The Profitability Template: A Financial Analysis Tool for Managers
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 192
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$50.00 USD
The Profitability Template: A Financial Analysis Tool for Managers is a digital handbook designed to be used in a college-level management, marketing, or entrepreneurship course.
This digital handbook provides an alternative approach to teaching financial analysis that relies on the integrated nature of financial calculations to construct a visually-based framework that enables multiple calculations in a straightforward, consistent manner: the profitability template. The profitability template integrates financial information at the unit, total, and margin levels, which enables a variety of different types of financial analyses to be conducted within one visual framework.
The first three chapters guide students through building the profitability template, and the remaining chapters introduce a series of financial analysis tools that can be used with the template to make and justify strategic business decisions. The financial analysis tools are presented using language and approaches geared toward non-math minded students and are ultimately used to complete exercises that require the student to both perform calculations and make strategic business decisions based on their analysis.
Each chapter in the handbook includes video walkthroughs, excel templates, example problems, and knowledge check questions. Practice problems and exam questions, with their solutions, are included in the instructor resources.
Part I
Chapter 1—Profitability Basics
Chapter 2—Contribution and Profitability
Chapter 3—Margins
Part II
Chapter 4—Markup Analysis
Chapter 5—Breakeven Analysis
Chapter 6—Cannibalization Analysis
Chapter 7—Business Owner Compensation and Estimated Taxes
Jennifer Wiggins is Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Kent State University. She has 25 years of teaching experience and has received multiple teaching awards. In the undergraduate classroom, she specializes in teaching students to think critically and analytically in order to make strategic business decisions.
Dr. Wiggins is an active researcher who has published in top academic journals in marketing and entrepreneurship. She has taught extensively at the graduate level and has recently co-authored the graduate textbook Doing (and Using) Research in Arts and Cultural Management. Dr. Wiggins is also the Director of the PhD Program in Business Administration at Kent State University and has advised more than two dozen doctoral students, as well as mentoring doctoral students and junior faculty members worldwide through her work as Co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Arts Management.
Denise Lee is Professor Emeritus at Kent State University where she has received numerous teaching awards and has 15 years of experience teaching various entrepreneurship courses, including Entrepreneurial Finance. Ms. Lee is also a CPA with six years of public accounting experience and an entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded six companies, including two companies in the medical industry, two in the construction industry, and two in the education industry.
As a CPA, Ms. Lee has specialized in audit, business valuation, and corporate taxation. As an entrepreneur, Ms. Lee has specialized in overall business strategy, business planning, process development, and overall company management. Ms. Lee has extensive experience in all phases of the development and proper exit of young business ventures.
In addition to being the co-author of The Profitability Template: A Financial Analysis Tool for Managers, Ms. Lee is the author of Entrepreneurial Finance: A Practical Approach.
The Profitability Template: A Financial Analysis Tool for Managers is a digital handbook designed to be used in a college-level management, marketing, or entrepreneurship course.
This digital handbook provides an alternative approach to teaching financial analysis that relies on the integrated nature of financial calculations to construct a visually-based framework that enables multiple calculations in a straightforward, consistent manner: the profitability template. The profitability template integrates financial information at the unit, total, and margin levels, which enables a variety of different types of financial analyses to be conducted within one visual framework.
The first three chapters guide students through building the profitability template, and the remaining chapters introduce a series of financial analysis tools that can be used with the template to make and justify strategic business decisions. The financial analysis tools are presented using language and approaches geared toward non-math minded students and are ultimately used to complete exercises that require the student to both perform calculations and make strategic business decisions based on their analysis.
Each chapter in the handbook includes video walkthroughs, excel templates, example problems, and knowledge check questions. Practice problems and exam questions, with their solutions, are included in the instructor resources.
Part I
Chapter 1—Profitability Basics
Chapter 2—Contribution and Profitability
Chapter 3—Margins
Part II
Chapter 4—Markup Analysis
Chapter 5—Breakeven Analysis
Chapter 6—Cannibalization Analysis
Chapter 7—Business Owner Compensation and Estimated Taxes
Jennifer Wiggins is Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Kent State University. She has 25 years of teaching experience and has received multiple teaching awards. In the undergraduate classroom, she specializes in teaching students to think critically and analytically in order to make strategic business decisions.
Dr. Wiggins is an active researcher who has published in top academic journals in marketing and entrepreneurship. She has taught extensively at the graduate level and has recently co-authored the graduate textbook Doing (and Using) Research in Arts and Cultural Management. Dr. Wiggins is also the Director of the PhD Program in Business Administration at Kent State University and has advised more than two dozen doctoral students, as well as mentoring doctoral students and junior faculty members worldwide through her work as Co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Arts Management.
Denise Lee is Professor Emeritus at Kent State University where she has received numerous teaching awards and has 15 years of experience teaching various entrepreneurship courses, including Entrepreneurial Finance. Ms. Lee is also a CPA with six years of public accounting experience and an entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded six companies, including two companies in the medical industry, two in the construction industry, and two in the education industry.
As a CPA, Ms. Lee has specialized in audit, business valuation, and corporate taxation. As an entrepreneur, Ms. Lee has specialized in overall business strategy, business planning, process development, and overall company management. Ms. Lee has extensive experience in all phases of the development and proper exit of young business ventures.
In addition to being the co-author of The Profitability Template: A Financial Analysis Tool for Managers, Ms. Lee is the author of Entrepreneurial Finance: A Practical Approach.