Financial Management for Business: Cracking the Hidden Code

Description

Financial Management for Business: Cracking the Hidden Code represents a breakthrough approach to business education. Set against the gripping story of Luca Pacioli's research into the 'Hidden Code' of bookkeeping that transformed medieval business and remains at the heart of every modern enterprise, the book presents an innovative step-by-step model that will transform your understanding of financial management. Key concepts such as profit and loss, cash flow and balance sheets are brought to life with Internet-based simulations that show how cash actually flows around the business. The book also helps to explain how decisions such as pricing and advertising affect the bottom line and why financial disasters happen, such as the 2008 international banking crisis. Professionals and students will find the book an invaluable companion to CIMA's new fast-track financial qualification for non-accountants. The book comes with a free trial of the web-based simulation models: visit www.financial-management-for-business.com for further details.

Robert Bittlestone was educated in classics and science before reading economics at the University of Cambridge. He is the founder of Metapraxis Ltd, a management consultancy specialising in the detection of early warnings for multinational companies. He is the author of many articles about the importance of visualisation and has applied these principles to the award-winning book Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer's Ithaca (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

'The need for an intuitive understanding of business and business jargon is greater today than ever. Financial Management for Business is an ideal way for companies to go back to basics and test their understanding in a safe environment - enabling them to act on their strengths and address their weaknesses. The accompanying and highly innovative Business Flight Simulator allows readers to teach themselves, and in taking this approach the author can truly claim to have 'cracked the hidden code'.' Charles Tilley, Chief Executive, CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) 'Financial Management for Business is a memorable effort, quite unique and long overdue. It goes through financial statements at just the right pace for someone who needs to know what they show, and the anecdotes are both helpful and amusing. Most of all, I thoroughly concur with the manner in which technology is embedded in the book.' Alan Sangster, Middlesex University Business School and co-author of Frank Wood's Business Accounting 'Financial Management for Business is an ideal training tool to ensure that managers understand the drivers of cash flow and value in a business. It highlights the link between actual cash flows and reported profitability, ensuring that managers understand that the former is fact and the latter often driven by opinion.' Kenneth Lever, Chief Financial Officer, Numonyx 'I think the foundations of Financial Management for Business are very sound, and will be tremendously useful. I was very impressed with the online Business Flight Simulator - it feels like a powerful learning tool.' Richard Pennycook, Chief Financial Officer, Morrisons plc 'Financial Management for Business presents a much more visual and intuitive way of looking at what less numerate colleagues might view as dull digits and tables, without patronising learners or over-simplifying the issues at stake.' Gina Dyer, Deputy Editor, AccountingWEB.co.uk 'Financial Management for Business is seriously and surprisingly addictive, and great fun too. I didn't realise I was so business competitive!' Kevin Hull, Group Human Resources Director, Marshalls plc 'I really liked Financial Management for Business. It is a completely new way to understand business via the 'driver-seat' perspective. The online models were fun to use and not too complicated.' Walter Braegger, Head of the Investment Bank Faculty, UBS Business University 'Financial Management for Business is a fantastic combination of text and on-line simulation. It will help us to improve the level and quality of our discussions and decisions. Thank you for an experience I will never forget.' Glen Hawk, Vice President, Embedded Business Group, Micron Technology Inc.