Finance for Non-Financial Managers

Finance for Non-Financial Managers will enable you to acquire an in-depth insight into the accounts, budgets, cashflow and overall financial workings of companies. You will also learn how you can analyse financial information and enhance the quality of your commercial decisions. 

Course Overview

Booking Information

Dates	Prices	Book This Course	Discount
21 - 22 Oct 2010	£ 1095		-

 

This course will be held on the above listed dates in central London. For more information about venue please click here.

Programme Details

FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCIAL MANAGERS

Financial Information; where does it come from and why do we need it?
- How do accounting principles, concepts and systems support each other to create an accounting ‘reality’
– Preparation from basics of balance sheet, profit and loss account and cash flow statements
Exercises: Production and interpretation of basic financial statements

Understanding the differences between the finance ‘controller’ and ‘director’ mentalities
– Presenting the difference between ‘management’ and ‘financial’ accounting
– Understand the role of the finance function; to understand the past as well as direct the future
– The Annual Report and its requirements in the external world
– Knowing where to find useful corporate data and information
Case study: Analyse the Annual Report for a business to evaluate its story

Revealing the current and future state of your organisation
– What does financial information reveal about a company’s current situation and future prospects
– Discover how to use financial ratios (Net Profit Margin, Asset Turnover (Stock Turn, Receivable and Payable days), ROCE, ROIC,  ROE etc) to benchmark and then drive business unit or company performance
– Understand where financial information can be become a little ‘foggy’ and mislead understanding!!!
Exercise: Analyse the financial statements of business to evaluate its strengths/weaknesses and future business direction

Managing sources of finance and working capital
– What is working capital, as opposed to fixed capital, and how important is it?
– Review techniques in which a business manager can manage working capital; more companies go bust making profits than losses!!
– Sources of finance; obtaining equity and debt finance and the expectations of the respective parties.
Exercise: Reviewing a cash flow management situation

Getting under the ‘bonnet’ to deliver performance improvement
– What do monthly management accounts look like and how can they effect decision making
– Understanding the top down/bottom up nature of the budgeting process and how it creates a psychological effect on peoples behaviour
– Is there live after budgeting?
– Evaluating various costing techniques such as standard, absorption and activity based to understand the financial performance of products and customers
– Consider how fixed and variable, direct and indirect costs impact the operating leverage and scalability of an organisation.
– Break-even analysis for assessing performance sensitivities
Exercise: Determining the budgets and costing for a company

Getting the numbers to tell a story
– What is the difference between ‘Financial’ and ‘Economic’ profit.
– Seeing the inextricable connection between the financial numbers and taking strategic action
– Identifying the drivers of strategic and financial change using an extended DuPont Model to drive corporate value
– What is corporate value and its link to a concept Value based Management (VBM)
– Taking positive steps to achieve your financial results
Exercise: Driving corporate value through a structured analysis. Financial Management

Project Appraisal; Do we invest or don’t we?
– Understanding the concepts of time value of money; creating a common basis to assess from
– Review traditional techniques such as payback 
– Undertake discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis to understand the Net present value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of a project
Exercise: Making decisions between competing projects with limited resources

Identifying the factors that drive long term value
– What do we mean by ‘Value’ and the link to Value Based Management (VBM)?
– Using the DCF investment appraisal approach to drive long term business unit and corporate value
– Traditional valuation techniques such as Price to Earnings ratios (P/E), Price to Book (P/B), Dividend valuation, EBITDA multiples etc
– Economic techniques you might consider attempting to use to measure value; Free Cash Flow (FCF), Capital Cash Flow (CCF), Cash Flow Return on Investment (CFROI), Economic Value Added (EVA) etc
– Applying both sets of techniques to real company data to develop Enterprise and Equity values
– Reviewing how the financial press, including broker statements, assess the potential of a business.
Case Study Determine the value of a company and its key value levers

 

Course Leader

Malcolm Lewis is a strategic guide and board level facilitator with nearly 30 years experience in corporate finance, company troubleshooting and consulting. He is also an executive coach and expert in the linkage between the intangible aspects of strategic leadership and corporate culture with the tangible factors of strategic / business planning and finance. Malcolm is currently writing a book on the link between corporate value and cultural values.

Over the last 20 years he has delivered courses all around the world in the UK, Europe, Africa, Middle East and USA as well as working in the Far East in project finance. He has been involved with over 30 MBO/MBI/Company restructurings either as a professional adviser or as an investor himself. Malcolm works with private and public companies, public sector businesses in the Health Sector and Not for Profit in a consultancy, facilitator and training capacity. These engagements range from working with AXA, SimplyHealth, IBM, Brady Corporation, Edison
Mission Energy, Cablecom, KingSturge, Britvic Soft Drinks, RBS, The Armed Forces, Atkins, The NHS, The National Trust, Bombardier Transport, Halma, Centrica, Vodafone, Association Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and The Institute of Directors (IOD). Academically he is a Visiting Fellow at Bristol University and a visiting lecturer at Henley Management College and Bath University working on PhD and Masters programmes in finance, strategy and leadership/culture.

He has degrees in Business Administration (BSc) and Financial Management (MSc), is a practising Chartered Accountant (FCA) (Ex KPMG) and Certified Management Consultant (CMC). From the soft side, Malcolm is also trained in Cultural Transformation Tools (CTT), Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) and is a facilitator in advanced PSYCH-K and Integrated Healing.