Thursday, 3 November 2016

Company Finance

Ways to figure out problems in a company's financial health

7 signs of a company in financial trouble

1/8

Text: Hiral Thanawala, ET Bureau

The following seven signs indicate that a company is in some kind of financial stress/trouble.

2/8

With the 2009 Satyam Computer Services fraud a case in point, some companies deliberately manipulate their financial statements, showing improper expenses, revenues, asset value and liabilities.

3/8

When a company starts compromising on quality after creating a brand for years, it ruins its brand value, leading to a drop in stock prices. A recent example of this being Welspun India.

4/8

A company with negative free cash flow indicates an inability to generate enough cash to support the business. Free cash flow tracks the cash a company has left over after meeting its operating expenses.

5/8

Deteriorating net profit margins mean very high expenses. Net profit margin measures how well a company manages its expenses relative to its net sales.

6/8

A current ratio of below 1 means a company's short-term assets are not enough to meet its current debt obligations. The liquidity ratio indicates a company's ability to pay off its current liabilities.

7/8

A debt ratio analyses a company's overall debt burden and its ability to pay it off. A company with more debt than assets are highly leveraged and its net profit margins decline over the same period.

8/8

A low inventory turnover implies excess inventory and weak sales. Inventory turnover measures the speed at which a company convert its inventory to sales.

Friday, 30 September 2016

Saying Alhamdulillah in all situations

Saying Alhamdulillah in all situations!

Bismillah

walhamdulillah,

لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ لِمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الْآخِرَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا

“There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent example for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and [who] remembers Allah much.” (33:21)

There are many sunan (plural of sunnah) that the Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam left for us to learn from and emulate. Unfortunately, many sunan have been forgotten and so we are not aware of them.

Recently going through some changes in my life, I remembered this sunnah that we should revivebi’ithnillah:

‏ ‏عن ‏ ‏عائشة ‏ ‏قالت ‏
كان رسول الله ‏ ‏صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ ‏إذا رأى ما يحب قال ‏ ‏الحمد لله الذي بنعمته تتم الصالحات وإذا رأى ما يكره قال الحمد لله على كل حال ‏

Narrated from A’ishah radi Allahu anha, “When the Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam saw something that pleased him, he would say: Alhamdulillahil lathee bi ni’matihi tatimmus saalihaat, and when he saw something that displeased him, he would say:Alhamdulillah ‘alaa kuli haal. (Narrated in Sunan Ibn Maajah, classified as Saheeh according to Shaykh Albaani rahimahullah in Silsilatus Saheehah hadeeth 265)

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي بِنِعْمَتِهِ تَتِمُّ الصَّالِحَاتُ Alhamdulillahil lathee bi ni’matihi tatimmus saalihaat means: All praise and thanks are only for Allah, the One who, by His blessing and favor, perfected goodness/good works are accomplished.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ عَلَى كُلِّ حَالٍ Alhamdulillah ‘alaa kuli haalmeans: All praise and thanks are only for Allah in all circumstances.

Let’s revive the sunnah of saying Alhamdulillah in all situations inshaAllah!

Wednesday, 28 September 2016

A life without meaning is not a life

Here is the deal.

We have two clear choices on the path of being human.

1. We can choose the life of the banal and mundane. Wake up, eat, go to work, earn to buy stuff that we don’t need, eating crap that creates a toxic waste dump of our bodies, made by companies that really don’t care less, buying more junk and more shoes and more gizzmo’s because the last latest and greatest is now obsolete (12 months old), pay for services and insurance that don’t really do anything but create a shit load of money for the company….go home watch incredibly badly made time fillers on TV that somehow keep us perfectly numb, eat more rubbish, go to bed…and do it all again a few hours later. Repeat…for years. Years! At some stage we wake up, surrounded by all the shiny toys, the stuff that says we have made it, but inside we feel like crap, not just because we are probably close to needing a triple bypass having McMac’d ourselves to death, but because somewhere along the way we lost our way. We lost ourselves. We lost the part of us that found joy in watching a sun set, hanging with the kids, learning a new skill, helping a neighbour with their lawn, connecting with loved ones in conversations where the earth moves. We lost connection with the part of ourselves that wanted to do something grand with our lives. Or the part of us that wanted to serve and to do so with remarkable excellence.

2. Or we can choose a life that has meaning. Where we do stuff that matters. Really matters to us. “But I can’t afford to do that”…or what ever lame excuse we give. No time, too much risk, too much debt, too much hard work, not enough education…. A life of meaning doesn’t need money, or stuff. If Viktor Frankl could find meaning being incarcerated in Auschwitz for 4 years I am quite sure if we looked hard enough we might be able to find some meaning in our comparatively over privileged life. People living in what we call third world countries often live a life rich with meaning.They live life. If you have lost your way…then to find it…start with exploring your heart ache. Go to the places where your heart bleeds for something. Injustice, animals, kids, people not living a life of meaning, health…the more painful the heart ache the more likely you are in the right place.

Then choose to do one thing. One little thing that addresses the heart ache. And see how you feel for the doing of it. Learn, adjust, modify, repeat. You never know, one day you may wake up and realise by surprise that you have found your way home. Oh…and if all of us decided that we no longer wanted to buy junk, eat junk, read junk, work at a place that couldn’t care less, run by people who are only interested in their own stock pile.. and if we decided this because we want to live a life of meaning…then I guess we might just upgrade the world. We got the game we got because we play the game.

