Page 20 - Finance for Non-Financial Managers

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Counting

the Beans:

How Critical Is Good Financial

Information, Anyway?

he members of every generation believe the business envi-
Tronment in which they work is tougher than ever before.
Today we are no exception. Those who follow us will likely be
no exception. Well, guess what? Everybody’s right!

Managing a Company in Today’s Business
Environment

As business gets more competitive, more global, more techno-
logically driven, it gets easier for others to compete with you. It
gets harder to be successful by just doing OK. It gets harder to
launch a good product and enjoy the benefits of your innovation
for a long time without serious competition. And, yes, it does get
tougher to make a living. So what was good enough for our par-
ents to be able to get by and make a “good living” isn’t good
enough today. You may have read that many of us will fail to
achieve the relative standard of living that our parents did
because of that tougher world out there. Of course, if you’ve

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