The Business Manager programme brings together the core knowledge, skills and tools relating to the strategic, marketing and financial dimensions of a manager's role. The programme can, of course, be customised to address the specific issues facing your business.

The case for The Business Manager Programme

All managers require:

• a marketing perspective

This does not mean that engineers have to become experts in direct mail or that personnel managers need to understand media planning. It simply means that every decision made in a business should be set within the context of meeting customers' needs within a competitive environment. If everyone understands real customer needs and how customers make buying decisions then they will be much better able to support the generation of revenues and the development of the company's brand.

• a strategic perspective

Because the more the organisation is attuned to the competitive environment and how it is changing, the more likely it is that the firm can retain its competitive advantage. Being attuned is not simply being aware of what changes are taking place, it is understanding the potential implications of such changes.

A second reason is that if managers have strategic understanding they are likely to be more effective in implementing strategy. Successful implementation depends on strategy being converted into hundreds of tiny tasks completed each day by people throughout the organisation. Clearly the opportunities for going off-course are immense. There are decisions that have to be made based on "judgement"; and the manager with a strategic perspective is better-placed to make that judgement call.

• a financial perspective

With financial understanding managers will be better able to plan, measure and justify their actions. Managers particularly need a better understanding of intangible performance drivers and their relationship with conventional accounting. For instance, skills, brand and relationships are perhaps the most important asset s possessed by most companies and yet they do not appear in the balance sheet, except indirectly as costs.

Managers that understand concepts such as value management are likely to build long-term sustainable competitive advantage rather than become hostages to short-termism.

The programme offers several advantages:

• extremely cost-effective when compared to multiple stand-alone courses

• the integrated nature of the courses means that skills and knowledge can be used in a more realistic and meaningful context

• greater opportunity to tackle important issues and view them from different perspectives and consider alternative actions