MODULE 1, ASSIGNMENT 3
September 12, 2013

Topics: Performance Management, Financial Management and Financial Reporting

Overview In this assignment, candidates get a chance to apply all the steps except for steps 6 and 9 in the Steps for Approaching Business and Corporate Strategy to a small business case. As mentioned previously, these steps provide candidates with a systematic approach for addressing a case involving business-level strategic issues. Applying this approach effectively is one of the important competencies that candidates will learn in the CMA Canada Professional Programs. The starting point for solving a business problem is to analyze the current situation and identify the problems that need to be addressed. A major component of the situational analysis is to take a close look at the environments within which an organization finds itself. One of the methods commonly used in such an environmental analysis is “SWOT” (an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), which considers the strengths and weaknesses in the internal environment as well as the opportunities and threats in the external environment. Candidates can refer to the required reading Situational Analysis Tools mentioned below for more information on how to go about doing a SWOT analysis. The next major step is to identify the issues and analyze various alternatives for addressing the major issues. In this case, a shortage of available cash is a major issue and needs to be addressed. Therefore, one of the main topics for this assignment is cash flow management, i.e. managing the movement of money into and out of a business. Many supervisors and/or managers who oversee functions such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, and finance are directly involved in cash flow management within their organizations. In some smaller companies, a single individual may manage