Sustainable Development and Engineering Economics (Jul 2021)

Development of a system-synergetic approach to cost management for a high-tech industrial enterprise

  • Ekaterina Burova,
  • Sergei Grishunin,
  • Svetlana Suloeva

DOI
https://doi.org/10.48554/SDEE.2021.1.2
Journal volume & issue
no. 1
pp. 15 – 32

Abstract

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This study develops a system-synergetic approach to cost management and a mechanism for its implementation in high-tech industrial enterprises. The relevance of the study is determined by the dominant role of the high-tech industrial sector in developing national economies and the increasing impact of costs on the performance of enterprises. The aim of the study is to eliminate methodological, functional, and systemic problems in cost management for high-tech industrial enterprises. In the study, the features of the function of high-tech industrial enterprises were determined, the approach to cost management for enterprises was proposed, and the cost management mechanism, including the description of the stages, was developed. The works of foreign and Russian researchers in cost management, risk management, and enterprise economics are the theoretical and methodological basis of the study. The authors propose a system-synergetic approach based on the systematisation of existing approaches to cost management. The following tools were used to develop a cost management mechanism: (1) a cost model of the company’s profitability in terms of cash flow, (2) statistical data analysis, (3) a bow tie diagram to identify risk factors by key cost drivers, (4) simulation modelling using the Monte Carlo method, (5) a graph of accumulated profitability in terms of cash flow, and (6) a graph of strategic well-being by periods to trace the decline in profitability as innovative products lose their innovative nature. In comparison with existing approaches, the approach proposed in the study considers the specifics of a high-tech industrial enterprise and considers it as a complex open system operating under conditions of uncertainty and under the influence of external and internal risks on the cost management system. The cost management mechanism, based on the system-synergetic approach, calculates the profitability of an enterprise by cash flow, determines the target price of innovative products, analyses the impact of risks on key cost factors and their parameters, considers the correlations between risks, and calculates the expected level of profitability of innovative products under risk conditions. These advantages make the cost management process dynamic, responding to new threats and changes in the external and internal environment of the enterprise.

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