ABSTRACT
During the last twenty years of the 1800s, the business environment began to change rapidly. The increase in the amount of capital that was needed to make this transition brought with it an increase in the level of financial risk associated with the business. The first of the issues facing business was addressed by Frederick W. Taylor, who in 1895 presented a paper at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers entitled "A Piece Rate System: Being a Step toward Partial Solution of the Labor Problem". In 1903, DuPont, which at the time only produced gunpowder, became the first multi-divisional business when it purchased a company that made bullets. With the newfound ability to accurately measure and calculate the performance of various business components as well as to calculate an accurate product cost, managers had a much better understanding of the how's and why's behind the performance of their businesses.
