Dr NR Parasuraman book on Financial Management makes essential financial concepts easy

Financial Management : A Step by Step Approach is a book on Financial Management written by Dr. N. R. Parasuraman, Director, SDM Institute for Management Development, Mysore and a fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India seeks to make the study of essential concepts of finance easy and interesting. The book takes a step-by-step approach towards describing the theory and taking the reader to specific applications.

Sharing the USP of his book in an interview with MBAUniverse.com Dr Parasuraman expressed that the USPs of the book are simple concepts which have been described briefly. He said that, I have sought to demonstrate the use of Excel for solving problems, and have included a host of problems and worked out illustrations. I am encouraged by the good reviews received from scholars all over the country.

The book covers to the point description and concepts of all the major topics of finance taught in management courses in all major institutes and universities. There are numerous solved examples, illustrations, MCQs, concept questions and problems and the end of the book contains detailed case studies.

Ithink most leading B schools do have a full coverage of the key topics in Finance in the first year course. However, I feel that sometimes, with the objective of giving the students an overview of a lot of things, some end up having too much of breadth with very little breadth, said Dr Parasuraman in a reply to an MBAUniverse.com questionnaire regarding his views on how Financial Management is being taught at Indian B Schools.

Dr Parasuraman also said that, the students pursuing MBA in Financial Management must be cross-functional in their approach to learning and they should see the strategic angle to decisions and see how finance can be used for furthering this.He also suggested the students to keep analyzing the decisions made by companies from various angles and see the theoretical support they have.While the basic concepts can be learnt in the program, it is up to them to hone their skills by constant study of management in practice, he added.

All the chapters start with an Indian company situation so that the reader can appreciate the context and get to the details smoothly. The use of several examples at each stage takes the reader systematically from basics to advanced levels. The author has used MS Excel for solving problems and the use of screenshots and their description makes learning exciting. The coverage is very extensive: from the basics of financial statements and analysis to advanced topics, such as multinational finance and mergers and acquisitions.

Dr. N. R. Parasuraman is the director of SDM Institute for Management Development, Mysore. He is a fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and the Institute of Cost Accountants of India. His doctorate was on capital structuring of Indian companies. He has been researching and teaching in the areas of strategic finance, financial derivatives, cost management, portfolio management and international finance.Dr. Parasuraman has published 30 papers on various topics of finance in leading journals. He has also authored a book titled Fundamentals of Financial Derivatives, which featured in the top 10 management bestsellers of Business World in August 2008. He has been a visiting adjunct faculty of finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, for more than a decade. He has also been a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and the Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak.In recent years, he has established a reputation for focused corporate training programmes involving practical aspects of finance and the use of spreadsheets.

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