Finance for Non-Financial Managers

A good understanding of the finance of your organization is key to being able to help it move forward. Whether you are managing a division, a team or work in an expert role, a solid basic understanding of your organization’s financial aspects greatly enhances your capabilities to be more effective and contribute to its financial sustainability. Or, if you are in a client-facing role, understanding your client and their financial position helps in providing better outcomes for both of you. 

This compact three -day program provides you with essential financial knowledge and insights. 

Program components

• Analyzing and interpreting financial accounting statements
  While every organization has to subscribe to a Financial Accounting model, it is rarely a good model to base business decisions upon. Simply, the information comes too late and is limited by certain concepts. However, as it is often used to evaluate business performance, it will be discussed in detail in order to understand what the numbers tell you – and more importantly what they don’t tell you. Participants will acquire a hands-on framework to analyze and interpret any organization’s financial statements. 
• Introducing Discounted Cash Flow analysis and the time value of money
• Knowing the difference between ‘book value’ and ‘true value’ and the relative value drivers to ensure you can add value in your decision making
• Linking strategy to financial performance
• Understand the link between strategy and financial performance to ensure long term value creation. 
  The real link of accounting and finance to the performance of organizations is mapped out. It is crucial that managers understand this connection in order (to be perceived) to be delivering value to their organizations.
  Linking non-financial drivers that are strategic to the organization’s financial performance.
• Management accounting and performance
  While Financial Accounting is compulsory, Management Accounting is not. However, organizations with excellent management information systems have a significant competitive advantage. When an organization is under pressure, a reflex reaction is often to slash costs. This will inevitably erode the intangible value of the organization. We discuss a more creative approach to identify ways of improving performance.
• Making investment decisions
  Current developments in the field of behavioral finance help to understand better ways to forecast and signal common pitfalls in decision-making. How to understand and use these as a manager? And which financial decision tools are at your disposal to make decisions? While valuations most often rely on discounting future cash flows, other valuation methods will also be discussed.
  At the end of the program, a wrap-up session will facilitate participants to assess their most important learnings in relation to their own role and organization.

How you will benefit

• Break through the barrier of finance language
• Understand the basic accounting model and its limitations
• Analyze and interpret financial statements within the context of your industry and company fundamentals
• Grasp what drives the most common errors in business and how to avoid them
• Identify risks and understand the options available to manage risk
• Link the risk appetite to financial decision making
• Apply management accounting tools to business problems
• Understand the budget process and forecasting techniques
• Link strategic imperatives  to financial reality
• Understand how to incorporate ESG into reporting, analysis and financial decision making
• Identify key value drivers to help manage the value of a business
• Understand different valuation techniques and respective benchmarks
• Obtain essential tools and techniques in presenting a business case