Managerial Accounting Report: Canon Inc. and Apple Computer Inc.

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Managerial Accounting
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Table of Contents
Part B...............................................................................................................................................2
1.......................................................................................................................................................2
2.......................................................................................................................................................3
3.......................................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5
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Part B
1.
Management accounting refers to the systems, processes, procedures used by a firm to collect,
interpret, analyze and communicate the financial and the economic information of a firm. This
system is mainly concerned with the internal information of the firm rather than the external
information of the firm (Myaccountingcourse, 2019). So, interpreting the definition of
management accounting, the first and the foremost usage of the management accounting system
by the firm Canon, Inc. and Apple Computer, Inc. is that they both use the management
accounting information system in order to collect the accounting and economic information for
their usage. This is mainly concerned with making decisions for the firm regarding innovation.
For example, the firm Canon Inc. uses the management accounting information system has
helped the firm Canon Inc. to innovate and develop the product Mini Copier. At the same time,
the firm Apple Computers have used the management accounting information system as a tool to
develop the product Macintosh Computer. As mentioned in the case study, these two products
help magnanimous importance for both the firms.
Management accounting essentially requires communication within the departments and with the
employers and employees. This was used by the team of Canon Inc. when a system was
organized to communicate constantly amongst each other and with the leaders of internal
organizations such as with the managing director for Research and Development; director of
Corporate Technical Planning and Operations Center; etc. This strong communication network
is like the backbone of management accounting which was used by the firm Canon Inc. while
developing and innovating the MC (Nonaka., 1991).
Similarly, a group mania team was created by the team of Apple computer when they were
working on the project of developing computers for the firm. The group mania included a team
of marketing specialists, engineers, etc. This helped the team of Apple computers to
communicate within themselves better and this resulted in better synchronization and
harmonization of processes while developing the computer and while working on this project.
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2.
Innovation refers to the creation or development of a new product/ service or a new way of
working out a process (Dwyer, 2019). As specified in the case study, information creation is
indeed the main component of creating and developing a new product. The biggest role of
information creation is that it provides useful insights while formulating and developing a new
product. As mentioned earlier as well, management accounting relies highly on the information
collected from the management accounting information system. The timely information
collection and communication of information are the two main components that any firm goes
through while creating a new product. When the Canon Inc was creating the new MC, a
communication system was set up by the firm so that the employees or the team as a whole could
contact the various interdepartmental managers and the team leaders (Nonaka., 1991).
. When communication is enhanced in an organization, new information is created and this
information is again transmitted to the employees further on so that the information so collected
from the management accounting information system could be interpreted in the correct way.
Then based on this various information collected by the firm, the decisions are taken. These
decisions prove to be timely, effective and efficient because they have a solid information base
behind them. Management accounting information system of management accounting plays a
major part in this process.
When Mini copper was being developed by Canon, a diverse team was created by the firm which
included technical staff,mechanical engineers, even chemists, electronic engineers, etc. this led to
creative differences and ultimately this improves the quality of the process and the final product
is a qualitative one.
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3.
The major learning lessons or the major outcomes that can be used by the management
accountant across Australia are listed as follows:
 The first and foremost important lesson that needs to be learned by the management
accountants is that they need a very strong and sound management accounting information
system in their departments and organizations so as to collect and receive timely and reliable
information. This can be inferred as the organization Canon Inc used the information system
while developing the product mini coiper (Nonaka., 1991).
 The second major thing that the accountants can use all over Australia is to pay attention to
the quality control within the firms. one more thing that the firm and the management
accountant need to do all across Australia and can be a great learning outcome is that they
need to constantly re-examine, re-conceptualize and reorganize their products & strategies so
that they can always see the loopholes in their products and strategies. Unless a firm reviews
its own policies, it cannot grow any further. So, the second learning outcome is to review the
existing strategies so as to keep strong quality control on the products being manufactured by
the firm such as in the case of Canon while developing mini coiper.
 One another key take away for the management accountant is the formation of a core team. It
is very important to formulate a core team which is entirely dedicated to work upon the
developments and innovation of the concerned product the company is aiming at. This holds
true for both the firm; the Canon Inc and the firm Apple Computer. Both of these firms
developed a core team which worked on the formation of Mini coiper and computers
respectively (Nonaka., 1991)...
 The other key takes away for the managerial accountant all over is that one innovation leads
to another. As specified in the case study above, the most important innovation of Canon was
the developments of mini coiper which led to the developments of various other cameras for
this firm. Similarly, the innovation of Apple computer formed the basis of the entire Apple
company.
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References
 Dwyer. J. 2019. What is innovation: why almost everyone defines it wrong. [Online]
digintent. Available at: https://digintent.com/what-is-innovation/ Accessed on: 14th May
2019
 global.canon. 2019. The History of Canon1976 – 1987. [Online] Available at:
https://global.canon/en/corporate/history/03.html [Accessed on: 14th may 2019]
 Myaccountingcourse. 2019. What is Management Accounting? [Online] Available at:
https://www.myaccountingcourse.com/accounting-dictionary/management-accounting
[Accessed on: 14th may 2019]
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