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How to Quantify Sustainability’s Impact on Your Bottom Line

Harvard Business Review

We found that sustainable and deforestation-free practices created significant financial benefits for all players in the industry’s value chain. Specifically, our analysis found that the net benefits to ranchers ranged from $18 million to $34 million (12% to 23% of revenues) in net present value projected over 10 years.

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A Refresher on Payback Method

Harvard Business Review

There are a variety of ways to calculate a return on investment (ROI) — net present value , internal rate of return , breakeven — but the simplest is payback period. A Refresher on Net Present Value. How do companies use the payback method? What is payback period? Further Reading.

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How to Improve Your Finance Skills (Even If You Hate Numbers)

Harvard Business Review

But having a grasp of terms like EBITDA and net present value are important no matter where you sit on the org chart. How can you boost your financial acumen? How do you decide which concepts are most important to understand to your work and your understanding of the business? The Refresher: Net Present Value.

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Why We Need to Update Financial Reporting for the Digital Era

Harvard Business Review

Business students have traditionally considered net present value, payback period, and hurdle rates as necessary tools to determine which project to select. It’s also possible that we simply don’t know how to estimate the right parameters to make an options-based valuation work.

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Why You Should Crowd-Source Your Toughest Investment Decisions

Harvard Business Review

Most companies – including the movie studios in Hollywood – over-rely on basic tools like discounted cash flow and net present value. How to Minimize Your Biases When Making Decisions. But it is possible to significantly improve your odds by understanding which decision-support tools work best for which decisions.

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The Secrets to Building a Lucky Network

Harvard Business Review

Many of the entrepreneurs and business builders we talked to also knew how to create Luck. The net present value and strategic fit of a given relationship or initial introduction in one's Lucky Network might be foggy at best, but unintended benefits often manifest for those who embrace relationships with openness.

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Why Is an App Worth as Much as a Small Oil Field?

Harvard Business Review

While on the surface, the dirty business of fossil fuels is nothing like Silicon Valley, many in the oil business have moved beyond the standard net present value (NPV) model for assessing the merit of investments. But Facebook has also bought itself time to figure out how to extract value from that audience.

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