Chapter FourStep 1: Information: What is the Financial Status?
Having introduced the high-level, 5-step approach to communicating financials to executives, let us now dive into the mechanics of each step. Let us begin with step 1 – information, i.e. the current situation and financial status (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1 5-Step Financial Communication Framework – Step 1.
This part is your foundation and the starting point for your subsequent analysis and presentation of relevant insights. Think of it as the objective data representing the current financial situation from which you must uncover something meaningful to recommend to your stakeholders.
Despite it being the part on which you should spend the least time when presenting to executives, the underlying data and information are the foundation on which you build your presentation. Thus, you often spend a significant amount of time extracting, cleaning and understanding the raw data during your preparation while only spending a little time on this part of the presentation itself. However, you can only construct a presentation that enables data-backed decision-making by truly understanding the data.
Define an Objective and Target Stakeholder
To concisely present the current financial status, you must first define a clear purpose to guide your analytical process. Defining a clear purpose or objective before starting your data ...
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