Business Reality
The function that can stop any plan, for reasons students cannot yet see
Finance is taught as statements and ratios. In a business it is the team that governs what the company can afford to do this quarter. A finance professional explains cash against profit, working capital, and why a growing business can run out of money.
A business can be profitable and still fail.
That single sentence reorganises how a management student reads everything else. Profit is an opinion arrived at over a period; cash is what is in the account on the day the salaries are due. Students learn the statements without ever feeling the difference.
Finance is also the function that governs whether any other function's plan happens. Understanding how it decides is the difference between proposing something and getting it approved.
What finance actually does
21 topics across 4 areas. Five parts of the job.
Cash Against ProfitThe distinction that decides survival.6
- Understanding cash flow
- Why profit is not cash
- Managing working capital
- Customer credit and delayed payments
- Cash reserve planning
- Why growing businesses run out of money
Cost and MarginWhat things actually cost.5
- Understanding your costs
- Pricing for profitability
- Margin by product or service
- How finance controls spending
- Where money quietly leaks
Budgeting and ControlHow spending gets governed.5
- Budgeting
- Approving or refusing spend
- Financial discipline
- Compliance calendars
- What finance needs from other teams
Supporting the DecisionWhere finance earns its place.5
- Reading basic financial statements
- Financial metrics every manager should know
- Building the case for an investment
- Customer concentration risk
- When to borrow
Questions students get to ask
- What does your month actually look like?
- Why do you refuse things?
- What do other departments get wrong about you?
- How do you decide what a business can afford?
- What is the most common financial mistake you see?
- What should a management graduate understand first?
- What surprised you when you started?
How the session runs
A finance professional works through one business's real position — revenue, cost, margin, and the cash actually available — and shows how the same company can be profitable on paper and unable to pay. Students then argue an investment decision, and put questions to the practitioner.
What your students leave with
- The difference between profit and cash, understood rather than memorised
- How working capital governs what a business can do
- How costs, pricing and margin fit together
- How finance decides what to approve
- Whether this is a career worth preparing for
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Profit is an opinion. Cash is a fact.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.