Introduction to Financial Modeling for Management Consultant

What is the aim of this course?

During many consulting projects, you will have to create financial models of businesses in Excel. This requires a very good understanding of the business and also mastering some tricks that will help you display the business in Excel. That is why, in this course, I will teach how to create fast and efficiently financial models in Excel during consulting projects.

In the course, you will learn the following things:

1. How to define drivers for a specific business model
2. How to create a simplified financial model in Excel quickly using the business drivers
3. How to model the profit and loss statement in Excel
4. How to model the cash flow statement in Excel
5. How to model different business models in Excel

This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement, and turn-arounds in the biggest firms from the Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B, and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried out or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated a total of 2 billion additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course, I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts, and managers who are now Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors, COO, CRO, CEO, Directors in Consulting Companies, Board Members, etc. On top of that, my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 339 000 students, including people working in EY, McKinsey, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Adidas, Naspers, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange, and many others.

I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses and tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excel files as well as additional presentations and materials shown in the lectures, so as a part of this course, you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modifications, be applied by you or your team in your work.

Why have I decided to create this course?

During many consulting projects, you have to create fast a financial model for the business that will allow you to model potential improvements. The time you are given is not always sufficient to create a full-blown financial model. In such situations, it is extremely important to create a simplified financial model that will help you model the profit and loss statement as well as the cash flow. Most firms don’t give you the full toolbox that you need to do that fast. This may lead to huge frustration during consulting projects, unnecessary stress, and a lot of inefficiencies.

Therefore, I have decided to create this course that will help students create fast financial models during consulting projects. The course will give you the knowledge and insight into real-life case studies that will make your life during a consulting project much easier. Thanks to this course, you will know what and how to do during consulting projects when it comes to financial modeling. You will learn how to create, in a few days, a financial model that reflects the business model that you want to analyze or improve. On top of that, you will also see how to reflect different business models in Excel.

To sum it up, I believe that if you want to become a world-class Management Consultant or Business Analyst, you have to have a pretty decent understanding of financial modeling done during consulting projects. That is why I highly recommend this course to Management Consultants or Business Analysts, especially those who did not finish business school. The course will help you become an expert in financial modeling on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top consulting firms.

In what way will you benefit from this course?

The course is a practical, step-by-step guide loaded with tons of analyses, tricks, and hints that will significantly improve the speed with which you understand and analyze businesses. There is little theory – mainly examples, a lot of tips from my own experience, as well as other notable examples worth mentioning. Our intention is that, thanks to the course, you will learn:

1. How to define drivers for a specific business model
2. How to create a simplified financial model in Excel quickly using the business drivers
3. How to model the profit and loss statement in Excel
4. How to model the cash flow statement in Excel
5. How to model different business models in Excel

You can also ask me any questions either through the discussion field or by messaging me directly.

How is the course organized?

The course is currently divided into the following sections:

• Introduction. We begin with a little introduction to the course, as well as some general info on how the course is organized
• Modeling Profit & Loss. Profit and Loss Statement enables you to check the profitability of businesses. In this section, you will learn how to model this statement in Excel.
• Modeling Cash Flow. In previous sections, you learned how to model a simple business model in Excel for e-commerce. In this section, we will concentrate on modeling the Cash Flow in a simple way.
• Case Studies in Financial Modeling. In the last section, we will look at some case studies that will help you improve your skills in financial modeling.

You will be able also to download many additional resources

1. Useful frameworks and techniques

2. Analyses shown in the course

3. Additional resources

4. Links to additional presentations, articles, and movies

5. Links to books worth reading

At the end of my course, students will be able to…

• How to define the drivers of the business model
• How to model the profit and loss statement in Excel
• How to model the cash flow statement in Excel
• How to model different business models in Excel
• You will get access to +30 ready-made models that you can utilize for your purposes

Who should take this course? Who should not?

• Management Consultants
• Business Analysts
• Financial Controllers
• Investment Analysts
• Startup Founders
• Project Managers

What will students need to know or do before starting this course?

• Basic or intermediate Excel
• Basic knowledge of economics
• Basic or intermediate knowledge of finance & accounting