Financial management

Financial management refers to the efficient and effective management of money (funds) in such a manner as to accomplish the objectives of the organization. It is the specialized function directly associated with the top management

Objectives of Financial Management

The financial management is generally concerned with procurement, allocation and control of financial resources of a concern. The objectives can be-

1.     To ensure regular and adequate supply of funds to the concern.

2.     To ensure adequate returns to the shareholders this will depend upon the earning capacity, market price of the share, expectations of the shareholders.

3.     To ensure optimum funds utilization. Once the funds are procured, they should be utilized in maximum possible way at least cost.

4.     To ensure safety on investment, i.e. funds should be invested in safe ventures so that adequate rate of return can be achieved.

5.     To plan a sound capital structure there should be sound and fair composition of capital so that a balance is maintained between debt and equity capital.

Functions of Financial Management

1.     Estimation of capital requirements: A finance manager has to make estimation with regards to capital requirements of the company. This will depend upon expected costs and profits and future programmers and policies of a concern. Estimations have to be made in an adequate manner which increases earning capacity of enterprise.

2.     Determination of capital composition: Once the estimation has been made, the capital structure have to be decided. This involves short- term and long- term debt equity analysis. This will depend upon the proportion of equity capital a company is possessing and additional funds which have to be raised from outside parties.

3.     Choice of sources of funds: For additional funds to be procured, a company has many choices like-

a.     Issue of shares and debentures

b.     Loans to be taken from banks and financial institutions

c.      Public deposits to be drawn like in form of bonds.

Choice of factor will depend on relative merits and demerits of each source and period of financing.

4.     Investment of funds: The finance manager has to decide to allocate funds into profitable ventures so that there is safety on investment and regular returns is possible.

5.     Disposal of surplus: The net profits decision has to be made by the finance manager. This can be done in two ways:

a.     Dividend declaration - It includes identifying the rate of dividends and other benefits like bonus.

b.     Retained profits - The volume has to be decided which will depend upon expansion, innovational, diversification plans of the company.

6.     Management of cash: Finance manager has to make decisions with regards to cash management. Cash is required for many purposes like payment of wages and salaries, payment of electricity and water bills, payment to creditors, meeting current liabilities, maintenance of enough stock, purchase of raw materials, etc.

7.     Financial controls: The finance manager has not only to plan, procure and utilize the funds but he also has to exercise control over finances. This can be done through many techniques like ratio analysis, financial forecasting, cost and profit control, etc.

6 Investing lessons

• To be a successful investor, you need to use due diligence. Spending wisely is not about being miserly, but about being smart. Invest in assets that give you good returns over the long term- one that helps you secure your financial future.
• Instead of trying to time the market and extract every rupee profit you can possibly get out of your investment, invest in assets that will generate inflation-beating long term returns and hold on it for a long time (In buffet terms, forever).
• Invest whenever you have the money and hold it for as long as possible.
• While Buffet talks about safety of capital, he’s referring to stock investing where you don’t become greedy and go after too-good-to-be-true stocks. Instead, you focus on stocks that are undervalued and are of companies that you understand and have long-term potential.
• Understand the tax implications of your investment fully before making a choice.
• Borrow only when it’s absolutely necessary. When borrowing, make sure you understand all the fees associated with it. Sometimes, the real cost of bowing money will be hidden as miscellaneous charges like processing fee.

Transaction processing management

Transaction processing is designed to maintain a system's Integrity (typically a database or some modern filesystems) in a known, consistent state, by ensuring that interdependent operations on the system are either all completed successfully or all canceled successfully. Transaction processing links multiple individual operations in a single, indivisible transaction, and ensures that either all operations in a transaction are completed without error, or none of them are.

Image-base / work-flow base intelligent data capture services

Processing of new business application / proposal forms, customer requests in core system. Validation and quality check through maker-checker system. MIS reporting.

Imaging & Documents Management

Disciplined Project Management through a pool of domain experts that understands business and attention to detail in every element of client interaction.

Back office operations

Back office operations related activities, i.e. co-ordination within different departments, checks and verifications, KYC checks, discrepancy management, documents requirements management etc. MIS reporting

Mail Management

Handling complete mail room, i.e. inward / outward desk of the client. Interacting with vendors like couriers, post etc. MIS reporting.

RTO Management (return to origin because of non-delivery)

Tracking reasons for RTO, making inventory, contacting customers, re-attempting delivery etc. MIS reporting.

