I need a discussion done for week 9 and a response to 2 other classmates for my Financial Managment 1

JWI 530 The Mary Story

THE FORECAST

THE FORECAST! When Mary took over the General Manager role, she knew that this day would come!

The Finance Department just sent a memo asking for her perfume division’s Financial

Forecast for the next fiscal year. Some of her peers had complained about this

annual task, but she knew from listening to a WelchCast and reading several of Jack

Welch’s articles about Budgeting and Forecasting that this didn’t have to be a painful

process, it could actually be a positive way to think about the future and develop

WINNING plans.

As Jack said, it is important to get “every brain in the game”. Mary didn’t want this

to be a top down mandate based on the thoughts of a few senior managers. Rather,

she wanted to tap into the employees “on the front line” who really understand the

trends and the competitive challenges and opportunities.

Mary also knew not to turn this task into a negotiation…where her managers propose a

“low ball” number, the CFO would then throw out an unreasonably high number, and

they would end up somewhere in the middle. Rather, she wanted to get all the

business building ideas on the table…to be discussed and debated…and then make

choices about where to focus the business (and the supporting resources). In other

words, a “business discussion” versus a “ horse trading session”.

Mary decided to treat this task as an opportunity to develop a realistic forecast of

where the financials should end up…..and resulting in a budget that is based on

investment and priority choices…so that funds are allocated to the areas that

generated the highest ROI.

Mary was ready to use what she had learned from Jack and Suzy about good

forecasting and budgeting. She called her Finance Manager and said with confidence

“Nancy, let’s get together to talk the Financial Forecast…it is going to be a great

year!”