BZR643 Managing Finance and Information
Duration of learning – 3 months
Credit – 15 points
General information
This is one of four Modules comprising the Manager Professional Programme which is designed to update skills and knowledge and offered by the British Open University Business School (OU Business School), the Europe largest business school.
Module Managing Finance and Information is a self-contained three-month study course which examines financial management problems essential for modern managers. This course will help you to increase your knowledge in this fundamental area of management and introduce you to new management techniques that will improve your confidence as a manager.
If you fulfill all academic requirements, the Module will be counted as a quarter of full credit towards the OU Business School Professional Certificate in Management.
Managing Finance and Information is a part of the Manager–Professional Programme and provides the base for entering the Corporate Manager and the OU Business School MBA programmes.
Description
Any manager has to deal with some financial or other quantitative information. This course will help you use various types of information more effectively and apply it to performance analysis and decision-making.
You will need no preliminary expertise in accounting. The course is aimed to improve your understanding and decision-making skills as a manager. The course considers input and output flows in the organisation and in what way they are represented in information systems. Next come important aspects of costs – how they are calculated, categorized and managed – and of managing budgets. The course concludes by explaining how you can use accounts, statistics and spreadsheets to enhance your management skills.
Managing Finance and Information involves four course books. Among main topics are:
Book 1. Understanding Information: manager’s informational responsibilities; quality and value of information; information management systems and how they affect organisation activity; quality of information supplied to customers; identifying manager’s information problems and setting priority to resolve them; analysing and representing data.
Book 2. Financial Frameworks: financial information in process and resource management; cash flow statement, balance sheet and profit and losses statement; interrelation between financial statements; managing the working capital cycle and liquidity; ratios; transferring financial information.
Book 3. Costs and Financial Decisions: types of costs and approaches to identifying them; absorption costing; allocating costs to activities and marginal costing; break even point and leverage; contribution and how to gain maximum; pricing and sales; whether to adopt or reject an activity; decision-making scenarios.
Book 4. Working with Budgets: organisation’s aims and managing through budgets; approaches to budgeting and types of budgets; interpreting financial outcomes and responding to deviations from the budget; ratios and performance indicators.
Computing
You will have access to web-site where you find further materials on the Manager-Professional Programme; also you will have access to Managing Finance and Information special site for students.
This Module has specially developed CD-ROM that you can use to check your understanding of key concepts through tests based on study case analysis and to aid your revision.
When you register you will receive Manager’s Help File which describes key concepts and team-working techniques.
What is included in Module
This Module has its own Study Guide, four course books, interactive CD-ROM, audio cassette/CD and web-pages.
You will need
CD player and computer with Internet access.
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor with whom you can communicate by e-mail, telephone and who will help you with your study, mark and comment your written assignments, conduct Internet conferences on course topics, offer advice and guidance in your learning.
Tutor will also run face-to-face tutorials which will provide you with useful experience in applying course concepts to case study analysis and in team- working.
Your Regional Centre will be able to tell you where the tutorials are to be held if you need this information before you register. Each Module involves about six hours of such tuition which normally comprise two three-hour tutorials.
Residential Schools
Sessions at Residential School (two and a half days) involve interactive work based on course materials and aimed to provide more profound perception. You will participate in intensive discussions of a wide rang of working contexts and acquire team-working skills.
Assessment
Module has two written assignments and a one-hour examination.
Qualification
Module is counted towards Professional Certificate in Management of the British Open University, however if your aim is to be awarded this qualification, you should complete each of four Programme modules.
Entry
There are no entry requirements, however you are expected to bring some personal managerial experience but you need not to be currently employed as a manager during your study.
Module BZR643 Managing Finance and Information is one of four three-month Modules comprising the Manager-Professional Programme. You may register for any of the Modules on its own and study them one by one; but if you want to be awarded the Professional Certificate, you will benefit greatly by registration for the full Programme.
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