How to Understand Business Finance, Second Edition

  • 1h 59m
  • Bob Cinnamon, Brian Helweg-Larsen
  • Kogan Page
  • 2010

The modern marketplace is increasingly unpredictable and there is an ever-greater need for non-financial managers to understand the financial and management accounting process.

How to Understand Business Finance is not written by an accountant and actually relates to running a business in a real market. It describes a business as it proceeds from initial set-up through its first year of trading, providing a quick course on business finance as it relates to business growth. As well as learning how to understand the balance sheet and profit and loss account, readers will also grasp the principles of: market dynamics; budgeting and forecasting; fixed and variable costs; break-even analysis; the difference between profit and cash; financial ratios for measuring business performance; investment appraisal; stock market ratios; shareholder value; financial measures for improving business performance, and much more.

About the Authors

Brian Helweg-Larsen is a global educator and director of Profitability Business Solutions. He has spent the last 15 years developing business simulations to assist corporate change and improve financial results for clients including Nestl, Ford, Unilever, Abbott, Pfizer, Zeneca and Guinness. Brian teaches in three languages across five continents and runs the only business simulation (on which this book is based) used by the Harvard Business School's MBA Programme.

Bob Cinnamon is an educator with a global reputation. As a director of the international training and consultancy firm, INSIGHT Marketing and People, Bob runs his popular masterclass and in-company training programme, Demystifying Financial Management, that has helped hundreds of managers and company directors from small and medium-sized businesses to major multi-nationals. Operating in some 30 countries, current clients include AstraZeneca, Avecia, BP, BT, Dow Corning, Dulux, DuPont, Glaxo SmithKline, Huntsman, ICI, JD Edwards, Pfizer, PPG, Qiagen and RoyalSunAlliance.

In this Book

  • Introduction
  • So why do You Want to Know More about Finance?
  • The Business Cycle
  • Where do all the Business Functions Fit in?
  • Financial Planning — the Budgets
  • Measuring Business Performance — Financial Ratios
  • Getting Finance from the Bank
  • How Our Investors See us — Stock Market Ratios
  • Valuing a Company
  • Shareholder Value and Economic Profit
  • The Hidden Costs — Depreciation, Amortisation and Tax
  • What Must We Sell to Make a Profit?
  • Tools for Evaluating Projects
  • Where is all our cash? Managing working capital
  • Glossary of Financial Terms
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