I’m teaching an Executive MBA class this semester and I’m trying to figure out what topics to cover. The class is accounting for decision making, and my general expectation is that students will be able to interpret financial statements, develop projected financial statements, and be able to use financial information for decision-making purposes.
For a lot of students, this will be their first exposure to this kind of thing, so this is not an advanced class. Some topics that will definitely be covered:
Reading and interpreting financial statements, being able to link quantitative financial information with qualitative business characteristics.
Performing rudimentary financial statement analysis to assess performance, risk, and valuations
Fixed vs. variable costs, breakeven analysis, and financial/operating leverage
Financial statement projections
Are there any specific topics/areas that you all think I should definitely be covering? An obvious way to think about it - what topics would you be most interested in if you were taking the class? Another way to frame it, if you had a fairly high level manager and you tried to have a conversation with them about financial information, what would you take for granted that they’d understand? What topics/concepts, if not understood, would make you say, “Holy shit, I can’t believe this person got an MBA?”
I don’t know if this is helpful but this guy teaches what seems like similar topics and maybe there will be something useful in his approach when tailoring your own?
Yeah, Damodaran is a giant in the finance/valuation world, and his website has an awesome amount of freely-available data.
My class is a little different though, in that it’s about better understanding the financial information that goes into different performance measures and valuation multiples. So rather than taking cash flows, earnings, or revenues as stated (as you’d do in a valuation class like Damodaran’s), it’s about understanding the different assumptions and uncertainties underlying those numbers.
we just had sales QBR last week where I finally got agreement from our SDRs (these are junior sales reps who basically scout the top-of-funnel prospects to see if they’re potential buyers or not before we commit to having a full-on discovery/demo etc cycle with them) to do more discovery before booking meetings.
today an SDR pinged me in the team slack channel to let me know she booked a call with a prospect for 6:30 AM my time on wednesday (prospect is in india) and did not bother giving me any background/discovery info at all. I was about to light her up but another guy on the team beat me to it. however, the call is still sitting there on my calendar because it basically takes an act of god for us to reschedule a prospect meeting once it’s on the books
Looking at my class notes on Managerial Accounting I think what you have covered is good. I did see a small section in my notes that I still find useful that you didn’t specifically mention
I did that like 10 years ago and wildly varying and hidden prices and scumminess sounds familiar. It’s sales driven and the commission is what’s being hidden I think. I remember meeting a “rep” who was a sales person. I went through a major bank, but I think the sales layer was only affiliated with the bank.
One of the higher-ups at my company appears to be losing it. They’ll just have no memory of conversations or decisions they’ve made when they come up the next day. Like I’m just implementing their ideas, which will then be met with scrutiny and a little derision when they review them the next day.
They’re just old and I can deal with most of the quirks surrounding that, but it’s super annoying to be constantly redoing stuff cause they don’t remember what they said the day before. Also they’re close with the owners, very well respected, and a big part of why I’m working here in the first place.
