Verified Document

Financial Management: Performance Measures Case Study

Transfer Pricing-SLP The relevance of financial ratios cannot be overstated when it comes to the measurement of an entity's performance. It should, however, be noted that not all performance measures can be expressed as a ratio. This text concerns itself with various other performance measures: operating leverage, Return on Investment (ROI), EVA, and gross profit margin.

Transfer Pricing-SLP

Operating Leverage

According to Shim and Siegel (2008, p. 198) "operating leverage, a measure of operating risk, arises from the company's use of fixed operating costs." As the authors further point out, a simple indication of the said financial measure would be the "change in sales on earnings before interest and taxes" (Shim and Siegel, 2008, p. 198). It is important to note that a high degree of operating leverage is seen as an indicator that small changes in sales result in significant changes in not only EBIT, but also return on equity, return on assets and return on capital invested (Brigham and Ehrhardt, 2013). The degree of operating leverage could be computed by dividing the change in operating income/change in EBIT with the change in sales, in percentage terms (Shim and Siegel, 2008).

The relevance of operating leverage cannot be overstated. This is particularly the case given that investors can make use of this particular performance measure to evaluate an entity's risk profile. However, like is the case with most performance measures, operating leverage does not tell the whole story,...

with regard to how effectively the company's management is making use of the money at their disposal.
Return on Investment

In the words of Shim and Siegel (2008, p. 93) "ROI, which relates net income to invested capital (total assets), provides a standard for evaluating how efficiently management employs the average dollar invested in a business's assets." As the authors further point out, an increase in this particular performance measure could directly translate into a higher shareholders' equity return. In essence, return on investment comes in handy in the evaluation of the efficiency of a given entity in the exploitation of available investments using the resources it has. ROI could be computed by dividing an entity's net profit after taxes with its assets (total). It is important to note that unlike is the case with other performance measures, return on investment can be broken down into other measures of performance such as asset turnover and profit margin (Kalpan Financial Limited, 2012). This would offer a more detailed analysis. However, this performance measure "may encourage the manipulation of profit and capital employed figures to improve results, e.g. In order to obtain a bonus payment" (Kalpan Financial Limited, 2012).

Economic Value Added

Shim and Siegel (2008, p. 105) define EVA as "a measure of economic profit, but not the accounting profit we are accustomed to seeing in the corporate profit and loss statement." Instead, as the authors further point out, this…

Sources used in this document:
References

Brigham, E.B. & Ehrhardt, M. (2013). Financial Management: Theory and Practice (14th ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Kalpan Financial Limited. (2012). Performance Management. Retrieved from http://kfknowledgebank.kaplan.co.uk/KFKB/Wiki%20Pages/Financial%20Performance%20Indicators%20%28FPIs%29.aspx#Maximising_x0020_shareholder_x0020_wealth_0_1_0_1_1_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0

Shim, J.K. & Siegel, J.G. (2008). Financial Management (3rd ed.). Hauppauge, New York: Barron's Education Series.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Financial Management of Not-For-Profit Organizations: Generally,...
Words: 3603 Length: 12 Document Type: Essay

Financial Management of Not-For-Profit Organizations: Generally, financial management of not-for-profit organizations is similar to the process of financial management in the profit making sector in several aspects. Nonetheless, there are several major differences that contribute to a different focus of a not-for-profit financial manager. In the commercial sector, the for-profit enterprises mainly focus on capitalizing shareholder value and overall profitability. On the contrary, not-for-profit organizations have the basic aim of providing

Financial Scandals and Management Financial Management Financial
Words: 3120 Length: 11 Document Type: Essay

Financial Scandals and Management Financial Management Management Financial Actions, Controls, and Decisions Financial Scandals and Management Following the rise of financial scandals in the recent past, external and internal audits are carried out to review the management's financial controls and actions, and keep tab of the outside and internal auditors. However, despite the best efforts, accounting scandals like the Cendant Corporation's $300 million bogus revenue indicate that external auditors and managers are not doing

Financial Management Is an Important
Words: 1730 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

(2009). Google's Big IPO, Five Years Later. [Article]. Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition, 254(40), C3. Davis, H.Z., & Peles, Y.C. (1993). Measuring Equilibrating Forces of Financial Ratios. The Accounting Review, 68(4), 725-747. Google Inc. (2012). 2011 Annual Report. Mountain View, CA: Google Inc. Kirby, J. (2009). How Google really does it. (Cover story). [Article]. Canadian Business, 82(18), 54-58. Lee, M.-j. (2010). Measuring the Usage Effects of Tying a Messenger to Windows: A

Financial Management Calculate or Identify From Each
Words: 2173 Length: 8 Document Type: Term Paper

Financial Management Calculate or identify from each company's most recent annual report the six (6) specific financial ratios listed and provide as an appendix to the paper. Liquidity ratios are responsible for measuring a firm's performance regarding the availability of cash to pay its debt obligations (Rashid & Abbas, 2011, p. 9). A common type of liquid ratio is the current ratio. The current ratio is responsible for comparing and contrasting current

Financial Management for Nurses the Modern Healthcare
Words: 1504 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Financial Management for Nurses The modern healthcare industry is extremely labor intensive. To be effective, a modern nurse manager must balance patient care vs. staffing, procedures vs. patient load, and fiscal budgets in line with appropriate levels of care. Nurses are expected not only to understand the organization's fiscal concerns, but to manage them as well. While fiscal dollars spent on human resource management are the larger portion of the health

Performance Measures in This Text, I Concern
Words: 620 Length: 2 Document Type: Essay

Performance Measures In this text, I concern myself with performance measurement. In addition to a performance measure of my choice, some of the other performance measures I will discuss include EVA, ROI, and operating leverage. In so doing, I will not only compute the said performance measures but also reflect on their advantages and disadvantages. My companies of choice for this discussion are Apple Inc. And Google Inc. Performance Measures: Computations Formula Apple Google Degree of

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now