Last week, Katja gave a guest lecture on strategic financial management to first-year business students at the University of Vaasa.
The lecture explored how a strategic perspective changes the questions we ask in financial management. An investment, for example, is not only about expected returns, but about how it supports strategy – and what opportunities, constraints and future paths it creates for the company. Performance measurement, in turn, starts with strategy: what are we trying to achieve, and what do we need to know to understand whether we are moving in the right direction?
And when it comes to costs, the strategic question is not only what things cost today, but how our choices shape the company’s future cost structure and cost position.
