HARVARD ManageMentor
双赢的意思
1. Business Esntials
1.1. BUDGETING
1.1.1. What Would You Do?
Mei Po runs a small artisan shop that makes decorations and gifts for the Chine New Year. Unique hand-crafted touches and a great word-of-mouth reputation keep her products in high demand.
Recently, Mei Po learned that the space next door was available to lea. The timing was right as she was looking to expand her business. But as she reviewed the loan application, she noticed that in addition to a business plan, she needed to prepare a one-year budget. Mei Po was taken aback.
She planned her cash-flow month to month. How could she predict what would happen over the period of a year? It emed impossible.
What would you do?
The first step in developing a budget is to establish a t of assumptions about the future. Questions Mei Po might ask include: Will the demand for her gifts grow over the next year? If yes, by how much?
The next step is for Mei Po to calculate expected revenues and expens bad on past performance and future expectations. The difference between revenues and expens is net income. If Mei Po is satisfied with the numbers, she can finalize her budget. If she wants higher net income, she needs to identify new strategies that will support different assumptions.
In this topic, you'll learn how to identify and create a budget that will most effectively help you meet your business goals and how to u communication skills to develop realistic, accurate budgets that keep your organization on track.
WORDS： artisan 工匠，技工 touches 绝技 word-of-mouth 口头的 learn 得知 茶树菇煲鸡汤lea 租约；出租，租得 cash-flow 现金流 尼德兰革命 | EXPRESSIONS： 九一八事变的经过loan application 贷款申请 be taken aback 惊讶 语音打字develop a budget expected revenues and expens 预期收益与支出 net income 净收益 |
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1.1.2. Budgeting Overview
1.1.2.1. 伤仲永的故事What is budgeting
A budget is the financial blueprint or action plan for an organization. It translates strategic plans into measurable expenditures and anticipated returns over a certain period of time.
Budgeting is the process of creating and fine-tuning budgets. Budgeting activities include:
∙ Forecasting future business results, such as sales volume, revenues, capital investments, and expens
∙ Reconciling tho forecasts to organizational goals and financial constraints
∙ Obtaining organizational support for the propod budget
∙ Managing subquent business activities to achieve budgeted results
If you have profit and loss responsibility, the financial results of your division or business
unit versus the budget may be a key factor in evaluating your job performance, and may also be tied to your compensation.
An understanding of the basics of budgeting and the budget process is, therefore, esntial to creating realistic budgets that will later rve as performance benchmarks. Moreover, if you are skilled at "lling the budget" within your organization and negotiating compromis during the budgeting process, you will be more likely to e your budget requests met.
WORDS: anticipated 预期的 fine-tune 调整 compensation 报酬，赔偿金 benchmarks 基准 读书会negotiating 谈判 | EXPRESSIONS: sales volume 销售量 capital investments 资本投资 performance benchmarks 绩效基准 政治哲学e your budget requests met |
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1.1.2.2. Key Idea: The budgeting process
The budgeting process involves establishing goals, evaluating different ways of achieving the goals, and asssing the financial impacts of the strategies.
There are typically four components in the budget process.
1. Setting goals.Some organizations mandate company wide goals such as "increa net profits by 10% during the next year." Individual departments then translate the directives into financial goals that are relevant for their particular activities. For example, the sales department might t a goal of increasing revenues, while the purchasing department will look for ways to reduce costs.
2. Evaluating and choosing options. Several tactics may be ud to meet a specific goal. You will need to consider which tactics are likely to be most effective in your particular situation and will also be supported across the organization.
3. Identifying budget impacts. Decisions about strategic goals and tactics are ud to develop assumptions about future costs and revenues. For example, upgrading your adv
ertising to reach more markets might mean that you need to hire professional marketing consultants.
4. Coordinating departmental budgets.Individual unit and division budgets are combined into a single master budget that express the organization's overall financial objectives and strategic goals.
Typically, budgeting is an iterative process in which different groups prepare preliminary budgets, and then come together to identify and resolve differences.
