The Role of Strategic Cost Management in Marketing Decisions: A Case Evidence of Brand Acquisition Assessment

Abstract

While the role of strategic cost management (SCM) is heralded to pervade through all the links in a firm’s value-chain (Anderson, 2006; Shank & Govindarajan, 2004) the specific role of SCM in relation to a firm’s marketing function has thus far been limited to a few areas such as product pricing and analysing customer profitability through activity-based cost allocations (Datar & Rajan, 2018; Foster & Gupta, 1994; Van Raaij, 2005). This paper presents a case study to show how SCM concepts can be extended to evaluate brand acquisition by a large organisation. Using shareholder value analysis for pricing the brand and combining with financial statement analysis and strategic positioning models such as Porter’s five forces and SWOT, this paper conducts an assessment in order to offer recommendations for a multi-billion peso investment of a large Philippine-based processed foods company seeking to acquire a new brand.