Successful managers incorporate financial considerations into their everyday actions. This essential program will help you evaluate your unit's financial performance, better communicate with internal and external financial officers, and make sound financial decisions. No prior accounting or financial background is required or expected.

If you are serious about making your company more valuable, Just Enough Finance for Non-Financial Managers will teach you how to:

• Strengthen your ability to work productively with finance experts, including knowing when to require them to give clearer explanations of what they are talking about.
• Synchronize your merchandising and operating decisions with the financial demands placed on your business.
• Manage more effectively by bringing financial constraints and opportunities to the fore in everything you do.

The Zodiak Simulation

Participants in this course will be immersed in a hands-on simulation designed to provide a deeper understanding of the concepts learned. Zodiak: The Game of Business Finance and Strategy allows participants to experience for themselves the determinants of organizational success, both financial and strategic. Zodiak is a simulation about business – real world, how it works, why it works and when it doesn’t. It is a powerful business simulation designed as a board game to ensure that everyone understands the “business” of your business. It allows learners to experientially discover the big picture of how business works and how business success is measured – while having fun!

Successful managers who consistently contribute to their firms' financial performance get their ideas implemented and receive more resources to manage. Further, successful managers know which financial measures are important for different types of opportunities, can judge when financial experts are talking nonsense, and incorporate financial considerations into all of their decisions. This course will teach you:

• How to construct, read and interpret basic financial statements
• To understand fundamental accounting principles
• What happened at Enron and Worldcomm and how it impacted the financial statements
• How strategic efforts like inventory management, total quality efforts, supplier and customer relationships, accounts receivable and payable strategies, and others impact the bottom line
• How evaluating "returns" on investment, capital, assets, etc., help a business understand its position and plan for its future
• Which financial measures are important for different types of opportunities.

Participants from a variety of backgrounds have profited from this pragmatic and useful program. Managers who want to base their decisions on wise financial standards will profit from this course. Those who work in accounting but do not deal with capital markets usually find this course helpful, but the focus is definitely on those with no prior accounting and finance training or experience.

Since finance seems like a foreign language to some, the best way to master the material is through practice, so be prepared to get immersed in the vocabulary and numbers as we walk through numerous applications from the real world. Past participants have included individuals from industries such as:

• Sales
• Construction
• Non-profit organizations
• Manufacturing
• Retail operations
• Healthcare administration
• Education and instruction

DR. VERNON J. RICHARDSON
Ralph L. McQueen Chair in Accounting

Vernon J. Richardson is Professor of Accounting and the S. Robson Walton Distinguished Chair in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. He received his B. S., Masters of Accountancy and MBA (finance) from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has taught students at the University of Arkansas, University of Illinois, Brigham Young University, University of Kansas, and the China Europe International Business School (Shanghai). He has co-authored a college accounting textbook published by McGraw Hill.

Professor Richardson has consulted with Cessna, IMC Global and taught executives in China. He also teaches the executive education class, Just Enough Finance, at the University of Arkansas.