Any financial guru's here?

**RobbieG** · 02-21-2008, 03:46 PM

Hi there my fellow weightgainers.

I am in need of others perspective here. I've been gone a long time now because of school but I need a few answers for a project I'm finishing.

Please only financial guru's and skilled answers

The questing is: Can you give me five questions that you might ask yourself and the company's managers in valuating a complexed business problem and why ?

thank you.

wr. Robbie

**rockinred** · 02-21-2008, 03:55 PM

so is this for interview? Evaluating a complex business problem related to the finance department? or what section of the company are we talking here?

real quick that come to mind would be along the lines of... what is the ROI, P&L...

Need more background on the business and complex busniness problem to get really educated answers on this.. Are we talking hypothetical complex business problems like should we merge, expand,... do you catch my drit...need some more info to help you out....

Can give some generic shit, but it won't be intelligent and if it is for an interview than it will be looked upon as to simple and generic... give me some more info...

**RobbieG** · 02-21-2008, 04:01 PM

great question
I am not talking about hypothetical problem, I am talking about any firm.

If you've done some of Harvard business cases you catch my drift.

example:

1. How many employee does this company have, what is the earn pr. employee ?
1.1 How many stores does this company have? What is it´s avg. earning per store

This is some generic shit, but please.. if you can make it complex be my guest and make it deep and complex.

Btw. I'm studying international finance if you want to know.

**rockinred** · 02-21-2008, 04:21 PM

Well if you are at an ivy league school then you don't need my 2 cents right... I graduated from an accredited university, but not ivy league.. anyhow..

International finance..

I would think that complex business problems can be many things, not just those... let's get you thinking first then we can go deeper... especially internationaly..

when you are talking about currency exchange for international business there are many questions you have to start with there..what moves rates.. currency forecasts.. which are driven from economic conditions of the country.

How about expanding into a new area that can add to your product or service... what would be the Return on Investment (ROI)...

how does the company asess their operating ratio? Is it a publicly traded company? 10k statements? if private what accounting practices are used to measure the operating ration?

Just trying to get you thinking... what are you looking for? what direction are you going?

**RobbieG** · 02-21-2008, 04:26 PM

Originally Posted by rockinred

Just trying to get you thinking... what are you looking for? what direction are you going?

Looking at what others think and how.

Your input is really great. thanks for the effort.

**RobbieG** · 02-21-2008, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by rockinred

Well if you are at an ivy league school then you don't need my 2 cents right... I graduated from an accredited university, but not ivy league.. anyhow..

I am currently in University located in the northern atmosphere, therefor I am not in an IVY league uni

Your 2 cents are greatly appreciated.

Any others with some input from their perspective

**rockinred** · 02-21-2008, 04:40 PM

you hurt my feelings... lol.

think about your question... a complex business solution... there are millions of them and there is no "fool proof financial" approach to all complex business problems.. They are too diverse.

Are you sure you are even in school? Most international finance classes are going to talk about how to manage the currency exchange... i.e. US based company operating in China...

anyhow, i tried to help out.. don't give me that "If you've done some of Harvard business cases"...

**RobbieG** · 02-21-2008, 05:15 PM

Originally Posted by rockinred

you hurt my feelings... lol.

think about your question... a complex business solution... there are millions of them and there is no "fool proof financial" approach to all complex business problems.. They are too diverse.

Are you sure you are even in school? Most international finance classes are going to talk about how to manage the currency exchange... i.e. US based company operating in China...

anyhow, i tried to help out.. don't give me that "If you've done some of Harvard business cases"...

NON-pun intended, but I'm not trying to find one solution, as you pointed out with an example how to manage currency exchange, as an solution you might read the business case of Tiffany in '93 and how they hedged.
But as you approach the problem you just don´t go and answer "..hedge or option put asap!!.." one could go much deeper and ask "New stores per year?" "sales per store foreign" "Rev Growth per retail location" and so on.

But thats just how I'd do it, that´s why I'm asking what would you do first as you approach the problem.

I had no intention of harming your feelings.

**rockinred** · 02-21-2008, 09:48 PM

robbie,

I re-read my post and maybe i sounded to harsh... one other thing is there are approaches taught in school such as a multi-step problem solution approaches that can be universally applied to help reach a certain objective. this can give you a baseline of questions to ask and they will pertain to a problem in any department.

what's situation
stakeholders perspective/ethics
problem definition
endstate goals (this is the big one)
alternative solutions
risk assessment
optimal solution
implementation plan
assessment
etc..

getting into earning per employee is a little to complicated for larger companies... you have part timers full timers and they all vary on hours, so they mainly measure total payroll and use the term full time equivilant (FTE) to weigh the cost... but, we can go on forever in different areas...

anyhow, hope this helped or got you thinking in a direction to work out your paper or whatever it is... peace.