3 - 7 Feb 2025
Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Hotel : Grand Hotel Amrâth Amsterdam
Cost : 5250 € Euro
The effective management of budgeting and cost control is crucial for project/process-based organizations. Nowadays, if contemporary organizations want to stay competitive, they are urged to think in terms of process-value added to customers/shareholders. Along this line, budgeting, as well as tracking, controlling & reducing cost represent essential activities to be performed and monitored by organizations as they implement their key processes, activities, and operations. In addressing these issues, this course is relevant for those professionals & analysts facing the difficult challenge of improving performance while reducing the costs of those processes for which there are accountable. By combining techniques analysis, problems and examples with a real case study the course provides delegates with key cost awareness and budgetary skills, which is essential to managing and controlling processes/projects in times of increasing global competition where the budgets are inextricably linked with both strategy formulation and cost analysis.
Integrate the organization's strategic planning with budgets and processes of cost control
Understand the importance of project management, appraisal, planning
Explore traditional versus innovative budgetary techniques
Get to know activity-based budgeting (and costing)
Explore capital budgeting techniques & cash flows
Identify key financial indicators for the business, and how and when to monitor them
Discuss the problems and limitations of budgetary control and look for alternative tools
Understand the importance of balancing financial and non-financial measure in managing projects
Interpret budgets and performance measurement as communication tools
Link budgetary processes with quality issues and business process improvement
We combine theory and practice. Therefore, besides in-class lectures, discussions, and exercises, we use company examples to illustrate how the techniques presented have been applied in real case studies.
Gain project management abilities
Integrating planning, budgeting and cost control by relying on a financial-based language
Managing different types of cost and their relevance to decision making
Understand the problems of overheads and how Activity-Based Analysis may aid decision-making and pricing strategies
Select the performance measurement system that works
From cost to strategy to performance measurement
Looking beyond budgeting: balanced scorecard and six-sigma
Contribute to implementing change in the organization.
Facilitate the elimination of non-value activities and the reduction of costs within key projects
Contribute to the achievement of breakthrough improvements in competitiveness.
Successfully build integrated planning, budgeting and reporting process
Understand projects' costs behavior and patterns
Deliver more timely and useful information to decision-makers fro projects' management
Ensure that processes of business planning, budgeting, and management reporting are robust in themselves and suitable for your organization
Link these processes together in your organization
Identify & manage key financial indicators for the business
Describe specific cost analysis and performance measurement techniques
Explore Balanced Scorecards and six-sigma
Facilitate the continuous and radical redesign of business processes
Support a process-centered organizational culture that focuses on customer value
Day 1
Introduction: Building a Common Financial Language
The key role of budgeting and cost control in contemporary organizations
The 21st-century business imperative: delivering value-added (but to whom?)
Towards a cross-functional process-view of the organization
Financial vs. Managerial accounting (for decision making)
Understand your processes: integrating financial and non-financial aspects
Identify the key processes/projects for your own organization
Video, Examples & Discussion
Day 2
Budgeting and Cost analysis
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 3
Traditional vs. advanced techniques in cost-control
Under-costing and over-costing: the consequences for profitability
How to refine a costing system?
Indirect (OH) Vs. Direct costs: Traditional Cost Allocations systems Vs. Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
Cost hierarchy & Cost drivers
Linking resources, activities and management
Introducing Activity-Based Budgeting (ABB) and Management (ABM)
Video, Case Study and Examples
Day 4
Master Budget, Flexible budgets, and Variance Analysis
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 5
Beyond the Budgets: 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
Introducing the Strategy maps
Introducing Six-sigma
Video, Case Study and examples