Introduction

An important part of managing any business unit is to understand the numbers. As a manager, you may have income, expenditure or profit targets to meet. You may also have budgets that you have to live within or possibly even be involved in setting.

Sometimes you may need to predict (or forecast) sales or other targets in order to know what purchases need to be made in the first place. Managers are often also asked to look at financial reports and interpret them in order to be in a better position to make a decision.

For some managers, the ‘numbers’ can be quite daunting, as their specialisation is often more related to what they are managing, as opposed to the numbers behind what they are managing.

However, it is important to realise that everything ultimately relates back to the bottom line of the business and that the numbers cannot be ignored.

This learning programme is intended for non-financial managers.

The aim is to equip any manager with a good grasp of the basics and ultimately build a degree of confidence in managing their own numbers.