Advanced Strategic Finance Management Course

Introduction:

Over and above operating profit, a financial strategy is concerned with how organizations can generate corporate value and increase shareholder wealth, a central finance management tenet. Expanding revenue streams and effectively managing operating costs is the heart of optimizing an organization's financial health. This advanced strategic finance management course in strategic finance management emphasizes understanding and implementing financial strategies that are vital for survival, growth, and achieving long-term objectives.

Participants in this finance management training will gain essential skills in financial strategy and corporate finance. This advanced strategic finance management course includes leveraging financial resources to drive corporate value in competitive global markets where attracting investment and customers is critical. It offers a blend of updated theory and hands-on experience building financial models and tools, enabling participants to contribute actively to strategic finance management and decision-making processes.

Targeted Groups:

• Top Management Team Members.
• Finance Directors.
• Heads of Finance departments.
• Managers involved in Strategy, Budgeting, and Planning.
• Finance and Treasury Managers.
• Capital Investment Managers and Analysts.
• Investment Analysts and Advisers.

Course Objectives:

By the end of this advanced strategic finance management course, participants will be able to:

• Engage in strategic analysis and strategy formulation.
• Evaluate measures of financial performance.
• Formulate strategies for funding and capital structure.
• Utilize financial models for cash flow, risk, and investment management.
• Make informed decisions on capital investments.
• Strategize for long-term business growth.

Targeted Competencies:

At the end of this advanced strategic finance management training, participants will:

• Link competitive strategy with financial strategy.
• Create funding strategies and optimal capital structures.
• Utilize practical tools for capital investment decisions.
• Integrate financial risk management strategies.
• Formulate critical long-term business growth and defense strategies.

Resolving Finance Management Problems and Solutions:

Through comprehensive finance manager training, participants will become adept at understanding what finance management entails. They will also learn to anticipate and propose solutions to various finance management problems, create robust financial models to manage cash flow and risk, advise on capital investment decision-making, and offer insights into strategies that support long-term growth and proactively address financial challenges.

A strategic finance manager's role is to interpret finance management's meaning in the context of corporate value and shareholder interests and adeptly guide their organization through the complex financial landscape. This advanced strategic finance management program aims to foster the analytical and strategic skill set required for financial leaders today and tomorrow.

Course Content:

Unit 1: Business and Financial Strategy – The Vital Link:

• The Purpose and Goals of the Firm.
• The Aims and Principles of Competitive Strategy.
• The Role of Financial Strategy in Business Success.
• Tools for Strategic Analysis and Strategy Development.
• Build a Winning Business Model.
• Implement an Effective Performance Management System.
• Financial Planning: Budgeting and Beyond.

Unit 2: Financial Performance Management:

• Understand, Analyze, and Interpret Financial Statements.
• Agency Theory and its Impact on Business Goals.
• Investor and Stock Market Behavior: Share Price Drivers.
• Critical Concepts in Measuring Shareholder Value.
• Understand Cost Behavior and Profit.
• Measure and Improve Return on Investment.
• A Strategic Approach to Cost Reduction.
• Manage and Enhance Shareholder Value.

Unit 3: Funding Strategy and Liquidity Management:

• Sources of Business Finance: Equity and Debt.
• Financial Gearing – Risk and Impact on Profitability.
• Calculate the Company's Cost of Capital and its Implications.
• Optimum Capital Structure: Theory and Practice.
• Cash Flow and Liquidity Management.
• Design and Build Financial Models in Excel.
• Financial Model Application: Cash Flow Forecasting.
• Predict Corporate Distress and Failure.

Unit 4: Capital Investment Strategy and Risk Management Strategy:

• Capital Investment Management.
• Use the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Tools in Excel.
• Tools for Capital Investment Appraisal and Decision-making.
• Financial Model Application: Capital Investment Appraisal Analysis.
• An Integrated Approach to Risk Management.
• Tools for Identifying and Analyzing Business Risk.
• Use Financial Instruments to Manage Financial Risk.
• Decision-making under Conditions of Risk.

Unit 5: Corporate Governance: Defending and Growing the Business:

• Purpose and Principles of Corporate Governance.
• Long-term Business Growth Strategies.
• Why even great companies can fail?
• Understand Business Model Disruption.
• Innovation Killers.
• Mergers and Acquisitions.
• Business Restructuring and Reorganisation.

Unit 6: Evaluating Investment Opportunities:

• The Markowitz Model of Portfolio Risk.
• The Capital Asset Pricing Model.
• A Practical Application of the CAPM to a range of companies.
• The Time Value of Money and Discounted Cash Flow Techniques.
• The Gordon Growth Model.
• A Practical Application of Forecasting Dividends.
• Determine the Cost of Debt.
• The Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC).
• The Ameritrade Case.
• Investment Appraisal using the Net Present Value Approach.
• The Importance of the Cost of Capital.
• Scenario Analysis.
• Payback and Adjusted Payback.
• The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) approach.
• A Practical Application of the IRR Approach.
• Pitfalls in using the IRR Approach.
• Real Options.

Unit 7: The Corporate Financing Decision:

• Financial Leverage.
• Modigliani and Millers Theory of Capital Structure.
• The Risk of Bankruptcy.
• The Optimal Capital Structure.
• The Dividend Decision.
• The Clientele Effect.
• The Taxation Effect.
• The Principal-Agent Problem.
• The Market for Corporate Control.

Unit 8: Financial Analysis of Public Sector Accounts:

• Understand and Analyze Cost Behavior.
• The Cost-Volume-Profit Relationship.
• Why analyze financial statements?
• The Financial Analyst's Toolkit.
• Interpreting Financial Ratio Analysis of Public Sector Reports.
• Manage and Improve Spending Deficits.

Unit 9: Risk Management:

• Hedging Exchange Rate Risk using:
  • The Forward Market.
  • The Options Market.
  • Zero Cost Collars.
• Hedging Commodity Price Risk using:
  • Options.
  • Futures.

Unit 10: Capital Investment Decision-making:

• Characteristics and Decision-making Process.
• Investment Appraisal Techniques.
• Principles of Discounted Cash Flow Analysis.
• Understand Net Present Value (NPV).
• Outsource Services: Objectives and Decision Criteria.
• PPI and PFI: Objectives and Decision Criteria.