However, I did learn quite a lot of information from this course. Part of my job
is reviewing financials prepared by my co-workers. i From an industry
standpoint, I know what I am looking for, but this class dove deeper into the
‘why’. I feel that as I analyze balance sheets and P&L’s, I have a better
understanding of what each report contains. The next step in my career is to
help with company (client) valuations. Working for a CPA firm that handles
franchise owner/operators, valuations are done for numerous reasons. The
main reason is for sale or purchase of new stores. Typically, we value the stores
based on ‘times cash flow’. For instance, a client might pay 5 times cash flow
for a store purchase or a group of stores. Over the past eight weeks, I found
myself comparing the information from this class with ‘real life’ at a CPA firm. It
was quite interesting.
For my project, I chose to value JetBlue. Big Data and Analytics is an emerging
technology that already is and will continue to benefit the airline industry. In
the article I found, one of JetBlue’s competitors uses a “sophisticated ‘collect,
detect, act’ system to analyze roughly 150 elements in a customer’s profile,
such as prior purchases, preferences, and so on, and personalize offers to
them.” (Strong, 2021) Using these analytics, JetBlue’s competitor saw an
increase in revenue of 15% over each year. The system in place also uses
machine-learning algorithms that can send out mass alerts to the airline staff
and customers. i This keeps consumers informed about any safety concerns and
flight issues or delays.
Reference:
Strong, J. (2021, April 30). Aviation Technology Trends: 2021 & Beyond.
Retrieved from https://resources.vistair.com/articles/aviation-
technology-trends-2021-beyond