Outsourcing & temping

Providing skilled manpower to client as and when required as per the project requirement.

Call Center Support

A call center is a physical place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an organization, usually with some amount of computer automation. Typically, a call center has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to screen calls and forward those to someone qualified to handle them, and to log calls. Call centers are used by mail-order catalog organizations, telemarketing companies, computer product help desks, and any large organization that uses the telephone to sell or service products and services. Two related terms are virtual call center and contact center. 

When customers experience issues with your product or service, the top priority and main goal is to provide immediate help and consistent answers to prevent negative feedback or product/service returns.

Services

Contact centers run support or help desks, which regularly answers technical questions from customers and assists them using their equipment or software. Support desks are used by companies in the computing, telecommunications and consumer electronics industries.

Dynamics

A contact center supports interaction with customers over a variety of media, including telephony, e-mail, and internet chat. A telephone answering service is a more personalized version of the call center, where agents get to know more about their customers and their callers; and therefore look after calls just as if based in their customers' office. Calls may be inbound or outbound. Inbound calls are made by consumers, for example to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. In contrast, outbound calls are made by agents to consumers, usually for sales purposes (telemarketing).

Outsourcing

In contrast to in house management, outsourced bureau contact centers are a model of contact center that provide services on a "pay per use" model. The overheads of the contact center are shared by many clients, thereby supporting a very cost effective model, especially for low volumes of calls. Outsourced centers have grown in popularity. There is criticism of the outsourcing model.

Investment Banking

Investment banks specialize in large and complex financial transactions such as underwriting, acting as an intermediary between a securities issuer and the investing public, facilitating mergers and other corporate reorganizations, and acting as a broker and/or financial adviser for institutional clients. Some investment banks specialize in particular industry sectors. Many investment banks also have retail operations that serve small, individual customers.

The advisory divisions of investment banks are paid a fee for their services, while the trading divisions experience profit or loss based on their market performance. Professionals who work for investment banks may have careers as financial advisers, traders or salespeople. An investment banker career can be very lucrative, but it typically comes with long hours and significant stress. Because investment banks have external clients but also trade their own accounts, a conflict of interest can occur if the advisory and trading divisions don’t maintain their independence. Investment banks’ clients include corporations, pension funds, other financial institutions, governments and hedge funds.

Features

·    Raising Capital & Security Underwriting: Banks are middlemen between a company that wants to issue new securities and the buying public.

  Mergers & Acquisitions: Banks advise buyers and sellers on business valuation, negotiation, pricing and structuring of transactions, as well as procedure and implementation.

·     Sales & Trading and Equity Research:  Banks match up buyers and sellers as well as buy and sell securities out of their own account to facilitate the trading of securities

·    Retail and Commercial Banking: Investment banks now offer traditionally off-limits services like commercial banking.

·        Front office vs. back office:  While functions like M&A advisory are front office, other functions like risk management, financial control, corporate treasury, corporate strategy, compliance, operations and technology are critical back office functions.

·      After the 2008 financial crisis: The industry has not fully recovered from the financial crisis that gripped the world in 2008.

About Author: The author of this blog has a passion for writing and has written many blogs related to outsourcing, bpo, business solutions, customer service etc.

Challenges for banks

Indian banks are stable but there will be challenges ahead for state-owned banks given weak core capitalization and slow earnings recovery.

Capital-raising will be a key theme for Indian banks, as asset-quality pressures gradually stabilize and banks look to revive credit growth in support of a recovering GDP outlook, however, there will be challenges for state-owned banks in particular, given weak core capitalization and expectations of slow earnings recovery due to high credit costs, said in report by rating agency, Fitch.

Public sector banks require Rs 2.40 lakh crore capital by 2018 to meet global Basel III norms.

State banks' large stressed asset stock should remain an overhang on banks' equity valuations for the foreseeable future, although the state's expected capital injection will provide a critical buffer for the near term The gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) of Public Sector Banks rose to 6.03 per cent at the end of June, as against 5.20 per cent in March this year.

Fitch believes that the banks will have to conduct much more capital raising to pursue sustainable growth rates while achieving Basel III requirements and cushioning balance-sheet stress at the same time.

The report also features questions on related Indian banking themes such as AT1 issuance, domestic systemically important banks, and the recently announced reform measures for state-owned banks, the rating agency said.

About Author: The author of this blog has a passion for writing and has written many blogs related to bpo, business solutions, customer service, outsourcing.