Strategic Planning, Management Control and Effective Budgeting

As the business environment becomes ever more uncertain and turbulent, the requirement for professional leadership and effective management control throughout organizations is at a premium. Strategic Planning, Management Control & Effective Budgeting is for those who are dedicated to maximizing the performance of their organizations, as well as their value-added contribution (and that of the people who work for them). The elements of the course provide a structured, coherent, and comprehensive framework for addressing the challenges which face professionals in respect of both their day-to-day and longer-term responsibilities.

This course will provide professionals with a comprehensive range of skills essential to effectively leading both people and projects/processes in times of increasing global competition, and where budgets are inextricably linked with strategy formulation, people leadership, and cost analysis.

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Develop an appreciation & understanding of each of the elements of the course.
• Understand how skills interact creating a systemic approach to mastering the essential tasks of any leader.
• Develop the skills and applications needed to master and integrate each individual element
• Utilize the elements in achieving individual, team and high organizational results
• Identify priorities for continued professional development

CONTENT

Strategy and Risks

• Introduction to strategy - background, historical developments, major theories
• Thinking strategically
• A consistent approach to strategy development
• The relationships between vision, mission, and strategy
• The steps involved in developing a strategy
• Implementing a strategy

• The meaning and nature of risk
• Identifying the risks in a given strategy
• Prioritizing risks
• Contingency planning
• Risk mitigation strategies

Strategic Planning

• Key elements in strategic planning
• Generic Process for Strategy Formation
• Growth and Profit Strategies
• How an Organization Decides It Value Proposition
• Why It Is Important to Link Your Actions to Strategy
• Finance’ role in supporting strategic planning
• Assessing financial impact of strategic choices
• Challenging the operational and people impact of strategic choices

Financial Management Control

• The whole company budget process
• Integrating forecasting planning and budgeting
• Driving performance improvement through the budget
• Setting appropriate KPI's-Performance review process
• Multi -year budgeting
• Budgeting and Cost Analysis
• Different costs for different purposes
• Fixed vs. Variable costs: the Cost-Volume-Profit analysis model
• Contribution Margin analysis

Traditional VS Advanced Techniques in Cost-Control

• Under-costing and over-costing: the consequences for profitability
• How to refine a costing system?
• Indirect (OH) VS Direct costs: Traditional Cost Allocations systems VS Activity-Based Costing (ABC)
• Cost hierarchy & Cost drivers
• Linking resources, activities and management
• Introducing Activity-based budgeting (ABM) and management (ABM)

Master Budget, Flexible budgets, and Variance Analysis

• Define the master budget and explain its major benefits to an organization
• Describe the difference between a static budget and a flexible budget
• Compute flexible-budget variances and sales-volume variances
• Discuss the behavioral implication of budgeting
• The budgeting process in your organization: how to improve it?
• Which tools shall we use to complement budgeting and costing?

Beyond the Budgets: Balanced Scorecards

• Broadening performance measurement systems
• The key role of customer satisfaction and business process reengineering
• Beyond budgeting: integrating financial and non-financial issues
• Introducing the Balanced Scorecard
• Introducing the Strategy maps

FOR WHOM:

Accountants, Budgets Managers, Planners, Schedulers, Heads of Departments, Financial Managers, Auditors and others who perform related functions in Public and Private Sectors

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

The training methodology combines lectures, discussions, group exercises and illustrations. Participants will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge of the topics. The emphasis is on the practical application of the topics and as a result participant will go back to the workplace with both the ability and the confidence to apply the techniques learned to their duties.