I. Introduction
With the advent of world economic integration and knowledge economy era, the market is changing rapidly and the competition is more intense. If enterprises want to compete for market and survival and development space, they must stand at a strategic height and cultivate long-term competitive advantages to adapt to the ever-changing competitive environment. It is precisely because of the rapid changes in the competitive environment of enterprises that the rapid development of management science has been promoted, and strategic management with strengthening the competitive advantage of enterprises as the core has emerged. The emergence and application of strategic management theory need us to broaden the vision of cost management, because the traditional cost management theories and methods represented by standard cost system, budget control and variance analysis, and responsibility cost management can no longer provide cost information for strategic management. In order to meet the needs of strategic management, it is necessary to introduce the idea of strategic management into cost management, expand the functions of traditional cost management theories and methods from a strategic perspective, and form a system of strategic cost management theories and methods. Strategic cost management pays attention to comprehensive management, systematics, operational research, economics and other multidisciplinary knowledge and skills, and applies advanced management methods, such as value chain analysis, strategic cost driver analysis and competitive environment analysis. , so that cost information runs through the whole cycle of strategic management. It requires enterprises to proceed from the long-term interests, according to the market demand and the actual business situation of enterprises, take the market competitive price as the guide, take a certain profit target as the center, and use the principles of quantity, cost and profit analysis to finally control all indicators within the target range, thus creating an environment conducive to continuous cost reduction within enterprises.
Compared with traditional cost management, taking value chain analysis as the starting point of strategic cost management plays a very important role in the implementation of strategic cost management. Strategic management emphasizes not only paying attention to oneself, but also understanding competitors in an open competitive market environment, not only knowing the situation of upstream suppliers, but also knowing the situation of downstream customers and distributors, and coordinating their relations. At the same time, we need to conduct a comprehensive analysis and research on the basic situation of our competitors. At the same time, strategic management needs to conduct a comprehensive analysis of enterprises, and then provide various solutions for strategic decision-making. As a cost management system that provides cost information, it should also dig out some key factors that have an impact on the cost of enterprises, and provide information support for the correctness of strategic decisions through the analysis, processing and treatment of key factors. Finally, through the formulation and implementation of the strategy, the competitive advantage of the enterprise will be formed and the long-term core competitiveness of the enterprise will be built.
Second, the meaning and types of value chain
The concept of value chain was first put forward by Michael Porter of the United States in 1985 in his book Competitive Advantage. He believes that enterprises need to know value activities and understand the relationship between various activities in established value activities, and points out that every production and operation activity of enterprises is a value-creating activity. All the different but interrelated production and operation activities of an enterprise form a dynamic process of creating value, which is the value chain. In the early 1990s, the research of John Scharnke and Fei Gefindalaga further expanded the concept of value chain. They think that the enterprise's value chain includes the whole process of value production activities, and the enterprise is a part of the whole series of value production process, that is, it extends the value from a strategic point of view, and thinks that it includes not only the internal value chain of the enterprise, but also the external value chain of the enterprise. The value chain to be applied in company management includes not only closely related value activities that create value for enterprises, but also "nodes" related to each value activity. After 20 years of research and discussion, the value chain idea has been accepted by many people with advanced management ideas.
If the business unit is regarded as a link in all value activities and the value chain is classified with reference to an independent enterprise, it can be divided into two categories: internal value chain and external value chain.
(A) the enterprise internal value chain.
Internal value chain refers to the main activities and related support activities within the enterprise to create value for customers. According to the concept of modern enterprise management, an enterprise is a collection of a series of operations such as design, procurement, production and marketing. We can divide the value activities of enterprises into infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, investment and procurement, internal and external logistics, production, marketing and after-sales service. Many value activities of an enterprise are interdependent, and * * * plays a role in creating value. At the same time, the internal value chain of an enterprise can be divided into three levels: the overall value chain of the enterprise, the value chain of each business unit and the internal value chain of the business unit.
(2) The external value chain of the enterprise.
The external value chain of enterprises refers to the value activities of external actors closely related to enterprises. It includes supplier value chain, customer value chain, industry value chain and competitor value chain. The general concept of value chain only classifies industry value chain and some competitor value chains as external value chains of enterprises, and divides external value chains into industry value chains (vertical value chains) and competitor value chains (horizontal value chains) when analyzing value chains.
Therefore, generally speaking, the value chain has three meanings: first, there is a close relationship between various value activities of enterprises, such as the close cooperation between supply, production and sales; Second, every value activity can create tangible or intangible value for enterprises; Third, the value chain includes not only the internal value activities of enterprises, but also the relationship between enterprises and suppliers, enterprises and buyers, and enterprises and competitors.
Third, the content and methods of value chain analysis
We expound the contents and methods of value chain analysis from the following two aspects: internal value chain analysis and external value chain analysis.
(A) Analysis of the internal value chain of enterprises.
The premise of enterprise internal value analysis is to identify some value activities of the enterprise and decompose the enterprise into independent value activities. Every value activity is the "basic unit" for enterprises to create value for customers, and it also consumes the resources of enterprises and causes costs. All value activities within an enterprise are interactive, and the cost of one value activity will affect the cost of another. Therefore, the internal value chain analysis of enterprises is to systematically classify activities by using specific methods, so as to eliminate non-value-added activities, coordinate internal activities and enhance the competitive advantage in line with the competitive strategy of enterprises.
