Performance Measurement in Service Industries: Issues and Approaches

Types of Service Industries

Performance measurement in service industries helps organisations to improve their competitive advantage through the provision and use of appropriate measures of business performance. It is argued that there are three different types of service – professional services, service shops, and mass services – and that approaches to performance measurement vary between these three.

It is also argued that service managers require or need to adopt a range of measures to evaluate the performance of their business, monitoring the more intangible aspects which contribute to competitive success, as well as the more quantifiable financial results. Six dimensions of service business performance are identified: financial and competitive performance, service quality and innovation, flexibility and resource utilisation.

Working on the premise that performance measurement is central to management control, you are required to read the scenario below carefully, and to prepare a report which deals with the following requirements:

a) Critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of top management setting budgets within a company without the participation of lower-level managers.

b) Prepare a report for the financial controller, highlighting what you consider to be the problems of the current systems of performance measurement, management reporting and setting budgets. State how you consider the systems might be improved in light of the company’s current financial difficulties.

c) Report format and references – marks will be awarded for:

• Structure and presentation

• Clear understanding of advance management accounting issues

• Clarity of explanation - logical argument and discussion

• Originality of thought and ideas

• Evidence of thorough research and references.

• High marks will be gained where clear understanding of advance management accounting issues and skills are demonstrated.

• This assignment constitutes 40% of the final assessment module grade.

• Your assignment should not be more than 2,000 words.

• The assignment should be submitted in Word document.

• The assignment must be your own work. You are reminded of the Academic Integrity Policy and ensure you check your Turnitin similarity score before final submission.

• Any bibliographical/referencing details should be separate from the assignment and should show clearly using Harvard style referencing.

This item of assessment covers the following learning outcomes. For the full list of learning outcomes for the module, please refer to the Module Study Guide.

• Critically evaluate a wide range of traditional and modern cost and management accounting techniques in businesses.

• Critically examine various budgeting and standard costing techniques.

• Examine and critique both traditional cost and management accounting techniques and alternative modern techniques.

• Develop key skills: communication (C2), problem solving (C5), processing of numerical data (C7).

1. Have you checked Canvas messages/announcements for any additional/final details of the assessment?

2. Are you submitting in the correct submission area e.g. if it is a resubmission of your second assignment it should be ‘AS2R’?

3. Make sure you are submitting the correct final version of your work.

4. Have you kept to the word limit? Remember, anything greater than 10% above the word count will not be marked.

5. Have you addressed the assessment requirements as outlined in the Assessment Brief?

6. Have you spell checked and proofread your work?

7. Is your work formatted correctly and consistently?

8. Are you submitting a document in the correct format?

9. Is your work written in an appropriate academic style?

10. Have you checked your citations and Reference List/Bibliography?

11. Have you submitted your work to get a similarity report to check you have paraphrased where required?

12. Have you read the Declaration of Authorship (Appendix 2)?

1. I hold a copy of this assignment which can be produced if the original is lost/damaged.

2. This assignment is my original work and no part of it has been copied from any other student’s work or from any other source except where due acknowledgement has been made.

3. No part of this assignment has been written for me by any other person except where such collaboration has been authorised and as detailed in the Assessment Brief.

4. I have not previously submitted this work for any other course/module.

5. Where applicable, I have included a declaration confirming external editorial or proof-reading services.