- Preparing for a
budget meeting? Submitting a business forecast, or Q2 reforecast? Trying to improve
your profitability or cash flow?
- In business, sooner
or later the numbers come to us all. Master them and use them to your advantage,
and you will find that managing the numbers intelligently and quickly can be as critical
to your success as managing people or strategy.
- From presenting a new
investment to the Board to surviving those chance encounters with the Finance Director in
the corridor, The Definitive Guide to Managing the Numbers is your personal guide
to the territory where managers and numbers meet.
- From the author of the
best-selling Definitive Business Plan, this book will show you, step by step, how
to understand the essentials of business finance, and then how to use the numbers to make
better management decisions, smarter investments and brighter presentations and reports.
Illustrating a unique combination of financial concepts and management reality, Richard
Stutely demystifies the world of finance for managers who want the numbers to be a source
of inspiration not perspiration.
- With The Definitive Guide
to Managing the Numbers, you can make the figures speak your language.
- Developed from the day to
day experiences of real executives facing real business challenges, this book is designed
to put you on a fast-track to using the numbers to make management decisions based on
facts rather than gut feeling, and management presentations based on confidence rather
than confusion.
This book shows you
how to:
- attain mastery over the
most important numbers and numerical techniques in business;
- understand and analyze
critical numbers for better business decisions;
- prepare, present and
analyze better spreadsheets and budgets;
- build forecasts and
re-forecasts with speed and accuracy;
- plan and deliver perfect
projects with feasibility studies, financial planning and control;
- succeed where managers and
numbers meet; on paper and in meetings;
- measure and manage the
critical numbers in your business; from cash flow to cost-control;
- respond successfully when
financial targets move or business outcomes deviate from forecasts
"Aspiring managers
who have trouble with crunching numbers may have found a saviour in Richard Stutely."
The Guardian
Richard Stutely has been
managing the numbers throughout his career, which has spanned banking and finance,
government, and business in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. As a
manager at all levels and a director, he has produced, managed and analyzed hundreds of
project plans, departmental and enterprise budgets, cash flow statements, income accounts
and balance sheets. Richard received a solid grounding in finance and accounting with
NatWest and went on to become an investment analyst and chief economist with top
investment banks. He was formerly a member of the London International Stock Exchange and
has worked at HM Treasury, the British Finance Ministry. As executive vice president of a
multinational software company, Richard Stutely developed and directly managed financial
reporting and analysis for subsidiaries in several countries. In addition, he developed
one of the world's first PC spreadsheet applications. Richard Stutely has written several
books including the international bestseller The Definitive Business Plan.
Contents
Chapter 1. The Journey
Starts Here
Part 1. Attaining mastery over numbers
First, I will help you suit up with the weapons and armour needed to do battle.
Chapter 2 Where Managers and Numbers Meet reviews this magical kingdom and starts to show
you how to use the numbers to your advantage.
Chapter 3 How The Finance Director Thinks looks at mindset of the professionals with whom
you will be dealing.
Chapter 4 The Financial Wizard's Toolbox investigates the tools you use to hammer the
numbers - primarily spreadsheets.
Chapter 5 Taming Numbers - provides a refresher about some numerical techniques.
Part 2. Managing money
Second, now you are forearmed, we can move on to income and expenditure. I will show you
how to dominate every penny that comes into and flows out of your coffers.
Chapter 6 Keeping Score reviews the rudiments of bookkeeping, with a special note
on matters such as looking after the petty cash and dealing with expenses claims.
Chapter 7 How to Analyze Figures in the Fourth Dimension introduces ways of looking
at how numbers have changed over time - and how this highlights what is happening to the
business.
Chapter 8 How to Forecast Anything explains how to form a realistic view about
potential future trends - with particular attention on forecasting sales.
Chapter 9 Getting to Gross Profit touches on broader aspects of sales revenue.
Chapter 10 Creating Capital considers the special factors surrounding capital
spending (often huge outlays where there is longer-term benefit and perhaps short-term
pain).
Chapter 11 Controlling Costs looks at other spending - the cash that seems to go up
in smoke instantly when you pay telephone bills, rent, and so on.
Part 3. Doing the
numbers
Now you have a good understanding of number crunching techniques, as well as hands-on
experience dealing with the figures that finance your business. You are now ready to pull
them together for some serious business reporting, analysis and decision-making, and
control. Brilliant Budgets reviews the budgeting process.
Chapter 13 Perfect Projects reveals the secrets of killer project management - feasibility
studies, planning, decision and control. Good stuff applicable everywhere in surprising
ways.
Chapter 14 Producing a Profit investigates income statements, known in the UK and
elsewhere as profit and loss accounts. These are just budgets or project plans restated.
Chapter 15 Building a Balance Sheet looks at balance sheets - misunderstood (to say the
least) medical reports about of the health of any business.
Chapter 16 Controlling Cash Flow considers sources and uses of funds - highlighting ways
of re-casting the figures already dealt with to give you better management control over
cash.
Part 4. Managing
better
By now, you are all set for success.
Chapter 17 Seeing the Big Picture looks at how you pull all the components together
- and how individual figures relate to and mesh with those of the enterprise as a whole.
Chapter 18 Making Better Financial Decisions aim to help you do just that -
covering questions such as how profitable is my business, which product lines are most
profitable, and which business units are most vulnerable.
Chapter 19 Managing the Numbers will let you manage financials better on a daily
basis - with shortcuts to incisive analysis, tips for handling financial meetings,
presentations and beanies, and so on.
Chapter 20. When Things Go Wrong deals with the inevitable - what to do when things
go wrong; things such as cost overruns, economic recessions, unexpectedly low income,
interest and exchange rate surprises, funding cuts, too much money; budget under-runs and
overruns, projects out of control, moved goal posts, forecasts that have to be revised,
and asking for more.
412 pages
