Understanding Finance to Influence Strategic Decision-Making

About the Course

Financial goals and metrics help firms implement strategy and track success. A balanced approach to strategy development, execution, and business innovation are essential to achieving sustainable growth and profitability. Finance is in a great position to work cross-functionally to build a strong pipeline of business innovation. The finance team plays a significant role in developing business strategies because this function is in the best position to develop financial models that prove or disprove strategic ideas that emerge from various levels of the organisation.

This Understanding Finance to Influence Strategic Decision-Making training course is designed to guide these broad objectives to offer practical solutions. To uncover the facts and considerations that finance professionals, strategy implementers, and the corporations which rely on them need to be aware of.  Great strategic thinking skills in the boardroom are essential in any organisation. Ally these with timely and considered financial advice and any organisation is well-placed to weather whatever market storms come their way.

Core Objectives

Upon successful completion of this training course, the delegates will be able to:

• Be knowledgeably involved in strategic analysis and formulation
• Present vital measures of financial performance and strength
• Design funding and capital structure strategies
• Offer advice on capital investment decision-making
• Provide insights into long-term business growth strategies

Training Approach

This training course will be conducted face to face using various live practices, theory, personal shared experience, and challenges to frame the learning, including a series of articles, aide memoirs, and bullet points on the key commercial issues covered. The delegates will look at videos and, where appropriate, work in groups with real-life case studies to improve their knowledge of this rapidly growing sector of Finance.

The Attendees

This training course will be valuable to professionals, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Controllers and Assistant Controllers
• Accounting and Financial Managers
• Treasurers
• Financial Directors/Officers
• Financial reporting teams seeking to understand relevant KPIs and performance measures for strategic compliance
• Regulators, Compliance, Risk Management, and Marketing / Communications / PR staff seeking to understand the financial and reputational issues surrounding strategic plans

Daily Discussion

DAY ONE: THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF WINNING COMPANIES 

• The Language of Finance: What’s behind the Jargon?
• Financial vs Management Accounts
• Understanding Corporate Financial Statements
• Costs, Breaking-Even, and Analysing Business Performance
• Why are strong Budgeting skills essential to your strategy?

DAY TWO: MASTERING THE FOUNDATIONS OF STRATEGY

• The seven core building blocks of strategy
• Getting behind your corporate myths of success
• Why do strategies so often fail?
• Classic Strategic Failures
• McKinsey, Porter, and other planning tools

DAY THREE: STRATEGY EXECUTION

• Why should you care about risk management?
• Purpose Statements and the Change Agenda
• Using the Balanced Scorecard to help you link together activities
• Putting together an Execution Roadmap
• Understanding the competitive forces, you must navigate

DAY FOUR: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

• Defining Strategic Management
• Formulation of Strategic Management 
• Linking your strategy model to your available resources
• Monetising and Measuring Non-financial Benefits
• Pitfalls to avoid in strategic planning

DAY FIVE: REFRESH YOUR STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR

• Keeping the plan relevant to your financial goals
• What if you fail to meet the targets?
• Has the competitive environment changed?
• What parts of the plan might need to change?
• Are reports, KPIs, and SLAs all still aligned?