Week 2

During our objectives this week we as a team learned many things that truly most of us never thought of before this class. Our objectives for week two were: Describe the relationship between strategic planning and financial planning, prepare a cash budget, perform a break-even analysis, and calculate present value and future value of cash flows. These were words of a foreign language to us at the beginning but now we have a better understanding of how it plays a role in our everyday lives.
No matter if it is a personal decision or a business venture it is vital to plan both strategically and financially in order to survive and subsequently thrive. To put in place strategic plan we need to include a way of fulfilling ones mission and it should be effective and efficient. It should be clear on the goals, objectives, and action steps that need to be taken to accomplish them. Having daily and weekly meetings to discuss the company’s strategic and financial plans keeps all of us on the same path and to remain focused. Bringing in investors to provide initial cash to build the software solutions made it essential to plan the best course for spending the capital. Having to answer to these investors created the need to calculate present and future cash flows along with our strategic plan. Properly calculating sales pipeline enables us to plan new hires, allocate money for updated product, and assess the need for future investment capital
The team project allowed us to get a better understanding of how to apply the ratio’s to determine whether our investment is going into an organization that can create shareholder wealth. The calculations are not difficult but it is a challenge to gather the information needed off of the financial statement. Reviewing the financial statements of PepsiCo was overwhelming.. Looking up financial information for a company like Pepsi-Cola was interesting, in that there are so many links, with it being a large organization. It takes a while...