Strategic Financial Planning

Strategic Financial Planning

Duration: 3 Days

Master Class Background

In today’s competitive business world firms are under unprecedented pressure to deliver value to their shareholders and other key stakeholders. Executives in all parts of the organisation are finding that they need some degree of financial know how to cope with the responsibility placed on them as business managers and key decision-makers; monitoring and improving business performance, investing in capital projects and assessing business progress. All require some degree of financial knowledge.

This 3 day MasterClass is a highly interactive and participative workshop that is designed to give executives an understanding of, and the practical ability to use, the key financial analysis skills to improve their business decision making.

This MasterClass uses a combination of participative seminars, discussions, case studies and problem solving to ensure that delegates learn and develop the confidence to use the various principles and techniques.

Who should attend this Master class in Strategic Financial Planning?

  • Executive Management
  • Operations Managers / Supervisors
  • Executive Assistants / Executive Personal Assistants
  • Commercial Managers
  • Team Leaders / Supervisors
  • Functional Leads
  • Project Mangers / Directors
  • Business Analysts / Consultants
  • Procurement Professionals
  • Change Managers and Consultants
  • Management Consultants
  • Finance Support Staff
  • Any person who needs to perform or assess financial analysis skills

By Attending This Highly Interactive Master Class You Will Be Equipped With The Skills To:

  • Understand fundamental business finance concepts; understand, analyse and interpret financial statements: Profit Statement, Cashflow Statement
  • Understand the vital difference between profit and cashflow; identify the key components of working capital and how they can be managed to generate strong cashflow
  • Evaluate business support  decisions based on an understanding of the nature of business costs and their impact on gross margin and break-even sales; managing pricing, discounts and costs to generate strong business profits
  • Use powerful analytical tools to measure and improve the performance of your own company and assess the effectiveness of your competitors
  • Apply and interpret techniques for assessing and comparing investment opportunities in capital projects, business acquisitions and other ventures;
  • Understand the role of business finance in formulating and implementing competitive business strategy; the role of budgeting as part of the planning process and the various approaches to budgeting and performance measurement

Training Methods

  • This 3 day MasterClass is a highly interactive and participative workshop that is designed to give executives and managers improved command of key business financial skills to improve their business decision making.
  • The MasterClass uses a combination of participative seminars, discussion, case studies and problem solving to ensure that delegates learn and develop the confidence to use the various principles and techniques.

Course contents

This training course will cover the following subject areas:

Financial Planning

  • What is Financial Planning
  • Why Devise a Financial Plan
  • Who does it  & Why
  • Key tools for Financial Assessment
  • Contributory financial  mechanisms
  • When would you do it?

Financial Analysis of Business performance

  • What is budgeting?
  • Why do organizations budget?
  • Budgeting in large / small and medium companies
  • Role of budget in financial Analysis
  • Case study – financial analysis performance with and without a budget

Planning and Organization

  • Who is involved and when
  • What do you need before you start
  • Delivering the budget required
  • Key milestones and owners
  • What information to gather
  • Case study – build  a project plan to manage your budget process, (who, when, what)

What are the Key elements in Business Financial Performance?

  • Marketing, Sales, R&D, Production , Finance
  • Sales, Costs, Profits, Cash ,Assumptions
  • Case study – build a business profit budget, cash budget , add key changes

Financial Analysis of Sales forecast

  • Building a Sales Forecast
  • Identifying Sources of Sales
  • Predicting sales volumes
  • How reliable is your forecast?
  • Case study – build and  test a sales  budget

Financial Analysis – Key cost components

  • Key Elements of a Budget
  • Documenting  assumptions
  • Cost of Sales / Operation
  • Fixed Costs
  • Variable Costs
  • Direct Costs
  • In-Direct Costs
  • Allowing for Capital Expenditure
  • Depreciation
  • Staff Requirements
  • Staff Costs
  • Loaded Staff Costs
  • Staff Bonuses
  • Sickness and Holidays
  • Staff to Management Ratio
  • Linking Forecast to Costs
  • Linking Related Costs
  • Case study – build and   test a cost  budget

Financial Analysis of Business Performance

  • Reporting Actuals Against Budget
  • Reporting Actuals Against ‘Stretch’ Target
  • Identifying Reasons for Variance
  • Building ‘Bridges’ to  graphically demonstrate Variances
  • Identifying Trends
  • Re-forecasting
  • Case study – Reporting using your budget

Case Study

  • Using data provided in the case study,
  • Construct a business  model
  • Populate key data
  • Calculate the Business Profit & Loss
  • Calculate  cashflow for the Profit and loss
  • Present your answer for review

Stress test your Business Model

  • Flex the volumes as per data provided
  • Change the costs as per data provided
  • Compile a cost benefit case for the capital case.
  • Overlay the capital case into your budget.
  • Revise prices to meet targeted returns
  • Implement the price increase  into your budget model

Analyse & present your conclusions

  • Graph key data and trends ,
  • Summarize the KPI’s of your budget for review
  • Compare your budget to other submissions
  • Discuss the key points in a simulated board meeting

Course Requirements

Delegates will need a basic understand of mathematics and should be familiar with the calculation of ratios, percentages and averages. Calculators will be required. Bring a laptop with Excel, this is a hands on course!