F Is For "Finance" Not "Fear" - IIM Sirmaur

Hey! Amber, It’s 02:00 pm. Get ready soon. We have our first FSA (Financial Statement Analysis) class from 02:00 pm.

Nope buddy, I have not taken FSA as my elective. In fact, I have not taken any finance subject this year.

What? Are you in your senses?

Yes! I am done with finance. Only I could tell how I survived the first year with finance subjects. Now, I can’t handle it anymore.

Our actual conversation went somewhat like this before Anirudha somehow convinced me to attend the first class of FSA. He did not have to convince me actually since an agreement took place in those 15 minutes that he would help me with problems of pricing strategy if I attend FSA’s first class.

I contended with the fact that I won’t have to attend any more finance class this year but that contentment turned into resentment after those 90 minutes. Those 90 minutes were enough to break my notion that I had built over a year that finance is a painful subject to learn.

What happened in those 90 minutes?

Well, it was all because of the wizardry of Prof. Gourav Vallabh in explaining concepts intelligibly. He, an expert with wide experience spanning over 15 years in academy and industry, has already created the air of excitement in the classroom.

Starting with asking definition of management, he went on to break down every concept into pieces like a mother do with a bread to feed her tot. It will not be an exaggeration to say that he was personifying the concepts one by one by linking it with examples from our daily life.

All of us know what creating accounting is. But the professor’s way of explaining it was such that no one can forget it for a lifetime. How financial statements not only just represent numbers but intrinsic features of it such as font style, color used and theme it is prepared upon reflects intrinsic details about the company. Like if the pink colour is being used in the annual report then it shows a company is committed towards women empowerment whereas green represents sustainability.

How companies turn a blind eye to society while focusing single-mindedly towards their market shares.

Well most of us know that the capital of a business which is used in its day-to-day trading operations, calculated as the current assets minus the current liabilities is known as working capital.

In the professor’s words let’s make it more simple. The money you have kept securely in your wallet for contingencies purpose is actually your working capital. Is not it the best way to understand the nuances of finances which seems insurmountable sometimes. In this way, he went on to bringing life into concepts which we had buried in our first year.

I have never had such experience with any professor before this class in my academic career. And yes, I am attending his every class without fail.

I would like to join the retail arm of Aditya Birla Group that is Aditya Birla Retail Limited. ABRL is the first ever Indian food and grocery retailer to receive the FSMS (Food Safety Management System) certification. ABRL is the fourth largest supermarket chain in the country after Future Group, Reliance Retail and D-Mart. Retail Market of India is the most dynamic and emerging market in the world and has demanded a number of trained professionals in this field. Being a marketing student, I find it a very attractive sector to build my career in.