Introduction

This seminar focuses on key aspects of financial management, including Financial Analysis, Planning, and Budget Control. It equips professionals with tools to plan effectively, utilize financial techniques, and improve performance through analysis and measurement. Participants will learn to link planning with budgeting and master cost control skills to enhance organizational success.

Objectives

• Which specific variables, relationships, and trends are likely to be helpful in analyzing problems?

• How reliable are available financial data, and how are uncertainty and risk likely to impact on the outcomes of decisions?

• In economic and financial analysis what are the implications and relative importance of cash flow as distinct from accounting profit?

• What limitations are inherent in financial data and the key financial statements, and how will these affect the financial analysis?

• How important are qualitative judgments in the context of decision-making?

• Understand strategic planning and budgeting.

• Link finance and operations for budgeting purposes and strategy execution

• Learn how to build a comprehensive performance measurement system

• Learn costing and budgeting terminology used in business

• Understand the importance of a well-defined costing and budgeting process

• Understand cost behavior more accurately

• Be able to perform and interpret variance analysis

Target Audience

This seminar is designed for:

• Finance Managers and Financial Analysts
• Accountants and Cost Accountants
• Budgeting and Planning Professionals
• Business Controllers and Financial Controllers
• Senior and Middle Management involved in financial decision-making
• Project Managers responsible for budgets and cost control
• Operations and Department Managers
• Strategic Planning and Business Development Professionals
• Auditing and Risk Management Professionals
• Professionals seeking to improve skills in financial analysis, budgeting, forecasting, and performance measurement
• Individuals aiming to strengthen their understanding of linking strategy, operations, and financial performance

Outlines

Day 1: The Challenge of Financial Economic Decision-Making

• The practice of financial economic analysis

• Corporate value and shareholder value

• A dynamic perspective of business Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis

• The agency problem and corporate governance

• What information and data to use?

• The nature of financial statements

• The context of financial analysis and decision-making

Day 2: Assessment of Business Performance

• Ratio analysis and business performance

• Management’s point of view

• Owners’ point of view

• Lenders’ point of view

• Ratios as a system – pyramids of ratios

• Integration of financial performance analysis – the Dupont system

• Economic value added (EVA)

• Predicting financial distress

Day 3: Projection of Financial Requirements

• Interrelationship of financial projections

• Operating budgets

• Standard costing and variance analysis

• Cash forecasts and cash budgets

• Sensitivity analysis

• Dynamics and growth of the business system

• Operating leverage

• Financial growth plans

• Financial modeling

Day 4: Analysis of Investment Decisions

• Applying time-adjusted measures

• Net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR)

• Strategic perspective

• EVA and NPV

• Refinements of investment analysis

• Equivalent annual cost (EAC)

• Modified internal rate of return (MIRR)

• Sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, simulation, and NPV break-even

• Dealing with risk and changing circumstances

Day 5: Valuation and Business Performance

• Managing for shareholder value

• Shareholder value creation in perspective

• Evolution of value-based methodologies

• Creating value in restructuring and combinations

• Financial strategy in acquisitions

• Business valuation

• Business restructuring and reorganizations

• Management buyouts (MBOs) and management buy ins (MBIs)

Setting and Controlling Budgets

Day 6: Strategic and Financial Planning

• Financial vs. managerial accounting

• Exploring the linkages between strategy, budgeting, costing and performance measurement

• Understanding what strategic planning is and why it is important

• Mission; Vision; Strategy; Goals and Objectives

• The outside environment and the internal context: SWOT and PESTEL analysis

• What is happening in your company

• Looking for the drivers of value creation

• Examples and cases

Day 7: The Framework for Budgeting

• What is a budget - why create a budget?

• The budgeting framework

• Various types of budgets

• The budgeting process and the human side of budgeting

• Sales forecasting and budgeting schedules

• What is the budgeting process in your company?

• Top-down vs. bottom-up budget; incremental vs. zero-based

• Examples of budgetary schedules

Day 8: Cost Analysis for Budgeting

• What is costing? Defining costs

• Cost behavior – Fixed and variable

• Breakeven models - The Equation Method

• The contribution margin concept

• Direct and indirect costs

• Traditional vs. Activity Based Costing

• Product vs. period costs

• Case study and examples

Day 9: Budgeting: case study day - Controlling the budget variances

• What is the situation in your organization?

• Is budgeting organized by department and/or projects?

• Budget variance analysis

• Describe the difference between a static budget and a flexible budget

• Compute flexible-budget variances and sales-volume variances

• Explain why standard costs are often used in variance analysis

• Integrate continuous improvement into variance analysis

• Case study, examples and exercises

Day 10: Beyond Budgeting: Broadening Performance Measurement Systems

• Advantages and disadvantages of budgeting

• How to improve budgeting in your organization

• What next? Beyond the Budget…

• The Balanced Scorecard: linking Strategy to budgeting to Performance Measurement

• Financial perspective, Customer perspective

• Internal Business Process perspective, Learning and growth perspective

• Developing and adapting the scorecard

• Case study illustration