What Is Strategic Financial Management?
Strategic financial management means not only managing a company's finances but managing them with the intention to succeed—that is, to attain the company's long-term goals and objectives and maximize shareholder value over time.
Key Takeaways
- Strategic financial management is about creating profits for the business over the long run.
- It seeks to maximize return on investment for stakeholders.
- This differs from tactical management, which looks to seize near-term opportunities.
- A financial plan is strategic and focuses on long-term gain.
- Strategic financial planning varies by company, industry, and sector.
Understanding Strategic Financial Management
Strategic financial management is about creating profit for the business and ensuring an acceptable return on investment (ROI). Financial management is accomplished through business financial plans, setting up financial controls, and financial decision-making.
Before a company can manage itself strategically, it first needs to define its objectives precisely, identify and quantify its available and potential resources, and devise a specific plan to use its finances and other capital resources toward achieving its goals.
Strategic management also involves understanding and properly controlling, allocating, and obtaining a company's assets and liabilities, including monitoring operational financing items like expenditures, revenues, accounts receivable and payable, cash flow,and profitability.
Strategic financial management encompasses furthermore involves continuous evaluating, planning,and adjusting to keep the company focused and on tracktoward long-term goals. When a company is managing strategically, it deals with short-term issues on an ad hoc basis in ways that do not derail its long-term vision.
Strategic financial management includes assessing and managing a company's capital structure, the mix of debt and equity finance employed, to ensure a company's long-term solvency.
Strategic Versus Tactical Financial Management
The term "strategic"refers to financial management practices that are focused on long-term success, as opposed to "tactical" management decisions, which relate to short-term positioning. If a company is being strategic instead of tactical, it makes financial decisions based on what it thinks would achieve results ultimately—that is, in the future—which implies that to realize those results, a firm sometimes must tolerate losses in the present.
"Strategic" management focuses on long-term success and "tactical" management relates to short-term positioning.
Part of effective strategic financial management thus may involve sacrificing or readjusting short-term goals in order to attain the company's long-term objectives more efficiently. For example, if a company suffered a net loss for the previous year, then it may choose to reduce its asset base through closing facilities or reducing staff, thereby decreasing its operating expenses. Taking such steps may result in restructuring costs or other one-time items that negatively affect the company's finances further in the short term, but which position the company better to succeed in the long term.
These short-term versus long-term tradeoffs often need to be made with various stakeholders in mind. For instance, shareholders of public companies may discipline management for decisions that negatively affect a company's share price in the short term, even though the long-term health of the company becomes more solid by the same decisions.
The Elements of Strategic Financial Management
A company will apply strategic financial management throughout its organizational operations, which involves designing elements that will maximize the firm's financial resources and use them efficiently. Here a firm needs to be creative, as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to strategic management, and each company will devise elements that reflect its own particular needs and goals. However, some of the more common elements of strategic financial management could include the following.
Planning
- Define objectives precisely.
- Identify and quantify available and potential resources.
- Write a specific business financial plan.
Budgeting
- Help the company function with financial efficiency, and reduce waste.
- Identify areas that incur the most operating costs, or exceed the budgeted cost.
- Ensure sufficient liquidity to cover operating expenses without tapping external resources.
- Uncover areas where a firm may invest earnings to achieve goals more effectively.
Managing and Assessing Risk
- Identify, analyze, and mitigate uncertainty in investment decisions.
- Evaluate the potential for financial exposure; examine capital expenditures (CapEx) and workplace policies.
- Employ risk metrics such as degree of operating leverage calculations, standard deviation, and value-at-risk (VaR) strategies.
Establishing Ongoing Procedures
- Collect and analyze data.
- Make financial decisions that are consistent.
- Track and analyze variance—that is, differences between budgeted and actual results.
- Identify problems and take appropriate corrective actions.
Strategies Based on Industry
Just as financial management strategies will vary from company to company, they also can differ according to industry and sector.
Firms that operate in fast-growing industries—like information technology or technical services—would want to choose strategies that cite their goals for growth and specify movement in a positive direction. Their objectives, for example, might include launching a new product or increasing gross revenue within the next 12 months.
On the other hand, companies in slow-growing industries—like sugar manufacturing or coal-power production—could choose objectives that focus on protecting their assets and managing expenses, such as reducing administrative costs by a certain percentage.
What Are the Benefits of Strategic Management?
Having a long-term focus helps a company maintain its goals, even as short-term rough patches or opportunities come and go. As a result, strategic management helps keep a firm profitable and stable by sticking to its long-run plan. Strategic management not only sets company targets but sets guidelines for achieving those objectives even as challenges appear along the way.
What Is the Scope of Strategic Financial Management?
Strategic management can encompass all aspects of a firm's long-term objectives. Financial management often plays a key role in this, which involves cost reduction, risk management, and budgeting.
What Is the Ultimate Objective of Strategic Financial Management?
The goal of strategic financial management is to ensure that long-term goals are properly planned for and ultimately met.
I'm an expert in the field of strategic financial management with a deep understanding of the concepts discussed in the provided article. My knowledge is based on practical experience and a comprehensive grasp of the subject matter.
Now, let's delve into the key concepts outlined in the article:
1. Strategic Financial Management Overview:
- Strategic financial management is not just about managing a company's finances; it's about doing so with the intention to succeed in the long run.
- The primary goal is to attain the company's long-term objectives and maximize shareholder value over time.
2. Financial Planning:
- Strategic financial management involves creating profits for the business over the long term through financial plans.
- Before managing strategically, a company must precisely define its objectives, identify resources, and devise a specific plan to use finances toward achieving goals.
3. Asset and Liability Management:
- Involves understanding and controlling a company's assets and liabilities.
- Monitoring operational financing items such as expenditures, revenues, accounts receivable and payable, cash flow, and profitability is crucial.
4. Capital Structure Management:
- Involves assessing and managing a company's capital structure, determining the mix of debt and equity finance to ensure long-term solvency.
5. Strategic vs. Tactical Financial Management:
- "Strategic" refers to long-term success, while "tactical" relates to short-term positioning.
- Sometimes, short-term sacrifices are necessary to achieve long-term objectives efficiently.
6. Elements of Strategic Financial Management:
- Planning: Define objectives precisely, identify and quantify resources, and create a specific business financial plan.
- Budgeting: Enhance financial efficiency, reduce waste, identify cost-heavy areas, ensure liquidity, and invest earnings effectively.
- Managing and Assessing Risk: Identify, analyze, and mitigate uncertainty; employ risk metrics such as operating leverage calculations, standard deviation, and value-at-risk strategies.
- Establishing Ongoing Procedures: Collect and analyze data, make consistent financial decisions, track variances, and take corrective actions.
7. Strategies Based on Industry:
- Financial management strategies vary between companies and industries.
- Companies in fast-growing industries focus on growth goals, while those in slow-growing industries concentrate on protecting assets and managing expenses.
8. Benefits and Scope of Strategic Management:
- Long-term focus helps companies maintain goals through challenges and opportunities.
- Strategic financial management encompasses all aspects of a firm's long-term objectives, playing a key role in cost reduction, risk management, and budgeting.
9. Ultimate Objective of Strategic Financial Management:
- The goal is to ensure that long-term goals are properly planned for and ultimately met.
Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions or if there's a particular aspect you'd like to explore further.
