PART B: CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENTS IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING (50% of assignment grade) You are the management accountant of a large company which is currently using traditional management accounting techniques in its operations. For some time, the board of directors has been concerned about the performance of the company. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company recently attended a conference where a financial consultant made a presentation on contemporary developments in management accounting and strategy (such as target costing, product life cycle costing, benchmarking, value chain analysis, price strategies, throughput accounting, and environmental costing) and how these developments could be used by companies to improve their performance. Impressed by this presentation and convinced that the implementation of some of these contemporary developments could improve the company's performance the CEO brought the issue to the attention of the board of directors. The board has now asked you, as the management accountant, to advise them on how the contemporary developments in management accounting and strategy may help the company meet its objectives. The Assignment Requirements You are required to select one of the contemporary developments in management accounting and strategy, and critically evaluate the chosen development using relevant academic literature. Your evaluation of the development must address, among any other issues you think relevant, the following: 1. A brief description of the contemporary development, highlighting the key features and the theory behind the development. 2. A discussion of the strategic decision(s) which it is intended to support within the company. 3. An evaluation and analysis of the contemporary development, showing clearly its appropriateness compared to the existing practice(s) in the company and its limitations or problems. 4. A discussion of how the contemporary development could be used by the company to improve its performance and how some of the limitations or problems identified above can be minimised. Give specific practical examples in the areas where the company can benefit from using the contemporary development (You can draw insights from any published case studies of which you are aware. Please note here that you should not rewrite the case). 5. Discussion of the role of management accounting in implementing the new development to ensure that the objective of improvement in performance is achieved. 6. Appropriate recommendations and conclusions.