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Your Course of Study

In Strategic Financial Analysis for Business Evaluation, you will progress through a comprehensive four-part curriculum focused on sharpening your analytical and decision-making skills. This intensive HBS Executive Education learning experience incorporates lectures, case studies, group discussions, and specialized tools to demystify the process of understanding a company’s economics. You will master concepts and skills that you can apply in any situation requiring extensive business analysis.

Specific topics include:

Business Strategy Analysis

To evaluate a company’s current financial position and its likely future performance, you must first understand how the company approaches its market. Through this leadership training program, you will learn how to:

• Use the principles of financial analysis to evaluate alternative business strategies
• Identify a company’s positioning in relation to its competitors
• Explore the key success factors and potential risks that will affect business performance
• Determine how well those success factors and risks are being managed

Accounting Analysis

A company’s accounting methods can elucidate or obscure its business economics and strategy. The program is designed to help you:

• Determine the evolving practices and criteria that govern revenue recognition
• Examine accounting quality to evaluate estimates of current and future performance
• Understand how accounting, auditing, and management controls influence the success of a financial organization
• Judge how effectively a firm’s financial statements reflect its business
• Learn how to adjust financial statements as needed

Financial Analysis

Looking at examples from diverse companies, you will learn how to leverage analytical tools to:

• Investigate business models, accounting practices, and risk management in the subprime mortgage industry
• Assess the value of a private equity firm to optimize both exit strategy and return on investment
• Evaluate the effectiveness of a company’s strategy
• Make sound financial forecasts by examining the ratios and cash-flow measures of a company’s operating, financing, and investing performance

Prospective Analysis

Knowing how a company will perform in the future is essential when making important business decisions. The program will help you:

• Forecast a company’s future performance
• Comprehend the complex analyses — among them strategic, financial, and accounting — that play a role in business valuation
• Value publicly traded, for-profit companies that offer services usually provided by the government
• Analyze financial statements to accurately value a company preparing to go private

In addition, you will be given a copy of Business Analysis and Valuation Using Financial Statements: Text and Cases. the award-winning book coauthored by the program faculty chair, Paul M. Healy (with Krishna G. Palepu and V. Bernard).