Finance for Managers Courses Overview

The basic aim of our courses is to provide managers with the core skills they need to analyse and interpret accounts, create budgets and plans and evaluate projects. We take an holistic approach, examining the forces that shape the “numbers” and exploring the impact of different management decisions on the financial health of the organisation. In particular, we stress the importance of intangible performance drivers – brand, relationships, skills and knowledge – critical assets that do not appear on the balance sheet and yet in most organisations constitute most of the value: financial analysis should reflect the real world.

To have a true grasp of finance requires some understanding of where the “numbers” come from. For instance:

• how will forecasts be affected by competitor moves, product lifecycles, response rates to promotional activity, branding etc.
• how can training be justified
• what are the cost implications of a strategy based on high levels of customer service (staff levels, training, hours of work etc.)
• how will cash flow be affected by new product launches

Marketing
We have also delivered courses specifically for marketing managers covering finance from a marketing perspective and, from a wider perspective, measuring marketing effectiveness.Please click to go to our marketing overviews page.

Excel for Managers
Excel is an incredibly powerful tool and one that all managers should feel comfortable with; it can enables better decision-making and can save many hours. Please click to view our Excel courses page. The courses thus combine traditional finance with new approaches associated with value management and economic profit. Managers gain a much broader perspective and a more realistic view of business performance. As a result, managers will be more confident and better able to make decisions that increase the value of the company.

HardSkills’ expertise in marketing and strategy ensures that our programmes are anchored in the real-world. We help managers to appreciate the actual drivers of financial performance, the interdependencies and the cause-and-effect relationships that exist within organisations.