension is improving the accuracy of cost assignments.
As the model suggest, the cost of resources is traced to activities, and then the cost of activities is assigned to the objects.
This activity-based costing dimension is useful for product costing, strategie cost management, and tactical analysis. The second dimension, the process dimension provides information about what activities are performed, why they are performed and