After reading the Treacy and Sims article, follow these four steps to analyze the revenues of a company from management’s perspective:
Identify a company that interests you.
Access the company’s online financial statements (10-K Annual Report) via the SEC/Edgar Web site. If you do not have any specific company that interests you, use the Microsoft Corporation’s June 30, 2012 10-K Annual Report found in the Resources.
Review the company’s financial statements, paying close attention to the revenues and any corresponding notes and narratives.
Review the company’s notes, analysis, and narratives that you can find relative to its revenues.
Using the information gathered from these four steps, answer these questions:
Where are the company’s revenues coming from?
How would you interpret this in relation to the company’s identified strategy if you were a manager?
What information do you think that you might have access to, as a manager of the firm, that an outsider would not?
Now look at the same information from a stockholder’s viewpoint. Keep in mind that as a stockholder, you only have access to public documents and answer these questions:
What is your interpretation of the company’s revenues?
Does this make you comfortable with your investment?
Links:
https://www.sec.gov/edgar
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000119312512316848/d347676d10k.htm
