Managing Financial Resources
I was quite
nervous at the start of this module as I always believed that finance and
accounting were very complex subjects. I was concerned about quickly grasping
the theory, especially on economic concepts and financial ratios, as my
experience in project environments never exposed me to the depth of finance
covered in this module. I had to ask myself,
what learning process would allow me to adequately understand the core concepts?
So, I volunteered to assist one
of the business managers at work to get hands on
experience of managing financial resources in our environment and relate the
module content to this work. It worked to an extent only.
The math portion
of this module was great – developing cash flows, income statements, balance
sheets etc. Even the ratio calculations and subsequent analysis and conclusions
made on the ratios was easy to grasp. Sounds like an easy module, right? Wrong!
I struggled with the economics portion of the module. For example, I understood
Porters 5 forces, but struggled to use the actual finance numbers to justify my
conclusion. Decision making was another section that took a lot of time to
understand. Once again, I understood the decision making techniques but could
not relate it back to the numbers. This was also true for budgets.
This module has
taken me out of my comfort zone, and allowed me to work closely with the
business managers in the Chief Operating Officer’s business unit. When
interpreting the company’s financial statements, I realized how large our company really is and the considerable amount of work that goes into preparing
these statements as well as the impact of decisions taken based on the analysis
of the financials.
I just passed the assignment, which was disappointing, but a true reflection of my understanding of the module. I have a lot more to do on this module and cannot say I fully grasped all the concepts.
2 more assignments and 3 exams left for this year!!
An eye opening ... ME
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