Nowadays companies are facing with intense competitive pressure. Market conditions are characterized by aggressive competition, more and more demanding customers who pose serious questions about competitive strategies and underline the importance of an efficient management information and cost system.

In order to with the current requirements, to improve internal and external communication, there is a demand for accurate, reliable and versatile information on financial, internal processes and costs. Therefore the quality of management decisions and performance measurement is tightly linked to the quality of management and cost calculation systems and performance measurement systems.

The purpose of this paper is to cover the available literature in this field and to demonstrate that new and complex cost systems and cost calculation methods represents major innovations within an organization and permits not only cost calculation and analysis but also performance measurement, strategy definition are oriented through competition and customers.

costs system, cost calculation methods, performance measurement, strategy