Business Finance and Data Analysis Fundamentals Specialization

This short course surveys all the major topics covered in a full semester MBA level finance course, but with a more intuitive approach on a very high conceptual level. The goal here is give you a roadmap and framework for how financial professional make decisions.

We will cover the basics of financial valuation, the time value of money, compounding returns, and discounting the future. You will understand discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation and how it compares to other methods. We also step inside the mind of a corporate financial manager and develop the basic tools of capital budgeting. We will survey the how, when, and where to spend money, make tradeoffs about investment, growth, dividends, and how to ensure sound fiscal discipline. Our journey then turns to a Wall Street or capital markets perspective of investments as we discuss the fundamental tradeoff between risk and return. We then synthesize our discussion of risk with our valuation framework and incorporate it into series of direct applications to practice. This course requires no prior familiarity with finance. Rather, it is intended to be a first step for anyone who is curious about understanding stock markets, valuation, or corporate finance. We will walk through all of the tools and quantitative analysis together and develop a guide for understanding the seemingly complex decisions that finance professionals make. By the end of the course, you will develop an understanding of the major conceptual levers that push and pull on financial decision making and how they relate to other areas of business. The course should also serve as a roadmap for where to further your finance education and it would be an excellent introduction of any students contemplating an MBA or Finance concentration, but who has little background in the area.

This course will equip students with the quantitative skills needed to begin any Masters of Business Administration program. The goal is not to build foundational skills or expert mastery but rather, to provide some middle ground to “shake the rust off” skills that a typical MBA student probably knows, but may not have thought about for quite some time. The course provides a quick refresher on top level math and statistics concepts that will be used throughout the MBA curriculum at any school. All of the concepts will be reinforced with practical real-world examples. All calculations, formulas, and data analysis will be performed in Excel, with many detailed demonstrations. For those unfamiliar or less comfortable with spreadsheets, the course will also prepare students with a basic facility for using spreadsheets to solve quantitative business problems. This course has no prerequisites and is intended for any audience.