About the Course
Duration
5 Days
Summary
Thinking strategically is no longer a skill confined to senior leaders, it is now crucial for professional success across a wide range of roles and responsibilities. The greater executives understand business strategy and financial performance, the better they are able to develop strategic agility in the face of disruption and make faster and smarter decisions. They will also be better equipped to help their organisations stay ahead of emerging opportunities and drive the innovation initiatives needed to succeed in today’s more challenging markets.
Business Strategy and Financial Performance is designed to give you the key tools and perspectives from strategy and finance to achieve these objectives. The programme will help you understand how a company’s strategic agenda can evolve and how you can use that understanding to identify opportunities for profitable differentiation better. You will then learn how to use those opportunities to formulate an execution plan, drive organisational alignment and ultimately improve financial performance.
Key Benefits
- Develop your ability to think strategically and see the big picture so you can align an organisation’s internal resources and capabilities with its evolving external environment
- Learn to take a value-driven approach to navigating business decisions and driving sustainable competitive advantage
- Understand the impact of management choices on company financials to develop a strategy execution plan for superior financial performance
Participant Profile
- High potentials looking to accelerate their development as business leaders
- Executives in functions such as HR and IT looking to improve their ability to act as business partners within their organisations
- Those responsible for B2B client relationships looking to deepen their customer understanding and to position themselves as strategic partners
Program Structure
Business Strategy for Turbulent Times
- Understanding what strategy is really about
- Ensuring fit with a dynamic external environment
- Examining performance differences within and across sectors
- Meet the challenge of market turbulence and disruption
Follow the Value
- The challenge of creating and capturing value
- Balancing willingness to pay and resource costs
- Willingness to pay in B2B and B2C settings
- Drivers of market size
Capturing Value
- Who captures value and how much?
- Value chain dynamics
Role of Financial Reporting
- How does strategy affect company financials?
- What are the basic financial statements, and who uses them?
Measuring Investment and Strategic Performance
- Balance sheet: Strategic initiatives and investments
- Revenues: Value to the customer
- Expenses: What it takes to deliver value
- Putting it together: Return on invested capital (ROIC)
Management Choices and Their Impact on Financials
- The difference between cash flow and earnings
- Expensing versus capitalising cash flows and their effect on ROIC
- Management choices that influence the numbers
- Statement of cash flows
From Threat to Opportunity
- Crafting your value proposition
- Aligning your activities with your value proposition
- Driving competitive advantage through added value
- Threats to competitive advantage
Meeting the Challenge of Strategy Execution
- Aligning value, activities and resources
- Rethinking your strategy process for agility
- Balancing strategic agility and long-term stability
- Strategic partnerships fuelling growth
