Whether you are employed in finance or your job is the furthest thing from finance, acquiring a foundational grasp of financial principles is a wise move. Having a basic comprehension of how financial systems operate can prove invaluable, even if your current job description doesn’t explicitly demand it. It’s true that learning something outside of your area of expertise can take additional time and effort. Here’s why you should be making the investment now:
Understand the Financial Aspects of Your Position
By taking steps to understand finance, you become better equipped to appreciate the financial aspects of your job. This means that you’ll be more informed about how your work contributes to your company and your own financial success. Without guidance, discovering the financial aspects of your position can be quite complicated. But with the right tools and instruction, you can count on your renewed understanding of your work leading to more meaningful decisions in a professional capacity.
Create Value More Effectively
When you understand the basics of financial management, your ability to predict potential project ROIs (return on investment) and avoid budgetary risks becomes greater. Let’s assume your supervisor submits a project request that predicts a 37% ROI. Without financial training, you might not know whether this prediction is realistic, but if you understand professional finance, you’ll be able to not only determine the validity of that ROI prediction, but you’ll also be able to submit more reasonable revisions to the project plan.
Make Sense of the Market
Knowing how your work relates to your organization’s financial health can extend beyond the office. If you understand corporate finance, you can interact with the general market more effectively. If you understand corporate finance, you become better able to interact with the general market. You’ll be more informed about how prices are determined, how much things cost, and how to find the best deals on products and services you need. You can also gain invaluable insight on why competing organizations are making certain decisions – you may even be able to figure out how to do it better. Talk about value!
Form Better Relationships with the Finance Department
Working in the finance department isn’t easy, and when you’ve taken time to learn about the basic processes that the finance department oversees each day, you’ll become more understanding and empathetic. Rather than making demands when financial issues occur, you’ll be able to understand how the issue came to be and what the finance team is doing to remedy it. You may even be able to help brainstorm solutions.
For more on how to develop your understanding of finances in and out of work check out our event, “Finance Essentials for Non-Financial Professionals: Tools for Better Decision-Making,” to discover how to make better decisions after you develop a deeper understanding of business finance.
