Financial Strategy & Accounting Skills

Course details

This seminar provides an understanding of the essential fundamentals of corporate finance, strategy, financial management, budgeting and costing. Contemporary practical examples are presented together with the theoretical principles to make the theory come to life. The overriding objective of this seminar is to present a number of integrated and powerful principles and best practices to help develop analytical skills and the decision-making capacity of the participants. The program will enable you to:

• Appreciate the importance of using the appropriate financial strategy to create shareholder value above market expectations
• Consider how corporate behaviour impacts on achievement of corporate objectives, and the importance of corporate governance
• Understand financial strategy relating to stages of corporate development and capital structure
• Use and evaluate the various techniques of capital investment appraisal
• Effectively manage cash and working capital to reduce costs and improve cash flow
• Master the finance and accounting jargon to understand business processes
• Cost analysis for budgeting purposes and decision making
• Financial and operational measures to support the budgeting process
• Best practices to manage organizational performance
• Link strategy to costing and performance evaluation

The seminar is split into two modules:

MODULE I - Financial Strategy: Essential Finance Management Skills

MODULE II - Business Financial & Accounting Skills

Objectives

At the end of this seminar delegates will be able to:

• Use and evaluate the various techniques of capital investment appraisal
• Develop appropriate financial strategies
• Relate financial strategy to business strategy
• Effectively manage cash and working capital to reduce costs and improve cash flow
• Master traditional techniques and recent best practices
• Link finance and operation for budgeting purposes and strategy execution
• Understand and manage an efficient costing system
• Learn how to build a comprehensive performance measurement system

Training Methodology

A mixture of exercises and real life case studies, examples and videos make this a lively and interesting seminar. There is a strong emphasis on practical application of the ideas within the delegates' organisation. Delegates are encouraged to complete a learning and action plan to focus them on and help them to apply their new knowledge and skills

Organisational Impact

• Implement appropriate measures that can add value to the organisation
• Appreciate the importance of selecting the appropriate financial strategy to maximise shareholder value
• Consider risk and its impact on company financing
• Evaluate the cost of equity and the cost of debt capital
• Look at capital structure and financial strategy in terms of the life cycle of the business, and the weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
• Consider the appropriate financial strategies for use in mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and reorganisations, and appropriate takeover bid defences
• Develop a better cost management system
• Design a comprehensive performance measurement system
• Link strategy, budgeting and costing

Personal Impact

Participants will be able to further develop their personal management skills by being able to:

• Make more informed and improved management decisions
• Consider why corporate objectives may not always be achieved and what may be done to eliminate dysfunctional corporate behaviour and align corporate goals
• Understand how to measure their own contribution to the creation of value for the shareholders of the business
• Appreciate why some financial strategies are more effective than others with regard to value creation
• Use the financial tools available for effective management of working capital
• Provide knowledge that can be shared amongst other departments of the company
• Master cost analysis
• Link costing with budgeting and performance measurement
• Understand the multiple dimension of performance through the balanced scorecard

Module I

Financial Strategy: Essential Finance Management Skills

SEMINAR OUTLINE 

DAY 1

Financial Strategy and Corporate Behaviour

• Corporate Objectives and Financial Strategy
• Financial Statements - Analysis and interpretation (Part 1)
• Risk and Company Financing
• Cost of Equity and Debt Capital
• Agency Theory
• Corporate Governance
• Financial Statements and regulation

DAY 2

Financial Strategy and Stages of Corporate Development

• Financial analysis - Analysis and interpretation (Part 2)
• Strategic Development - Analytical Techniques
• Du Pont Analysis
• The Business Life Cycle
• Capital Structure and Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC)
• pidend Policy
• Cash & Working Capital
• Working capital ratios
• Z scores & Credit Ratings

DAY 3

Costs & Value Management

• Cost and Value
• Cost Analysis and control
• Strategic approaches to cost reduction and cost management
• Cost Structure and breakeven
• New theories and practice in cost analysis. control and management
• Value management
• Value based pricing
• The Value chain
• Financial strategy and integrated cost / value analysis

DAY 4

Budgeting, Planning and Business Strategy

• Strategy models
• Business Strategy related to financial strategy
• Planning and budgeting models
• Linking budgets to business and financial strategy
• Build Managing
• Delegating budgets effectively
• Beyond Budgeting

DAY 5

Investment Strategy

Capital Investment Decisions

• Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)
• Evaluating Capital Investment Projects
• Comparison of Alternative Methods of Investment Appraisal
• Capital Budgeting

Restructuring, Reorganisations, Mergers and Acquisitions

• Reasons and Justifications for Mergers and Acquisitions
• Share Valuation Models and Financing Acquisitions
• Financial Strategy in Acquisitions and Takeover Bid Defences
• Business Restructuring and Reorganisations

Module 2

Business Financial & Accounting Skills

DAY 6

Management and Financial Accounting: Key Concepts and Terminology

• Identify the major differences and similarities between financial and managerial accounting
• Understand the role of management accountants in an organization
• Linking strategy to planning and costing
• The key role of budgeting and cost control in contemporary organizations
• Towards a cross-functional process-view of the organization
• Understand your processes: integrating financial and non-financial aspects
• Understanding the Financial Statements
• Video, Examples & Discussions

DAY 7

Cost analysis

• What is costing?
• Cost concepts and terminology
• Different costs for different purposes
• Fixed Vs Variable costs: the Cost-Volume-Profit analysis model
• Contribution Margin analysis
• Manufacturing vs. non-manufacturing costs
• Period Vs. Product costs: inventory evaluation and control
• Case study

DAY 8

Traditional vs. Advanced Techniques in Cost-control

• Under-costing and over-costing: the consequences for profitability
• How to refine a costing system?
• Indirect Vs. Direct costs
• Traditional Cost Allocations systems Vs. Activity-Based Costing
• Cost hierarchy & Cost drivers
• Linking resources, activities and management
• Introducing Activity-Based Budgeting and Management
• Video, Case Study and Examples

DAY 9

Budgeting: Flexible Budgets and Variance Analysis

• The role of budgeting
• Define the master budget and explain its major benefits to an organization
• Describe the difference between a static budget and a flexible budget
• Compute flexible-budget variances and sales-volume variances
• Discuss the behavioral implication of budgeting
• The budgeting process in your organization: how to improve it?
• Which tools shall we use to complement budgeting and costing?
• Problems, Case Study and Exercises

DAY 10

Measuring Corporate Performance: The Balanced Scorecards and Six-sigma

• Broadening performance measurement systems
• The key role of customer satisfaction and business process reengineering
• Beyond budgeting: integrating financial and non-financial issues
• Introducing the Balanced Scorecard
• The key perspectives
• Introducing the Strategy maps
• Introducing Six-sigma
• Video, Case Study and examples