I would love to hear your comments here...

Wednesday, 7 September 2016

Who Understands the IoT?

According to Cisco, there will be 13.5 billion connected devices in manufacturing by 2022. And JP Morgan’s Global Equity Research team has already pegged manufacturing with having the greatest Internet of Things (IoT) market potential. Although it’s difficult to accurately gauge the impact these technologies will have, it’s clear that experts are projecting it to be massive.

But what do manufacturing leaders have to say about the IoT?

Several months ago, LNS Research launched some new IoT survey questions that dig a little deeper into this topic. The study asks manufacturing executives and other senior leaders how the IoT is impacting their business today, as well as about their expected IoT investments going forward. What’s interesting is that almost half—43%—of these industry professionals indicated they still “don’t understand” or “know about” the IoT.

Given the hype around the IoT, these numbers may seem a bit odd to some. But the emerging technologies have the potential to be broadly disruptive, making the potential applications appear daunting for many businesses, therefore this trend is likely to continue until after more proven and commonplace solutions surface in the coming years—and they will.

In this post, we’ll drill down into this new IoT research data and share insights into what you should do if you fall into the “don’t understand” category.nd JP Morgan’s Global Equity Research team has already pegged manufacturing with having the greatest Internet of Things (IoT) market potential. Although it’s difficult to accurately gauge the impact these technologies will have, it’s clear that experts are projecting it to be massive.

But what do manufacturing leaders have to say about the IoT?

In this post, we’ll drill down into this new IoT research data and share insights into what you should do if you fall into the “don’t understand” category.

Attitudes toward IoT in Manufacturing

Although the number of respondents stating they “don’t understand” the IoT is substantial, almost 300 different individuals (and counting) have responded to these survey questions and this particular question offered seven options.

A combined 42% acknowledged having an interest in or understanding of the IoT. One in five reported being interested in but still investigating the impact. And 11% are rapidly pursuing IoT opportunities either internally, with customers, or in both regards. There seems to be somewhat of a split between executives who are learning about and experimenting with the IoT compared to those who don’t understand the technology.

Why Should You “Know About” the IoT

The IoT is expected to transform the way businesses operate. We’re already seeing use cases surface in manufacturing as well as in the consumer world, particularly with the servitization of products—in other words, enabling new service models whereby customer buy or rent a delivered result from a product instead of the product itself. And in the near future we’re expecting to see more use of intelligent sensors and devices in the shop floor environment, providing enormous amounts of new data streams that can be utilized up and down the value chain. Massively parallel and in memory big data analytics technologies, which are considered part of the IoT, are expected to provide insights into real-time performance, from which correlations can be drawn that were previously too resource-intensive to calculate.

The utility of the IoT may be as vast as your imagination, but here are a few potential connected device use cases for perspective:

Quality Intelligence: Adding new quality variables and more precise data into real-time production monitoring and statistical process control to anticipate process variations
Asset Management: Adding new variables for monitoring machine performance, predicting failures, and alerting workers
Health and Safety: Equipping staff with connected wearables that monitor key health and safety indicators like body temperature or exposure to hazardous elements
Service: Gaining visibility into real-time product performance and diagnostics without having to rely on traditional on-site field service techniques
Sustainability: Closely monitoring the usage of utilities such as water, air, gas, or steam with wireless intelligent gauges that offer remote information access

The idea behind nearly all IoT applications is to gather new, more finite types of information and data and then transform it into usable, contextualized intelligence, awareness, and collaboration.

Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Ford Mustang INDIA 2016

Ford Mustang to be seen soon on Indian roads

Ford has announced that it will launch the Ford Mustang in India on 13 July in India. The launch event of the iconic pony car will be held at the Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida. The Ford Mustang will be available only in the Fastback version. There’s no word on the Convertible version’s launch. India will get the Euro-spec model, not the North American-spec model.

The sixth generation Ford Mustang is the very first to be made in right-hand drive, and probably the most globally focused one. It went on sale in the U.S. market as a 2015 model in October 2014, and had its Indian debut in January this year.

Internationally, the Ford Mustang is available with three engines: 300 hp 3.7-litre Ti-VCT naturally aspirated V6 petrol, 310 hp 2.3-litre GTDI EcoBoost turbocharged four-cylinder petrol and 435 hp 5.0-litre Ti-VCT naturally aspirated V8 petrol. Then there are also two Shelby variants, namely the road-friendly GT350 and the track-focused GT350R. Both GT350 and GT350R are powered by a specially developed 526 hp 5.2-litre flat plane crank V8 petrol engine, the Blue Oval’s most powerful naturally aspirated engine, known as the ‘Voodoo V8’ engine internally.

Getting back to India, Ford India will be offering its 435 hp 5.0-litre Ti-VCT naturally aspirated V8 petrol engine. The 526 hp Voodoo V8 is actually the top-of-the-line engine, but as the Shelby variants are made only in left-hand drive, the 435 hp 5.0-litre Ti-VCT engine is the top-end motor for the right-hand drive Mustang. While a 6-speed manual transmission is also available internationally, the 6-speed SelectShift automatic transmission will be the standard specification here.

The Ford Mustang will be available exclusively with 435 hp 5.0-litre V8 engine and 6-speed automatic transmission in India.

The Ford Mustang will be available only in the Fastback version in India.

Expected to be priced around INR 50 lakhs.