MIR 889: Financial Literacy for NonFinancial Managers: Introduction
Today’s Session
• Introductions: Around the room: who are you,
your background, your expectations.
• Relationship of Accounting to Business Strategy
– Len
• Financial Literacy: What is that? – Andy
• Users of Financial information: what and why
– Len and Andy
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Course Objectives
• Familiarization with financial concepts
• Comfort with discussing the financial aspects of
the work
• Demystify financial management
• Leveraging financial literacy to get your job done.
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About Us
• Len Anderson
• Andrew Graham
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About You
Tell us who you are, what your
background is, what you aspire to on
graduation and your expectations for
this course.

Please use your Name Cards
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About the Course:
Approach to Learning
• Classes will be active. Students will be asked to undertake
the following tasks, as part of the learning and evaluation
process:
– Text reading,
– Some assigned out-of-class exercise,
– Class case studies for discussion in group and feedback,
– Reviews of annual reports and financial statements,
– Group work and presentations (2), including a capstone final
presentation, and
– Written assignments.
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About the Course:
Text and Readings
Accounting for Non-financial
Manager, Third Edition, John
Parkinson with Charles Draimin,
Captus Press
All other readings will be provided
on the Moodle site in pdf format.
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About the Course:
Assignments
For the Presentations, a marking rubric
has been provided in the Outline.
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Some behavioral expectations…
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You are expected to attend class
Computers are fine, but texting is not
Working in teams is fine
We are happy to sit down with you or a group to
discuss a problem
• We are happy to provide feedback on
assignments individually
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About the Course:
Architecture
Shareholder
Perspective
• Foundations:
The World
and
Language of
Accounting
Management
Perspective
• Applications:
Budgets,
Risk, Control
and
Performance
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About the Course:
The Flow
Accounting
Fundamentals
Assessing
Performance
Financial
Statements
Analysing
Financial
Statements
Risk and
Control
Business
Planning
Financial
Reporting
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Remember, there is no stupid
question.
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Establishing context
Consider the following metaphor: what does it tell
us about success in business?
Nascar strategy
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Fundamentally
• Business success is about direction and traction
• Accounting is a tool to help with direction setting
and the measurement of traction
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Business Literacy, not Personal….
• All inputs to achieving direction and traction cost
something – examples…..
• Choices made based on the quality fo the idea in
getting a business outcome in conjunction with
costs and expected return.
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Business Literacy, not Personal….
• No organization has unlimited reserves of cash,
credit lines or goodwill – choices have to be
made.
• There is always competition for resources.
• Linking what you do to help the company, what
you need to do it and how to get and use the
resources is heart of financial literacy.
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What is Financial Literacy?
• Understand the lingo:
– Some core terminology is essential.
– However, much of this terminology may have
nuanced meaning in the particular operating
culture of one organization.
• Read the Reports:
– This is best translated as being an intelligent user
of financial information, be it costing for policy
design or cash forecasts for the first quarter of the
fiscal year.
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Working with
Finance
Understanding
language of
finance
Getting
Resources
Adding value
to company
You as
IR
leader
Translating IR
value into
company value
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What is Financial Literacy?
• Get Clarity:
– This may mean asking dumb questions.
– It may also mean pushing the point of
understanding so that everyone is actually talking
about the same thing.
• Marry up Numbers on a Pages with What
Happens at the Mission End of the Organization:
– A financially literate manager can see the link – or
insist that it be clearly stated – between what may
be for some just a bunch of numbers and the
policy and operational impact.
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Not Just a Financially Literate
Manager or HR/IR Advisor, but a
Financially Literate Organization
• All managers do not need to be accountants
• Being ready users of financial tools and
information is great
• If the company does not use these tools it will fail
• Two-way street – financial people need to
understand what you do
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Are Finance and HR Oil and Water?
Words to describe concerns
of Finance and Human
Resources
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So being financially savvy is good for the
company
Finance
Human
Resources
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Forecasting
Controlling
Financial
Condition
Analysis
Costing
Identifying,
Assessing and
Managing Risk
Core
FM
Skills
Communicating
financial and
program
information
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Users and uses
• In groups, read the tabletop cases handed out
• Take 15 minutes for reading and discussing in
your groups
• Tabulate the following:
• Who are the likely users of the financial
statements in each case?
• For which of the three purposes do they seek
information ?
• How do they get the information?
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Wrap up
• Questions?
• Homework – read Parkinson Chapters 2, 4 and 5
including appendix 4.1
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