Course content provides graduates with the essentials of an MBA in Finance in just two days. The two day format allows for multiple skill building exercises in addition to the knowledge based content. Graduates can immediately apply financial knowledge to their job tasks.
This 2-day course is divided into four modules.
- Financial Statements
- Financial Analysis and Ratios
- Break-Even Analysis
- Capital Investment Decision Analysis
Module 1. Financial Statements – Participants learn basic concepts of the three major financial statements —Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. The purpose of each statement, individual line items, general construction and formulas that govern each statement are reviewed. Short, interactive exercises demonstrate how routine business transactions impact each statement. Exercises using the client’s Annual Report provide a more real-world understanding of the financial statements. Participants learn how these three major financial statements are interconnected by studying the impact they have on each other as routine business transactions are recorded.
Module 2. Financial Analysis and Ratios – Participants then learn key financial ratios and how to interpret the ratios to analyze a company’s financial health. This section concludes with a Financial Analysis Case Study, where participants work in small groups to: 1) identify what went wrong at a company by analyzing three years of its Ratios, Income Statements, Balance Sheets and Cash Flow Statements; and 2) determine how to fix the company’s financial problems.
Module 3. Break-Even Analysis – In this section, participants first learn the differences between Financial and Managerial Income Statements so that they can correctly categorize costs as either variable or fixed. This allows participants to build a Managerial Income Statement and perform a simple break-even analysis. After working exercises to demonstrate the basics of Operating Leverage, participants practice by completing a ‘Make vs. Buy’ decision and explaining potential risks when making a correct financial decision.
Module 4. Capital Investment Decision Analysis – After learning the limitations of a Break-Even Analysis, participants learn one Capital Investment Decision Analysis method to aid in making good long-term decisions. Net Present Value (NPV) is the method commonly used by companies to evaluate capital investments. After learning the mechanics of the NPV method, participants perform an NPV analysis on two different capital projects to determine if the projects are worthy of investment and to discuss the risks associated with each capital investment decision that they make. Next, participants learn to use the Benefit-to-Cost Ratio to determine which capital projects receive funding when the capital budget is limited.