The basic steps of enterprise internal value chain analysis are as follows: confirming the single value activity in the value chain-confirming the cost that should be shared by a single value activity-evaluating the cost of a single value activity and its contribution to customer satisfaction-finding out the relationship between each unit value chain in the enterprise-evaluating the coordination of the relationship between unit value chains-taking improvement actions. Through these analysis steps, enterprises can find out which value activities in their value chain are not conducive to the formation of their competitive advantage.
The specific methods of internal value chain analysis are: value engineering and activity-based cost management.
1. Value engineering, also known as functional cost analysis, is an organized activity to reliably realize the necessary functions of products or operations at the lowest total cost, focusing on functional analysis. The value that a certain function of a product can achieve is evaluated according to the level determined by consumer evaluation. When applying value engineering analysis, enterprises should scientifically determine the functional coefficient of each function of products based on the feedback information of user evaluation, and grade products with the functional coefficient as the weight. Value engineering is mainly used in the product design stage, but this paper thinks that the principle of value engineering method can be applied to every value activity in the internal value chain analysis of enterprises. By comparing the contribution of each value activity to product value with the resources consumed by value activities, we can find out the efficiency of different value activities and the ways to improve their efficiency, so as to seek the relevant information space for reducing costs.
2. Activity-based cost management. Activity-based cost management is actually the application of value chain analysis in enterprise internal cost management. It is a tactical management method, which mainly analyzes every business activity of an enterprise according to the principle that products consume activities and activities consume resources. By investigating the relationship between activity change and customer value change, activities are divided into value-added activities and non-value-added activities, and non-value-added activities are eliminated, thus reducing unnecessary costs.
(B) Analysis of external value chain of enterprises.
The analysis of enterprise's external value chain is more strategic in nature, and it is an important tool to implement strategic cost management. The specific methods of external value analysis mainly include the following four:
1, industry value chain analysis. Any enterprise can locate its own industry according to the products it provides. There are many enterprises in the same industry, they are engaged in different value activities, or the same part of value activities are organized by many enterprises. The operation of each enterprise seems to exist independently, but from a strategic point of view, various value activities are related, which is the unity of mutual influence and restriction. Therefore, when analyzing the industry value chain, it is necessary to determine the position in the industry, understand the relationship between upstream and downstream enterprises, and tap their own cost advantages by comparing competitors engaged in the same value activities.
2. Customer value chain analysis. Customers belong to the downstream enterprises of the enterprise, and they are the middlemen or final consumers who buy the products of the enterprise. For enterprises that sell products directly to final consumers, we can reduce the cost of sales and after-sales service by understanding the way and cycle of consumers using products. For example, for products with complicated use and operation procedures, enterprises can provide on-site guidance and other services to save maintenance costs caused by improper user operation. For enterprises whose downstream customers are distributors, on the one hand, the delivery time, quantity and variety can be arranged reasonably to avoid the cost of inventory backlog caused by blind production; On the other hand, by establishing strategic alliances with distributors or directly through integration, intermediate transaction costs and sales expenses can be avoided.
3. Analysis of competitors' value chain. By analyzing the value chain of competitors, enterprises can analyze and understand their relative competitive advantages and disadvantages, and help enterprises to establish their own competitive advantages in a targeted manner. At the same time, in the process of analyzing the value chain of competitors, we will find a higher level of the same index, so enterprises can establish new benchmarks and use them to measure and improve their activities. However, there are obstacles in analyzing the value chain of competitors, so we can still grasp valuable information for our company through multi-channel investigation, such as analyzing the relevant information of competitors' upstream and downstream enterprises to understand their raw material costs and sales activities, and also analyzing their products to understand their product design and production conditions.
4. Supplier value chain analysis. The value chain analysis of suppliers, namely upstream enterprises, is very meaningful for enterprises to avoid unnecessary costs. By understanding the production process of suppliers, enterprises can help suppliers change the design of raw materials to better meet their own needs and save some pre-processing costs of raw materials. Through information communication with suppliers, enterprises can coordinate the procurement time and batch, even the way of packaging and transportation, and avoid the extra time, manpower and capital costs caused by urgent need, backlog or improper packaging methods. Enterprises can also establish mutually beneficial alliances with suppliers or directly implement backward integration to save procurement costs and reduce raw material procurement risks.
Fourth, the significance of value chain analysis
Traditional cost management focuses on the analysis of enterprise internal value chain to determine the rationality of enterprise cost consumption. Its analysis ranges from the beginning of material procurement to the end of product sales, focusing on product manufacturing, which misses the opportunity to improve the cost of the enterprise itself by understanding the relationship between suppliers and customers. Value chain analysis effectively overcomes the disadvantages of traditional cost analysis, and can reveal the cost information about enterprise competitiveness in many ways, which plays a very important role in formulating strategies to eliminate cost disadvantages and create cost advantages.
1. Through the analysis of the internal value chain of an enterprise, we can make clear what value activities the enterprise has and what kind of distribution state it is in, and compare the cost of each value activity with its contribution to the product value to determine the value-added and non-value-added activities.
2. Through the analysis of the industry value chain, we can not only clarify the position of enterprises in the industry, but also determine the relevant competitive strategies according to the life cycle stages of the industry, and then clarify the focus of cost management. At the same time, we can have a clearer understanding of the numerous suppliers and customers faced by enterprises.
3. By analyzing the value chain of customers and suppliers, we can use the relationship between upstream and downstream value chains to establish strategic alliances and achieve a win-win situation, or directly seek to integrate and rebuild the enterprise value chain. Through this analysis, enterprises can obtain relevant decision-making information to investigate the feasibility of reducing costs through integration.
4. By analyzing the value chain of competitors, we can objectively evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of enterprises in the industry, so as to determine the competitive strategy that can gain competitive advantage.