EE204: Business Management for
Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists

Financial Statements

Read

1. Financial Statements: The Elements of Managerial Finance (HBS materials)
2. Financial Statement Analysis: Identify the Industry (HBS materials)

Assignment

In this Sudoku-like exercise, income statements, balance sheets, and selected financial ratios from ten companies, drawn from ten different industries, are presented.

1. Match the ten firms operating in the ten industries with the ten sets of financial data presented in the case. The objective is to understand how the strategy of a business is reflected in its financial statements.
2. Why does each of the industries have the patterns of asset use revealed in Exhibits 2-4?
3. What questions would you have if a company's financials were "outliers"--that is, not fitting the industry norm?

Study Group

For this exercise, work with the study group (4-6 students) that you joined last week. Multiple inputs will improve your accuracy.

Hints

• Financial Industry - For the purposes of this case, loans are classified as receivables and deposits are classified as payables.
• Retail Industry - Look for high inventory and high asset turnover. Would a grocery store have a high return on sales?
• High-Tech Industry - These companies will have high investment in R&D.
• Service Industry - Look for low inventory.
• Day's Inventory is the number of days that an item is held as inventory before it is sold.
• Day's Receivables is the number of days it takes a company's customers to submit payment.

SCPD Students

See the SCPD Resource Page for general information on assignment submission, team building, expectations, and getting help. See the SCPD Grading Page for evaluation procedures for daily written assignments.

Written work should be submitted using SCPD Homework Processing procedures.

All times listed below are PDT (California time).

1. Complete the assigned readings and submit your list of matched industries and balance sheets, which a brief (1 page or less) description of how you made your choices, by 9am Tuesday 4/17/2012.
2. The videotaped class meeting should be available via SCPD by 2pm, Tuesday 4/17/2012.
3. Watch the video of the class meeting and meet with your team to discuss.
4. Submit Writeup 2 (1-2 pages) by 9pm Sunday 4/22/2012. This writeup should include the following:
   • A summary of the main points of the class discussion
   • Any points from the discussion that you found particularly enlightening or disagreed with
   • A discussion of how your initial responses did or did not align with the direction of the class discussion and the actual industry/balance sheet pairings