EE204: Business Management for
Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists

Financial Statements

Read

  1. Financial Statements: Understanding Basic Financial Statements (HBS course materials)
  2. Financial Statement Analysis: Identify the Industry (HBS course materials)
  3. Yahoo Financial Statements: Tesla

Assignment

1. In this Sudoku-like exercise, income statements, balance sheets, and selected financial ratios from 9 companies, drawn from nine different industries, are presented.
  1. Match the ten firms operating in the nine industries with the 9 sets of financial data presented in the case.
  2. What questions would you have if a company's financials were "outliers"--that is, not fitting the industry norm?

Hints

  • Financial Industry - For the purposes of this case, loans are classified as receivables and deposits are classified as payables.
  • Retail Industry - Look for high inventory and high asset turnover. Would a grocery store have a high return on sales?
  • High-Tech Industry - These companies will have high investment in R&D.
  • Service Industry - Look for low inventory.
  • Day's Inventory is the number of days that an item is held as inventory before it is sold.
  • Day's Receivables is the number of days it takes a company's customers to submit payment.

2. For this Financial Analysis, look at Tesla's Financial Statement (linked above under Read).

Study Group

For this exercise, work with the study group (4-6 students) that you joined last week. Multiple inputs will improve your accuracy.