Can you Read? Technical and Financial Literacy
2 Things Business Students Must Know
Managers in today’s economy cannot just be good at one thing. On the contrary, they need to have an exposure to almost every facet of the business that they are managing if they are to succeed. Does that mean you have to be a network engineer in order to run Cisco Systems, or a chef in order to run Nabisco? Certainly not. However, it’s tough to manage what you don’t know. Last year in the NU Entrepreneurs Club, I was the Director of our Startup Challenge, the largest division of the club. This year as President, I manage that Director, and 23 others. I know what they have to deal with because I did it myself before.
I believe that for any business-oriented student graduating today, in addition to whatever your major concentration is in business, you need to be literate in two key areas: technology and money. A lack of understanding of either is a gaping failure point for an organization. Let’s look at each one:
Technical Literacy
This means that you can talk the tech talk. Do you have to be the CTO? No. But, you need to understand the language, the acronyms and the terms that engineers use. You need to be comfortable speaking to engineers and have a solid understanding of how they think and how they work. You should be able to approximate about how long a technical project will take, and about how much it will cost. Advantages:
- Earn respect from the engineering team… engineers want to see business people who at least have the desire to understand tech
- Pay the right price for tech projects because you understand what it takes to complete them
- Gain opportunities to leverage technology that you understand to increase efficiency and reduce costs in your business
Financial Literacy
A balance sheet can be confusing. Do you know how to calculate comprehensive income or loss? Your company just bought a new server - how should we deal with the cost of that asset and how should we depreciate it? These are questions that should not be reserved for just your CFO or Controller. Advantages:
- Ability to talk to finance and accounting teams and understand their needs
- Insight to know when there is a financial problem in your company, not enough cash flow, etc.
- Skills to review a company’s financial statements before your join the team to ensure it is in good fiscal health
Ready to become technically and financially literate? Great! Here are the action items:
- Consider concentrations in school like MIS
- Learn how to program (use Codecademy)
- Use a service like Mint.com to keep careful track of your personal funds
- Take a few accounting electives (especially managerial / cost accounting)
