We improve the commercial awareness, financial understanding and business acumen of our delegates.

Clearly there is a large degree of overlap between these areas but the following is a flavour of what we cover, this list is not exhaustive: please contact us for more detail.

We also cover one or two related subjects such as negotiation skills and report writing.

Financial Understanding

Accounting

• Understanding accounts
  
• Balance sheet
• Profit and loss (income statement)
• Accounting methods and procedures

The Difference Between Profit and Cash

• Why the difference matters
• Reasons for the difference

Cash Flow

• Improving the cash position
• The impact of stock (inventory), debtors (receivables) and creditors (payables)
• Sources of finance

Financial Performance

• A financial overview
• Key accounting ratios
• Target performance and benchmarking

Financial Decision Making

• Pricing decisions
• Investment decisions
• Management decisions (eg staffing, outsourcing, purchasing)
  

What we do

Commercial Awareness

Competition

• The nature of competition
• Approaches to the competitive environment
• Competitor strategy

Marketing

• The importance of market research
• Possible sources of information
• The pros and cons of marketing and business development
  

Customer Satisfaction

• Quality from the customer perspective
• Lead times

Pricing

• Value analysis
• Links to strategy
• Discounts and markdowns
  

The Economic Environment

• The economic cycle
• Links between strategy and the economic cycle
• Interest rates, exchange rates, taxation and government policy

Business Acumen

Staff

• Efficiency
• Staff utilisation
• Staff motivation
• Staff turnover
• Incentive schemes
  

Stock

• The importance of stock
• The cost of holding stock
• Stock turnover periods
• Stock rotation, deterioration and obsolescence

Control

• Budgeting
• Costing

Risk Management

• Definitions and meaning
• Sources of risk, its management and reduction

Strategy

• The importance of having a strategy
• Approaches, both theoretical and practical

These courses include relevant topics from the above lists

• Negotiation skills
• Report writing
• Finance for non financial managers
  

Any topics that you require

Market share per team

Please note: the above is a summary of the kind of topics that we normally cover. If you have different requirements, please contact us to discuss how we can help.

Click here for a sample finance for non financial managers course timetable

Click here for a sample finance for non financial managers course content