Strategic Managerial Accounting – A Primer for the IT Professional

Book excerpt: This book, probably the first written from the perspective of software professionals, attempts to introduce them to the mysteries of strategic managerial accounting (SMA). The common view in the industry is that "accounting is for the accountants", despite the fact that IT professionals are regularly confronted by financial situations such as project pricing, performance measurement, risk estimation, costs allocation etc. While it is desirable and even necessary that every proposal be vetted by respective specialists, the speed and reliability of the process could improve if the people who originate the proposal had knowledge of the fundamentals that go into the decision making. Unfortunately most books on management accounting, whether strategic or otherwise, are written from the perspective of the manufacturing industry. The IT and services industry on the other hand has a unique cost structure, quite distinct from manufacturing, which needs to be dealt with from a different perspective. This book focuses on SMA in context of the IT software industry, and seeks to equip the IT professional with some basics of SMA to assist them in making more informed decisions.