BUD5 Profit and Sustainability Analysis is taught in the last semester, where the overarching theme is on data-driven decisions for sustainable value creation. We focus on managerial decision-making, providing students with the skills needed to identify problems, gather and analyze relevant information, and critically assess the implications of decisions for profits and sustainable value creation.
We address the following topics in the course:
- How can we estimate the costs and profitability of different objects, including departments, products, services, and sustainable business models?
- How can we use management accounting information for short- and long-term decision making, including using data analytics in pricing products and services? How do sustainability issues inform these decisions?
- How do organizations design management control systems to execute their strategies for sustainable value creation?
- How do organizations use financial- and non-financial indicators to plan, control and evaluate the performance of an organization?
To analyze these questions, we draw mainly on theories from management accounting and management control, but also other disciplines such as strategy and economics. In addition, we use methods from TECH1-5 to estimate cost structures and produce other relevant information for decision-making. The course combines cased based teaching with pre-recorded lectures on technical issues (e.g. financial performance measures and costing methods).