Long-term sustainable cash flows are necessary for self-financed growth. Managers are more and more frequently evaluated in terms of the competence and impact with which they contribute to growing these cash flows. Both with regards to company as well as personal goals it is therefore beneficial for every manager to understand and be able to act on the topdown financial targets and the bottom-up drivers of improved performance. These insights are exactly as important for an independent entrepreneur as for managers in profit, cost or service centers in large companies.