The target cost is a financial goal for the full cost of a product, ......... from estimates of selling price and desired profit (which top management sets on the basis of firm strategy and financial goals).

Product selling price is ......... by the marketplace and is determined by analysis along the entire industry value chain and across all functions in a firm.

......... to most target-cost applications is a belief that large-scale cost planning and reduction must occur early in the product life cycle.

However, Shank and Fisher believe there is no ......... reason the methodology cannot be a value-added exercise applied to existing products during manufacturing.

They ......... that if managers were to believe that, during manufacturing, only incremental (i.e., slight) change is possible, firms would likely miss significant strategic opportunities.

Shank and Fisher present a case study that demonstrates the relevance of target-costing techniques for a process-industry plant built in the 1890s that had been making ......... the same products for fifty years.

The firm's managers, who had used a standard-cost system for many years, might have concluded that ......... costing was most appropriate for this plant.

However, competitive realities necessitated a major strategic change that employed target costing as an important ......... in cost-reduction efforts leading to strategic revitalization.

The standard cost concept essentially dropped out of the ..........

Because standard costing accepts the existing game rules and the existing value chain, the authors believe that fundamental cost ......... are much more probable when using target costing.