The Manager's Guide to Financial Statement Analysis

"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.

STEPHEN F. JABLONSKY, CPA, PhD, is the senior member of The Management Communications Group and a faculty member at Penn State University. He helps managers see how they can develop a better understanding of their businesses through financial information. He has written numerous articles and monographs for various publications, and holds a BS, an MAS, and PhD in accountancy from the University of Illinois. This is his fifth book.

NOAH P. BARSKY, CPA, CMA, is a re-searcher and educator specializing in how successful companies integrate strategy, control, and accountability within their corporate culture. Recent projects include studies about leading-edge financial management practices, organizational learning, and corporate downsizing. He received his BS and MS from Penn State University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut.