Strategic Business Finance and Management

Overview

The Business Finance course equips you with practical financial decision-making skills used by managers and business leaders. You will build a strong understanding of financial management, time value of money, and capital budgeting, learning how to evaluate investments using real cash flows and discounting techniques. The course covers how to calculate the cost of capital, assess risk and return, design an effective capital structure, and understand how dividend decisions influence shareholder value and long-term strategy.By the end of the course, you will be able to analyze investment opportunities and make sound financial recommendations that support business growth. Through a guided project, you will evaluate real-world investment projects using tools such as NPV, IRR, and payback period, while applying discount rate calculations and working capital concepts. This hands-on experience helps you improve financial judgment, support strategic planning, and confidently contribute to finance-related decisions in corporate or entrepreneurial roles.

Syllabus

Overview of Business Finance

This module covers the concepts of financial management, value maximization and the fundamentals of the time value of money, including compounding and discounting techniques essential for business decision-making.

Investment Decisions–Capital Budgeting Decisions

In this module, you will learn how to make effective capital budgeting decisions and techniques, estimate cash flows for projects to understand real-world investment scenarios.

Discount Rate Calculation

In this module, you will understand the cost of capital, cost of equity and retained earnings and learn how to calculate the appropriate discount rate for investment decisions.

Capital Structure and Leverage

In this module, you will explore the principles of capital structure and analyze operating and financial leverage to optimize a company’s financing mix and risk-return profile.

Dividend Decision

In this module, you will get an introduction to dividend decisions, learn about types of dividends and understand how dividend policy affects shareholder value and corporate strategy.

Working Capital Management

This module provides an overview of working capital, its objectives and the management of cash and liquidity. We will cover tools for planning cash flow to make effective operational decisions.