MODULE 1: FINANCIAL ANALYSIS PLANNING & CONTROL THE CHALLENGE OF FINANCIAL ECONOMIC DECISION-MAKING

•  The practice of financial/economic analysis 
•  The value-creating company
•  Corporate value and shareholder value
•  A dynamic perspective of business
•  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

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 
• Economic value added (EVA)
•  Predicting financial distress

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

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
•  Valuation and Business Performance
•  Managing for 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 reorganisations
•  Management buy outs (MBOs) and management buy ins (MBIs)

THE FRAMEWORK FOR BUDGETING

• What is a budget – and why budget?
• The budgeting framework and the various types of budgets: top-down;
• bottom-up; incremental; zero-based; activity-based
• The budget process
• Qualitative and quantitative techniques for forecasting sales and costs, and
• sales pricing
• Budgeting for labor costs and depreciation
• The departmental budget
• Preparation of the master budget and the cash forecast/budget
• The human side and the behavioral aspects of budgeting

ACTIVITY-BASED BUDGETING (ABB), CAPITAL BUDGETING, BUDGETARY CONTROL, AND VARIANCE ANALYSIS

• How the budget is controlled in your organization
• Activity-based budgeting (ABB)
• Budgeting for capital projects
• Discounted cash flow (DCF) investment appraisal methods of net present
• value (NPV) and internal rate of return
• Capital rationing and the profitability index (PI)
• Budgetary control systems and responsibility accounting
• Standard costing for budgeting and budgetary control
• Fixed budgets, flexed budgets, variance analysis and the reasons for
• variances

BEYOND BUDGETING – BROADENING PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS

• Integrating continuous improvement into the budget process
• Advantages and disadvantages of budgeting
• How to improve the budget process in your organisation
• The conflict between performance improvement and the costing system
• Lean thinking and performance improvement
• What next – beyond the budget?

• The balanced scorecard – linking strategy with budgeting and with

• performance measurement

• Developing and adapting the balanced scorecard: financial perspective;

• customer perspective; internal business process perspective; learning and growth perspective