Management Accounting:

Assume you work as a graduate for a large consulting firm. As part of your professional development, you have been asked to select a newspaper / magazine article (written in English) which raises management accounting problems regarding a specific organization, which require a solution.

A recent article titled:

"McDonald's CosMc's is gunning for afternoon coffee sales. Starbucks shouldn't worry, analyst says" published in CNBC on 12 December 2023.

Access the article using the following link:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/12/cosmcs-vs-starbucks-analyst-says-new-mcdonalds-concept-is-no-threat.html

Analyse the issues raised by the article chosen and writing a memorandum addressed to the board of directors of the organisation chosen.

Your analysis should include:

1) Consideration of the management accounting issues raised by the article, including any potential strengths, opportunities as well as any weaknesses and threats identified.

2) Consideration of management accounting techniques or tools which lead to solutions / courses of action / lessons learned that you would offer to the board of directors as to how the issues identified can be tackled or how the organisation concerned can improve its performance.

For example: 2.1 Porters' generic strategies (Product differentiation strategy)

2.2 A 'Build' strategy

2.3 Value-added Analysis

2.4 Building a Strategic Performance Measurement System

2.5 The Balanced Scorecard

2.6 Benchmarking

2.7 Competitor Analysis

2.8 Porters' Five Forces (a suitable tool to use for undertaking analysis, since it indicates the degree of potential profitability (attractiveness) of the industry )

2.9 4 C's of Pricing

3.0 Strategic pricing of new products (Penetration pricing for new products - CosMc)

4) Any other relevant matter that you believe will be of use to the board of directors