Beyond the Numbers: How Leading Companies Measure and Drive Success

This insightful book features valuable advice from the CEOs of leading high-tech and consumer product companies and top manufacturing, financial and service businesses. William L. Simon's research shows that traditional cost-based financial assessments have become less accurate in predicting the true success of a product, venture, or company. His book will help uncover faulty financial measures and ensure that financial reporting systems quickly capture and emphasize necessary details. 30 illus.

Beyond the Numbers How Leading Companies Measure and Drive Success William L. Simon In today’s leading companies, new financial tools and measurements are being used to boost performance and measure all-important shareholder value. More aggressive and more accurate, capable of showing what’s really happening in the organization, these new measures are providing a foundation for the kind of reliable decision-making necessary in today’s highly competitive global marketplace. If you want to make sure your financial judgments are fully informed, you have to bring your analyses off the sidelines and put them into the game. You have to make sure your reports reflect—not obscure—your company’s true fiscal health. You have to make Finance a full-fledged partner in planning your company’s future. You have to "go beyond the numbers," and this must-have book for executives, managers, analysts, and other stakeholders, shows you how. In Beyond the Numbers, the co-author of the bestselling Profit From Experience gives you the opportunity to profit from the experiences of CEOs and CFOs at market leading companies in a variety of industries including manufacturing, services, and high-tech. These are the people who are turning financial analysis into a powerful strategic advantage, and author William Simon presents their innovative approaches in the most direct way possible: in their own words. Here, in a series of in-depth, straight-shooting, informationpacked interviews, 25 proven business leaders:

• Reveal the innovative financial strategies that are helping to propel their companies forward
• Describe reporting, measuring, and training systems that can make those strategies a reality
• Provide solid examples and valuable insights to help you implement and monitor the strategies you need

Beyond the Numbers lets you benchmark against the best, adapting expert advice and reallife experiences to meet your company’s needs. Whether you’re looking to refine your current financials or thoroughly overhaul them, the information contained here will help you build a truly effective corporate financial system. Numbers are meaningless unless they are gathered, interpreted, and utilized in the right way. The methods and methodologies captured in Beyond the Numbers will help you to better recognize your company’s strengths, maximize its opportunities, and optimize its future.