Finance for Non-Finance Professionals

Course details

Who Should Attend:

This 100% practical programme requires a minimum of 12 participants.

•  Managers, Supervisors and Team Leaders who analyse, forecast and plan
• Sales Managers who make decisions that impact sales and operations
• Team Members
• Course Objectives

Participants play all the major roles in an operating company - production, R&D, sales and marketing, management and finance - to get first-hand experience with:

• Team decision-making in each area
• Generating financial statements
• Preparing budgets and forecasting cash flow
• Calculating basic ratios
• Comparing operating income and ratios to that of competitors
• Implementing change and measuring results
• Using ratios and other measurements to identify the 'buttons' which drive company performance and behaviour
• Taking initiative in everyday activities leading to reductions in costs, inventories and working capital
• Working creatively with customers and suppliers
• Interpreting operating reports and financial reports
• Prioritising and controlling costs
• Targeting profit opportunities
• Using historical and competitive bench-marking to improve your bottom line
• How to better serve internal and external customers
• Seeing how actions impact other areas of the company.

What will you gain?

By the end of this course you will be able to explain:

• Basic financial statements and their management uses: Income Statement (P&L) and Balance Sheet
• How market conditions impact business decisions
• The difference between cash and profit
• Fixed and variable costs
• Cost structure and capacity utilisation
• Budgets and cash flow forecasts
• The impact of inventory build-up
• The need to control working capital
• Ratios as metrics for management (ROA, ROI)
• The specific financial metrics used by your company to gauge performance, and why they are used
• Effects of strategy changes

Course Content

The content is based on a team competition consisting of six business cycles in which teams have full decision-making power and are accountable for the results. In each cycle, teams develop and implement a business strategy for their company, which incorporates real-world dynamics, such as production capacity, customers, prices and financing.

Each cycle includes the following activities:

• Competitor and market analysis
• Setting prices in a competitive market
• Monitoring cash flow
• Preparing an Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet
• Posting, comparing and discussion of results
• Teams have opportunities to improve their companies with real-world business solutions including expansion, quality initiatives and niche marketing
• Finance learning is integrated within the simulation activity include cash flow forecasting, budgets and unit cost analysis