Introduction

Every company in the world are generated profit through their product in the market. Company will introduce new product to compete with other company in the market. Company will do a lot of research and make innovation about their product before bring to the market. The cost of developing new product will be very expensive if the controlled of the cost are bad. Many department of the company will involve in the process of developing new product. The department such as marketing, management, technology, accounting. Now accountant not only doing the account but involve in the process of developing new product. Their responsibility are control the cost of the developing new product. This report will discuss the role of the accountant in developing new products.

The role of accountant in developing new products

1) Support Parallel Cost Management Teams Parallel cost management teams who support by accountant involve in the product development teams. They are applied the cost reduction at the manufacturing stage or in the product development. These cost specialists who also accountant will help the product development team use cost models such as activity based costing models. This models was explained by them to the product development team to help them on their decisions. The cost team will participate in the product development teams meeting. The objective is the team can start working on identify the cost which can reduce in the project. The experts of the parallel cost team will use their expertise in reviewing the designs of pieces outside the critical path of the development project. They will include the cost reduction knowledge on each project especially in developing new product. ( Davilla and Wouters, 2004 )

2) Provide Modular Design For Cost This is another approach to managing costs during product development. The proposes are the way to increase product offerings without increasing the numbers of products developed. Management accountant has think that this approach has the advantage of keeping manufacturing
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complexity down. The cost can receive enough attention when developing modules that are not core to product performance outside the development project. For example, the new product of the company is the pumps. This newly pumps technology is much better and the costs were higher in the priority list. But this new pumps reduced cost of installation like construction, ducts, cables, pipes and reduce power requirements. It is also increase the quality and reduce the total cost of the ownership. The accountant provides the modularity in pumps because it can allow the product design team to put more effort into reducing costs. The teams now can take the pump as given without spending time in designing and comparing offers from different suppliers. It has make the product development team need not concentrate on spending too much time on designing and compare the offers of suppliers. ( Davilla and Wouters, 2004 )

3) Product-Platform Planning Product-Platform Planning takes into account the cost effects of todays design decisions on future costs. A product platform is a product architecture that allows components, processes, and knowledge to be shared across a set of products. Accountant involves into product platform planning which this planning will think about the future product portfolio and the future cost implications of todays decisions. This planning can applied in the new product. For example, Philips company produced new television. The new television has set one of three standard printed circuit board architectures addressing high, medium and low end segments. It has make the division focus on modules and components such as size of the screen, shape of the control box and external box. This is the needs of the new television product. It has save the cost of the new television product. Accountant has applied this planning into product development team which it has reduce the cost and time for the new product development. ( Davilla and Wouters, 2004 ) 4) Support Outsourcing There are some reasons to implement the outsourcing. This is including improved efficiency, cost reductions and increased flexibility. Some situation can applied this outsourcing such as the
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making production planning difficult and expensive or in new product development. In large organization, there are the need administrators, accountant, or marketer to perform their skills for outsourcing. When company want to produce a new product, the cost may be expensive than expect. This is because the costs include materials, labour, overheads and some other costs. If the marketer, accountant or administrators can identify the part of the cost which can outsource, the cost of produce new product will be lower. For example, outsource in materials or change the way of production. This can save the cost and improve efficiency of the product. Another example company applied the outsourcing strategy. Ford customer service division faced a problem in increase in orders in replacement ball-joint kits for transit van and afraid losing market share. Ford had made an agreement with Remploy, a contract manufacturer in materials procurement, collation and packing. Remploy had identified the problem in the areas of forecasting and capacity and made changes to various part of their operation. Now Ford had save around 5% in their cost. ( Bromage, 2000 ) 5) Financial and economic analysis When company want to introduced the new product or new technology in the manufacturing process, management accountant have to involve in the process. They have to analysis the financial of the new product and the economic situation. Management accountant not only doing accounts but have to involve in production, marketing, research and development, product line group. Accountants have to calculate the cost of the new product such as materials, labours , overheads and also have to analyze the financial position of the company. If the costs of the new product are more than the cost set by company, the new product will not be introduced. Accountants also have to analyze the economy situation of the market. If the economy facing unemployment, the people spending is lower than expected, the new products should not introduce to the market because it will take loss the company. The company will be earning profit from new product if the market situations are good. 6) Business support Management accounts have to support business in organization. They not only support in financial but includes IT, business systems, product development and manufacturing. Accountants have to working with the new product introduction teams and working with models in the
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( Siegel, 2000 )

developmental stage when new products introduce. They do target costing and monitor the costs of the new product. They will provide their information of the cost in the new product project. Sometimes they also have to work with volume and pricing projections. This means they will give their own opinion on the pricing of the new product. ( Siegel, 2000 )

7) Calculating of the cost associated to product development Accountant will calculate the cost of product development by project costing and the costing of inserting the product into the company production system. The costs of product are related to the cost activities. Project cost must be amortized during the product life-cycle. This is because to quantify the costs of each project separately. The accountants will estimate the activity costs of the new product though project costing. ABC method was chosen to calculate the cost in product development whether the product is new or still in process. After calculating the cost, accountant will insert the cost related into the company production system. This is for the economic evaluation during the development process. This is also wants to know the impact of the new product in the company structure which are directly or indirectly related to the production. ( Tiago Pascoal Filomena, 2005 )

Conclusion
Accountant have support a lot in company business. Whether it is in product development or IT, accountants have using their knowledge and support on the company. From the report, we can conclude that accountants have a big role in the company. They help company to analyze the financial, economic situation. Accountants are really important for the company.

References
1) Davilla, Antonio and Wouters, Marc, 2004, Designing Cost-Competitive Technology Products through Cost Management , Accounting Horizons, Vol18, No1, 13-26 2) Bromage, Neil ,2000, Outsourcing To do, or not to do, that is the question Management Accounting magazines, 22-23
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3) Siegal, Gary, 2000, What do management accountants do , Strategic Finance, Vol82 Issue1, 85-86. http:// search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh$AN=349940&site=ehostlive 4) Tiago Pascoal Filomena, Francisco Jose Kliemann Neto,et,al, 2005, Devising a cost management approach for product development , Brazilian Journal of Product Development Management, vol3, 3n http://pmd.hostcentral.com.br/revistas/vol_03/nr_1/v3n1a02.pdf