STRATEGIC FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING FRAME WORK
Capital investment is the springboard for wealth creation. In a world of economic uncertainty, the investors want to maximize their wealth by selecting optimum investment and financial opportunities that will give them maximum expected returns at minimum risk. Since management is ultimately responsible to the investors, the objective of corporate financial management should implement investment and financing decisions which should satisfy the shareholders by placing them all in an equal, optimum financial position. The satisfaction of the interests of the shareholders should be perceived as a means to an end, namely maximization of shareholders’ wealth. Since capital is the limiting factor, the problem that the management will face is the strategic allocation of limited funds between alternative uses in such a manner, that the companies have the ability to sustain or increase investor returns through a continual search for investment opportunities that generate funds for their business and are more favourable for the investors.
Strategy + Finance + Management = Fundamentals of Business
Strategy may be defined as the long term direction and scope of an organization to achieve competitive advantage through the configuration of resources within a changing environment for the fulfilment of stakeholder’s aspirations and expectations. In an idealized world, management is ultimately responsible to the investors. Investors maximize their wealth by selecting optimum investment and financing opportunities, using financial models that maximize expected returns in absolute terms at minimum risk. What concerns the investors is not simply maximum profit but also the likelihood of it arising: a risk-return trade-off from a portfolio of investments, with which they feel comfortable and which may be unique for each individual.
We call this overall approach strategic financial management and define it as being the application to strategic decisions of financial techniques in order to help achieve the decision-maker's objectives. Although linked with accounting, the focus of strategic financial management is different. Strategic financial management combines the backward-looking, report-focused discipline of (financial) accounting with the more dynamic, forward-looking subject of financial management. It is basically about the identification of the possible strategies capable of maximizing an organization's market value. It involves the allocation of scarce capital resources among competing opportunities. It also encompasses the implementation and monitoring of the chosen strategy so as to achieve agreed objectives.
Therefore, all businesses need to have the following three fundamental essential elements:
- A clear and realistic strategy,
- The financial resources, controls and systems to see it through and
- The right management team and processes to make it happen.
We may summarise this by saying that:
Strategy + Finance + Management = Fundamentals of Business
Strategy may be defined as the long term direction and scope of an organization to achieve competitive advantage through the configuration of resources within a changing environment for the fulfilment of stakeholder’s aspirations and expectations. In an idealized world, management is ultimately responsible to the investors. Investors maximize their wealth by selecting optimum investment and financing opportunities, using financial models that maximize expected returns in absolute terms at minimum risk. What concerns the investors is not simply maximum profit but also the likelihood of it arising: a risk-return trade-off from a portfolio of investments, with which they feel comfortable and which may be unique for each individual.
We call this overall approach strategic financial management and define it as being the application to strategic decisions of financial techniques in order to help achieve the decision-maker's objectives. Although linked with accounting, the focus of strategic financial management is different. Strategic financial management combines the backward-looking, report-focused discipline of (financial) accounting with the more dynamic, forward-looking subject of financial management. It is basically about the identification of the possible strategies capable of maximizing an organization's market value. It involves the allocation of scarce capital resources among competing opportunities. It also encompasses the implementation and monitoring of the chosen strategy so as to achieve agreed objectives.
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