The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis

By Stephen F. Jablonsky and Noah P Barsky

"Jablonsky and Barsky have finally revealed the 'secrets' locked within those scary looking financial reports. Their innovative models proved to be a quick and relatively easy method of realizing financial information that every manager should know, and how to turn this into a plan of action." --Charles Deierlein Manager, Electric Engineering/Quality Assurance Con Edison. "The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis provides a comprehensive guide to understanding the language of financial information. Thus, it provides the manager with the practical tools necessary for effective communication in today's business forum." --Thomas A. Roskoski Director, Financial Reengineering Merck & Co., Inc. "It remains an enduring truth that members of the management team need an understanding of the financial statements and the expectations of the capital markets in order to develop and implement their firm's business strategy. The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis is an excellent resource for managers who wish to acquire or strengthen their knowledge of financial matters so they can contribute more value to the management team." --J. James Lewis Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Financial Executives Research Foundation, Inc. Every day managers are flooded with financial information from an overwhelming number of sources--company reports, the financial press, and the World Wide Web. While the language of financial statements may sound like a foreign tongue to you, you know you can't ignore it. To understand how to use financial information to improve the performance of your company, you need a resource that emphasizes how financial statements can be used to support meaningful management communications. The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis is the only book on this subject that puts technical issues on the side and focuses on what you need to know to be an effective participant in business communications. This book presents a framework that helps managers see how business strategy is linked to shareholder accountability through the firm's financial statements, without getting caught in the trap of explaining how financial statements are prepared according to technical accounting rules and regulations. The emphasis of this book is on how you, as a manager, can use financial information to improve the performance of your firm, rather than simply learning how to keep score Using financial data from Wal-Mart, Inc. for a ten-year period and case studies of other high-profile firms, this book presents business strategy models that demonstrate how financial information can be used to tell a story about a company's business operations. The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis is written in a language you can understand --the language of business as spoken by managers, not accountants or financial analysts. This book will give you the tools you need to unleash the full communication potential of your company's financial information, make you a better manager, and make your company more competitive.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471247278
• ISBN13: 9780471247272
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Chart your way to positively impact your company's value.

This is an ingenious guide to understanding not only the key concepts of financial statement analyis, but also the levers at the disposal of managers which they can and should employ to proactively improve shareholder value in their firm. The charting methodology the authors have designed is not difficult, but it is nonetheless quite illustrative and well structured. I am using the book to teach a class of forty MBA students from many different countries, and I have found that each chapter fits into a one and a half hour lecture and discussion session very comfortably. From the students' feedback as well as my own background as a former Chief Financial Officer, I am certain that this book will be a valuable tool in any reader's management career.

Helped develop an excellent financial foundation for non-fin

"The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis" helped develop an excellent financial foundation for me, as a non-financial professional. Reading it wasn't about getting the math correct, it was about telling the story of a company through careful analysis of a company's financial statements. Where once I glided over dollar amounts and percentages, I now read and understand where they come from and what they represent. Since most professionals are responsible for budgets and are likely to be stakeholders in some business or another, it is imperative to have a broad based understanding of financial statement analysis, this is where The Manager's Guide fits in.