The
Business Manager Programme
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Programme Content
The expertise required to direct the business and achieve
sustainable competitive advantage.
The strategic context
- Competitive vs Corporate Strategy
The importance of strategic perspective
This module sets the context for the course and outlines
how the various modules fit together.
The marketing perspective
The aim of the marketing perspective
modules is NOT to turn all managers into marketing managers;
it is to give them a better understanding of why people
buy (rarely because of the product or service alone),
how firms can achieve competitive advantage and, most
importantly, how they can contribute to the marketing
effort. If you do not understand why customers buy (or
don't buy) from you, then any decisions that you make
will be flawed.
With marketing understanding, managers will be better
able to make decisions within their own departments, setting
each decision within the context
of meeting customers' needs within a competitive environment.
[see our notes on the marketing
concept]
- product (including branding)
- place (channels)
- promotion
- price
- physical environment
- people
- processes (including IT)
- customers / prospects
- attitudes, beliefs, feelings
[for more information see our senior
management marketing programme]
The financial perspective
Many managers ask - why do I need to understand a balance
sheet, how will that help me to do my job better? We empathise
with this view. Many profitable companies are actually
declining in value; conventional financial analysis looks
backward, not forward.
Therefore our modules aim to provide managers with the
financial perspective and essential tools they need to
make better decisions in the future. Through cashflow
analysis and value management we help managers to understand
the true drivers of financial performance in the business
and help them to identify the activities that create and
destroy value.
- critical importance of cashflow
- profitability
- financial status
- resource allocation
- financial management
- understanding financial
statements - P&L, Balance Sheet etc
- payback period
- discounted cashflow and IRR
- discounted payback
- risk analysis
- accounting versus economic profits
- business planning, budgeting,
forecasting
For more information on our approach to finance, see
our financial overview.
Developing strategy
The modules in this section build upon the knowledge
and techniques covered in the preceding modules. Managers
will gain a strong strategic perspective that will enable
them to make make sense of the competitive environment
and so make decisions that achieve sustainable success.
For more detail on the topics covered in this module,
please visit our Approach to strategy
page. In summary, we consider:
- mission, values and vision
- establishing the current position
- evaluating alternatives and
formulating strategy
- performance drivers and implementation
Within these stages we cover analsysis of the macro-environment
(PESTLE), competitive analysis, strategic options (with
particular emphasis on differentiation) and so on. Our
emphasis is always on pragmatism - strategy can be an
esoteric subject. We focus on the nitty-gritty - how do
we achieve sustainable competitive advantage and so sustainable
success.
Implementation
Identifying critical performance drivers and developing
objectives, actions and measures around them. Using the
balanced scorecard.
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Who should attend
Click on the links for
more detail:
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Approach
We use many of the principles of Accelerated
Learning in our programmes. In essence this means:
- involvement - people learn more from
doing than watching or listening
- multi-sensual - learning is faster
and better retained when it uses many senses
- relevance - courses are tailored to
your specific needs
- pleasure - people learn best when
they enjoy what they are doing
- rewarding - participants will work
hard; this is an intensive programme. However they will
leave with a real sense of achievement
[click here
for more on our approach to training]
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Materials
All participants receive:
- pre-work - to ensure
that we "hit the ground running" and maximise
our time together
- comprehensive workbooks
featuring
- notes
- checklists
- templates
- exercises
- pointers to additional information
- a CD containing website links and
additional reading material
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Support
Following the programme, all participants
benefit from on-going email support.
For instance, six months after the course, a manager may
use discounted cashflow as part of their justification
for capital expenditure but would like confirmation that
his calculations are correct and appropriate. We are happy
to give our feedback or further explanation of material
covered on the programme.
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Structure & Duration
We normally structure the programmes in the following
way:
| The Business
Manager |
3 days |
Tuesday - Thursday
Running the programme on 3 mid-week
days minimises the impact on the day-to-day business
of the company, allowing the manager to work at
the beginning and end of the week. |
Break |
research / contemplation / practice
- the break enables managers to put the knowledge
they have learned into their own context. |
3 days |
Tuesday - Thursday
The shape of the programme is moulded
to take into the account the questions, issues and
ideas that have evolved in the minds of managers
since the first part of the programme. |
1 day (optional) |
An optional seventh day can be
scheduled, either as a group session or a series
of one-on-one meetings between facilitator and individual
managers - or perhaps a combination of the two.
The purpose of the optional day - which may be several
weeks later - is to answer any questions that have
arisen since the programme, to provide feedback
and to refresh knowledge and skills. |
We are happy to consider alternative structures for any
programme, including weekends. |
