Financial Analysis & Evaluation for Business Planning & Decision Making

Objectives

• Learn how to use financial statements to evaluate the financial / strategic performance of an organization.
• Understand discounted cash flow (DCF) techniques and their application to financial decision-making.
• Use ratios to quickly pinpoint areas of concern.
• Identify key success factors, weak financial signals, and strong financial signals in your own industry sector.
• Learn the metrics used by the world’ leading companies, how to use them, & why.
• Confidently project your firm’s future performance through real-world budgeting.

Outline

Getting started with Financial Analysis (what has happened so far)
• The role & responsibilities of financial management
• The relationship between accounting & finance in analysis
• A review of the basic financial statements and their roles
• Why ROI is still a good place to start
• Identifying key success factors in your industry sector
• Ratios: what they are, which ones to use, & why
• Financial review compared to targets and expectations
• Financial performance measurement systems
• Key accounting assumptions

Moving beyond the basics in financial analysis
• The two kinds of Free cash flow (FCF)
• Altman’s Z-Score and what it really means
• Du Pont analysis and what it tells us
• Scenario analysis: how to calculate it & what it tells us
• Sensitivity analysis: how to calculate it & what it tells us
• Trend analysis: when is a trend a trend? What to do?
• Improving Return on Equity (ROE)

Evaluation of the information (where we are today)
• How do I interpret these details?
• What are the important metrics & why?
• Annual reports, footnotes and beyond; what can they signal?
• Short-term success evaluations process and measures
• Industry data, sources, & uses
• Benchmarking for evaluation purposes
• EVA, RONA, EBITDA, etc.: what do they mean & how to use them?
• Calculating the results of analysis

Budgeting and the Management Process (the future)
• Strategy – direction and vision
• Implementing strategy – the operational planning process
• Budgets – the financial expression of the operating plan
• The purpose of budgets – control
• The human side of budgeting
• Elements of the budget framework
• Advantages and limitations of budgets
• Reporting – the key to control

Completing the budget using the tools we have learned
• Assumptions
• Master budget
• Proforma financial statements: Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement
• Capital expenditure (CapEx) budget
• Sales & marketing budget
• Production budget
• General & Administrative budgets

Who Should Attend ?

Financial officers, controllers, and accountants
Treasurers, corporate planning and business development professionals
Sales and marketing professionals