REF: | 2005_247019 |
DATE: | 02 - 13 Jun 2025 13.Jun.2025 |
LOCATION: |
Amsterdam (Netherlands) |
INDIVIDUAL FEE: |
8500 Euro |
Introduction
This mastering leadership and financial skills seminar brings together two of the most critical areas of financial management: understanding finance to influence strategic decisions and financial analysis, planning, and control.
Targeted Groups
- Financial analysts.
- Financial controllers.
- Accountants.
- Treasurers.
- Corporate planning professionals.
- Business development professionals.
- Middle and junior management is a valuable element in their career advancement.
Course Objectives
At the end of this mastering leadership and financial skills course, the participants will be able to:
- Think and manage strategically and plan more effectively for the future.
- Identify the role of financial management in strategic decision-making.
- Use the financial techniques of planning and control.
- Improve performance from the use of the tools of economic financial analysis.
- Develop business strategies.
- Understand how financial management supports strategic development.
- Broaden their financial knowledge.
- Develop and manage the financial aspects of their role more effectively and enhance their performance.
- Increase their self-confidence in dealing with economic and financial issues and financial professionals.
- Appreciate how such decisions may affect their departments, business units, and companies.
- Acquire the ability, when involved in decisions about investment, operations, or financing, to choose the most appropriate tools from the wide variety of financial techniques available to provide a quantitative analysis.
- Understand the exact nature and scope of the business problems to be analyzed.
- Obtain quick 'ballpark' estimates of likely outcomes of decisions.
- Understand the implications and relative importance of cash flow distinct from accounting profit in economic and financial analysis.
Targeted Competencies
- Strategic planning and thinking.
- Financial statements.
- Budgeting.
- Financial risk management.
- Business performance management.
- Financial, economic decision-making.
- Investment decision-making.
Course Content
Unit 1: Fundamentals of Strategic Planning
- What is strategy?
- Strategic management.
- Strategic analysis.
- Mission.
- Objectives.
- Strategic decision-making.
- The strategic planning process.
- Environmental analysis.
- Resources analysis.
- Strategic choice and strategic decision-making.
- Strategic implementation.
- Corporate objectives and accountability.
- Forecasting financial data.
Unit 2: Fundamentals of Financial Statements
- Financial statements.
- Balance sheet.
- Income statement.
- Alternative asset valuation methods.
- Cash flow statement.
- Standard size (or horizontal) trend analysis of financial statements.
- Vertical trend analysis of financial statements.
- Segmental analysis of financial statements.
- Value-added analysis of financial statements.
- Understanding the cash flow cycle and the operating cycle.
- Break-even and multiple product break-even analysis.
Unit 3: Capital Structure and Leverage
- Sources of funds.
- Capital cost models.
- Cost of equity.
- Cost of debt.
- Weighted average cost of capital (WACC).
- Can we determine a company's optimal capital structure?
- Capital structure models.
- Preparing projections to assess financing needs.
Unit 4: Capital Budgeting
- Future values, present values, and DCF.
- Capital budgeting principles.
- Methods of evaluating capital investment projects.
- Accounting rate of return (ARR) and payback.
- Net current value (NPV) versus internal rate of return (IRR).
- How do you choose which method to use?
- Equivalent annual cost (EAC) method.
- Capital budgeting methods.
- Capital asset pricing model (CAPM) versus arbitrage pricing theory (APT).
- Does it make a difference whether we lease or buy?
Unit 5: Managing Financial Risks
- The value of perfect information (VOPI)
- Types of risk.
- Risk management principles.
- Talking to your bankers about managing risk.
- How do you develop the tools for your company?
- How to minimize risk?
- Insurance and hedging.
- Interest rate and foreign currency exchange rate risk.
Unit 6: The Challenge of Financial Economic Decision-Making
- The practice of financial-economic analysis.
- Corporate value and shareholder value.
- A dynamic perspective of business Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis.
- The agency problem and corporate governance.
- What information and data to use?
- The nature of financial statements.
- The context of financial analysis and decision-making.
Unit 7: Assessment of Business Performance
- Ratio analysis and business performance.
- Management's point of view.
- Owners' point of view.
- Lenders' point of view.
- Ratios as a system – pyramids of ratios.
- Integration of financial performance analysis – the "Dupont" system.
- Economic value added (EVA).
- Predicting financial distress.
Unit 8: Projection of Financial Requirements
- Interrelationship of financial projections.
- Operating budgets.
- Standard costing and variance analysis.
- Cash forecasts and cash budgets.
- Sensitivity analysis.
- Dynamics and growth of the business system.
- Operating leverage.
- Financial growth plans.
- Financial modeling.
Unit 9: Analysis of Investment Decisions
- Applying time-adjusted measures.
- Net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR).
- Strategic perspective.
- EVA and NPV.
- Refinements of investment analysis.
- Equivalent annual cost (EAC).
- Modified internal rate of return (MIRR).
- Sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, simulation, and NPV break-even.
- Dealing with risk and changing circumstances.
Unit 10: Valuation and Business Performance
- Managing shareholder value.
- Shareholder value creation in perspective.
- Evolution of value-based methodologies.
- Creating value in restructuring and combinations.
- Financial strategy in acquisitions.
- Business valuation.
- Business restructuring and reorganizations.
- Management buyouts (MBOs) and management buy-ins (MBIs).
Enhancing Team Management and Leadership in the Accounting Profession
By integrating core principles from the team management training course and mastering leadership, this mastering leadership and financial skills program equips professionals with the skills to lead accounting teams effectively. Leadership in the accounting profession is about managing numbers and steering a team to strategic success amidst financial complexities.
Participants will learn to align accounting leadership with strategic objectives, ensuring that they develop vital team management capabilities as they progress through the financial course. By the end of this finance and accounting course, attendees will have a grounded understanding of basic financial accounting and financial accounting and analysis, pivotal in shaping influential leaders within the industry.
For those looking to formalize their expertise, a certificate in financial accounting can be the step that sets them apart. Therefore, understanding why to take a finance course becomes clear—it's about mastering the art of decision-making and direction in a financial context, ultimately leading to financial excellence.