TABLE OF CONTENTS:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:.............................................................................................1 Overview of the company:......................................................................................2 Review of management accounting:.......................................................................3 Key techniques and methods:.................................................................................4 Strengths and weaknesses of analysis: ..................................................................5 References:............................................................................................................ 6

Overview of the company:

In 1869 John James Sainsbury and his wife Mary Ann Sainsbury established the Sainsbury Company with few branches by producing some of the best quality dairy products at the lowest price in the market. In 1973 company was listed on London Stock Exchange. After few years Sainsbury started growing all over UK, in 1983 they comprised a joint venture with Shaws Supermarket to step into international market of United States. By 1997 Sainsbury started entering into financial services by making up of a joint venture with Bank of Scotland. In the year 2003 Sainsbury entered into the telecommunication services and signed an agreement with Carphone warehouse to provide mobile and land line services and also launched a range of cookware products in some of its selected stores. Then they started selling and acquired many other stores to develop its stores and also begin with the clothes range, food (pizzas, sauces etc) for both vegetarians and nonvegetarians, own range of alcohols in beverages and cheap cost range of cleaning products. In an overview Sainsbury has many different processes and is been divided into three main parts where First is: retailing which includes supermarkets with food and non food items, second is finance and banking which has loans, credit cards and third is property services and investments. These are the three major fields of Sainsbury which are working with their best. Taking into account the annual report of Sainsbury, it shows the huge revenue of its retail business with their developed network. Apart from this, Sainsbury is facing a strong competition with the high level of companies like Tesco, ASDA, M&S, NEXT, Morrison and Whole foods which are also strong and international organizations in the current market. (J Sainsbury plc Overview: Top Competitors) Sainsbury is maintaining their good standard services since their start of their organization with a dairy shop in 1869 by providing good quality products with lower price and also maintaining their friendly environment. Hence they have their challenging pricing policy and good promotion and brought up to the customers in different method which is shop and save to maintain them. The other important factor was the focus on the customers taste. They involved and engaged in a good

manner by building good reliability and relation to attract and retain the customers. (REVIEW OF POLICIES AND CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITIES)

Review of management accounting:

Management accounting which is derived from a mixture of two words of Management and accounting. Management means everything to maintain and look after all process and performance in the organizations. Accounting means the record of every action inside the business and to measure the sales and development for the prospect. So together the word management accounting shows the way of getting required data about the financial and non-financial segment to improve the organization and to achieve its goal and targets in an successful manner. Management Accounting is based upon the bunch of accounting factors and techniques which gives the overview and need of that particular organization which can be used by the business management to know the status of the business which in terms helps the officials to make a better improvements in their process and activities. The most important factor is that, this information will be maintained confidentially and only the management authority will be known and updated about this. (Management Accounting definition) This is used for many purposes which is important for the business. Initially for making the budget plans to proceed with their process. Secondly the marking up of standard price for their products which is decision making. Thirdly to control and maintain the system of management. There are many techniques to measure and analyze the condition of the business, following are some of the techniques: Make or Buy Just-In-Time Inventory Management Budgeting Variance Analysis Activity Based Costing
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 FIFO Relevant and irrelevant costing (HUGH COOMBS, DAVID HOBBS AND ELLIS JENKINS) (COST AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING TECHNIQUES)

Key techniques and methods:

Sainsbury is involving in different types of businesses, the maximum part and share depend on its retail business and it is best named for it. Their other businesses are not very popular. Make or Buy, is their technique which is used by Sainsburys management to decide the make of the product by the considering its quality, its cost and the expense outflow or to buy the product from the outside market. Depending on the analysis my opinion for Sainsbury is to buy the product from outside in order to avoid manufacturing expenses and other costs. So it could be better if they purchase the products from outside depending upon their and customers requirement. They also have retail sales where they sell food products, dairy items, beverages, vegetables, fruits, household products and alcohols. As their business is of long range they have their own industry to manufacture their goods. So the company is selling out the products in their own name and as well as some of the other brand products . Next I suggest FIFO - first in First Out method. This method is very useful for the perishable products like vegetables, fruits, meat, milk etc. Because these products should be sold out in the first priority basis in order to maintain its quality and serve the customer with the best products. And also some of the other edible products which should be sold out within its time or else it would harm the health after getting expired. The UK government is very strict in case of health and safety of the people, so the organisation should follow this technique to maintain their business as well as considering the health constraint of the customers. The third technique which I can suggest is the Inventory Management, this is the method which is used for helping them in means of producing the goods. This measures the available stocks in their hands and initiates the demand of the stocks, so that the company can start their preparation of next volume of goods. For example, the occasions like New Year, Christmas etc, the sales will be high. So that using this inventory management the organisation can be updated regarding the
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stocks which will be useful for the expansion of their business. Not only this but the company can also be prepared for the next season's variety of products. Next technique is the Variance analysis, it shows the difference between the actual costs and the standard cost for the products. The main objective of this analysis is to help the administration about the present cost price in the market and to control the future market price. This also helps in analysing difference between the actual and the budgeted sales. The next technique is Budgeting, it is very important and a main measure of any type of organization to run its business successfully in the market. It shows the each and every movement of the business, current position of the business, sales at the current situation. The aim of using budgeting in the business is to handle the expense, profit or loss, resource and establishing new plans for the growth of the organization. This also helps to define the goal of the business, so the management can act accordingly in means of improving the measures or techniques of their process. The other three techniques, JIT- Just in time, Relevant and irrelevant costing, Activity Based costing cannot be used for Sainsburys, because the JIT method is suitable for the very big manufacturing industries. For example, manufacturing car requires its accessories to be delivered at a very speed time but they will not have the goods as a stock which means just in time. This probably does not suit Sainsbury. Likewise all other two techniques also suits only for manufacturing industries.

Strengths and weaknesses of analysis:

This report figures briefly about the management accounting which is obtained as a management accountant of a company. The report shows the full picture of Sainsbury which is one of the famous branded companies with all its products, process and strategies in the UK market. The strength of this report is a change of case study about an organization and its process, products and their competitors. Though this new to me, it gives a good opportunity to learn about the new things in a different manner which I never came across. I gained more knowledge about learning about an organization in a very deep manner and learn the techniques which may be useful in my future, if suppose

I am in a situation to implement or improve a technique for an organization in order to develop the growth of the business. The weakness of the analysis is the information was not up to the expected level for creating a report for the organization. As per Sainsbury, the management can stop the resource in the other field which is not successful in order to concentrate more in the successful path and also to reduce the loss for the company.

References:
http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/ http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/J-Sainsbury-plccompany-History.html http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/management-accounting.html http://www.investorwords.com/48/accounting.html