Build a Financial Model to Support Business Decisions

In this class, we’ll talk about first steps in building a model, how to define the purpose/use of the model, and how to determine what business questions you’re trying to solve.

Models mean different things to different people, but they are basically a simplified representation of a system built to support predictions and/or decision making.

The class will be hands-on and students will work in groups to build several different types of models, which we will review as a class.

Takeaways:

• Understand in which situations a model will be a helpful tool to support decision making
• Quickly build a basic model (financial or otherwise) using a simple 6 step process that ensures you “build it right” the first time
• Apply model building “best practices” to reduce errors and improve usability of model
• Understand and leverage models to apply basic analysis techniques (e.g., break even analysis, growth rate calculations, simple scenario analysis)

Prereqs & Preparations:
Comfort with basic excel commands: “if” statements, copy and paste, addition, subtraction. You will need a laptop with excel for class.