TOS VARNSDORF Cashflow is the key

BEFORE YOU WATCH1. Have you ever earned some money at home or

elsewhere? What did you do to earn it? What did you do with the money? What ideas do you have for earning money now or in the future?

2. Do you know what CASH FLOW is? Can you explain the concept in English? If you don’t know, try to make hypothesis about the meaning of the phrase. How does it function in business?

3. What do you understand about the concept FINANCIAL PLANNING? Discuss. What tasks are involved? Make a list.

Exercise 1

1. Cash flow supervision is the only task of the financial director.

2. Price lists are created exclusively by the marketing department.

3. The financial director is responsible for the company investments.

4. The speaker was disappointed with the behaviour of the banks in times of the financial crisis.

5. The company went almost bankrupt in 2010.

6. The profit of the company in 2008 was 3 billion crowns.

7. The speaker thinks that despite good economic results, any company can go bankrupt without properly managed cash flow.

WHILE YOU WATCHExercise 2

Are these statements TRUE or FALSE?

Listen and fill in the gaps

Exercise 3

1. I am the financial director of our company. Among my daily business belong, of course, keep an eye on our accounts where we have a cash flow because you know that cash flow is king and it’s really valid. Because you can have big gains, positive results but if you don’t have cash flow, you are a loser.

2. But, of course, this is not the only one. I am also responsible for keep an eye on proper accounting, proper book keeping. Of course, I am also responsible for investments. On their return on investments we realize here.

3. I’m also cooperating with marketing department with setting up our price lists, also responsible for the hedging, the exposure of currency risks because we have Czech crown so we have to do this business also.

4. During the very crucial years that were, I can say, critical for our company during 2008 and 2010 when our business were heavily hit by the financial crisis because the machine tool industry is really very correlant with the economic cycle, so our sales dropped down from 3 billion Czech crowns in 2008 to 1 billion…

5. So during these days my dreamless nights were…I was trying to solve firstly where to find…where to get the money for the keeping our business running and also negotiating with banks

6. Fortunately, because the structure of our inventories, of our receivables was in a good shape, so we didn’t have a problem to get the money from these things so we have…we were comfortable in our cash flow so it allowed us to pay our debts, to return the loans that we had...

Match the English expressions with their Czech equivalent

AFTER YOU WATCHExercise 4

GROUP WORK• Work in small groups to create a model of a mock financial system as if you

were a small company whose purpose was to rent a flat and its ‘employees’ live together. Imagine you rented a flat with a group of friends. Identify how many people live there, what kind of flat it would be (furnished or unfurnished), where it would be (near the tram, bus or metro or you would need other transportation). List areas of expenditure and items of expenditures you would all need on a monthly basis to live there and cover all of your basic living needs. How much would the monthly expenditure be for your daily living routines? What monthly tasks would you need to do to guarantee the smooth living arrangements of the group?

• Invent a system that would guarantee that everything is paid for and done on time. Identify how would you all earn the money and create the time to accomplish its daily tasks? What would the consequences be if you didn’t? Make a data spreadsheet with incomes and outcomes, inputs and outputs. Prepare and present your ideas to the rest of the groups.

Exercise 5

GROUP WORK• Change the members of your groups so you are working

with new team members: count everyone in the whole group 1, 2, 3, 4. etc. Then reorganize your groups with 1s together, 2s together, etc. and. With your previous experience from task 1, brainstorm a list of ideas for you and your team to develop that could be a SME (small-medium enterprise) operating in the school or your environment around you. Imagine what kind of income the business could generate and how (i.e. buy and resell goods; buy wholesale and sell retail; create a product and sell it; offer a service and do it, etc). Discuss the pros and cons of each idea in your group.

Exercise 5

GROUP WORK• Each group selects one idea to develop a mock company and business

idea for. What would you call your company? How would it make its income? What kinds of expenditures would it have? If you were all employees, who would do which tasks? How would your develop inventory or offer service? What would their features be? How much would it cost to start up? Would you need investment? How much? For what? Would the company operate collectively as a team or individually so that each member earned only what they produced? Who would be responsible for what? What tasks would need to be done on a weekly basis to keep the company running? How would the company pay its bills when it did not have enough income generated during the month? What ideas could you generate for solving cash flow problems? Discuss the realistic needs you would need to solve to develop your ideas.

• Each group presents their ideas to the rest of the class. Discuss what are the pros and cons of each idea? Would your class like to select the best idea and try to develop it?

Exercise 5

Exercise 6