Introduction The purpose of this project is to apply management accounting concepts to a theoretical real life business strategy issue. The success of a company is often dependent on making good financial decisions. For this research project you must highlight a critical issue (or issues) that is (are) important to the long-term success of a theoretical business. The business can be in an industry that you expect to start your career in, currently employed in, or one that interests you. Rationale This project is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your understanding of cost accounting and the role it can play in successful business management. Companies are often not managed to their potential, cost accounting can help managers and business owners better understand their organizations and make better decisions. This project can help you to anticipate issues that you might face when you leave Humber and enter the workforce. The skills you demonstrate here may very likely be applied again with a future employer or in your own business. This project will also raise your awareness of the resources that are available to professionals and business owners regarding management accounting guidelines and practices (i.e. CPA Canada Research and Innovation publications). I understand that you are currently not employed full-time, so this project requires that you draw from your experiences/studies to identify a problem or issue. Method You could approach this research project in the following ways: 1) you could identify a critical business management problem (ideally this would be in an business that you hope to eventually work in, but it could be any business that interests you) and then research the issue to formulate and recommend a solution, or; 2) review the cost accounting literature (i.e. the textbook, CPA Canada publications, Humber library resources etc) to find a concept that interests you, then demonstrate how this concept (or concepts) could be applied to a critical issue in an organization that you may seek employment in (or an organization that interests you), or; 3) find a current issue in the news that you believe could be solved by the application of cost accounting concepts. These are suggested approaches, additional ideas will be considered. Format A report should be generated and handed in to be marked. The format of the report could be organized as follows: Introduction, Issued/Problem Identification, Analysis (i.e. description of chosen cost accounting concepts and explanations of how they could be applied to resolve the issue), Recommendation and Conclusion. It is unlikely that this can be successfully achieved in less than 5 pages double spaced. Example Activity Based Costing is a great potential concept to apply. For example, a challenge for a travel agency that provides services to corporate clients (such as Bell, Rogers, Maple Leaf Foodsetc) might be determining why their profits are declining even though they are very busy and have many large clients. They may not understand the contribution margin of their existing clients and are therefore not able to determine which ones to focus on and (possibly) which clients to discontinue relations with. By implementing Activity Based Costing they could better understand which client consumes the most organizational resources (by using appropriate cost pools and activity drivers) and therefore make strategic decisions about pricing and which clients to pursue. If successfully applied the firm would have the tools to address their declining profit and, by understanding cost behaviour, set themselves up for long-term success. Grading (15 marks) Marks will be awarded for: 3- Analysis Ability to analyze the issue and apply the cost accounting concept (6 marks). 4- Recommendation logic of recommended action (1 marks). 5- Conclusion ability to summarize and recap the issue (1).