ABSTRACT
Cost management is on the brink of immense change. This is not the first time the field has faced upheaval. During the 1980s, management commentators, accounting scholars and prominent accounting practitioners called for radical changes in cost management practices (see Bromwich and Bhimani, 1989). Many finance executives heeded these calls, and large numbers of enterprises adopted new approaches to managing costs. These included activity-based management, throughput accounting, life cycle costing, target cost management and the Balanced Scorecard among others. Within many companies, understandings of the role, impact and dimensions of cost management was transformed following the implementation of new accounting applications (see Bromwich and Bhimani, 1994). Today, enterprises are again facing significant challenges that will prove very disruptive. There are three main developments which will lead companies to rethink their cost management practices: the spread of internet technologies, the rise of novel organizational forms and the advent of new approaches to using, accessing and analysing information. This essay considers their impact. First, some background on how and why these forces of change have emerged.
