Business Acumen

Whether you work in the corporate, SME, government or not-for-profit sector, every organisation needs to create value. This course will help you to see the big picture, contribute to business effectiveness and value creation, and understand how your actions impact on the bottom line.

Course Times

• 8:30am to 3:30pm

Course Content

Introduction

• Course and personal objectives
• What’s your organisation’s ‘why’?
• The concept of value

Seeing the bigger picture

• What business are you in?
• What does success look like?
• The balanced scorecard model
• How to manage risk
• How to maximise opportunities
• Balancing risk and reward

Numbers matter

• Assets and liabilities
• Profit and loss
• Cash flow
• Numbers talk – interpreting financial and performance metrics

Maintaining and boosting organisational performance

• Time is money!
• Long term goals, short term objectives, everyday actions
• Making smart business and operational decisions
• Operational efficiency: getting the best out of your resources, assets and systems
• Continuous improvement

Putting it into practice

• Action planning

• Recognise the key business drivers for your organisation
• See the big picture for their own and other organisations
• Understand how value is created, and your role in this process
• Understand risk and the process of risk management
• Apply the balanced scorecard model
• Develop a working knowledge of financial teams and metrics
• Align work priorities and actions with key business priorities

This course has no pre-requisites.

“The trainer had excellent knowledge of the subject and made me feel confident applying my skills” Gerald from Serco

“The best feature of this course was the finance section” Jane from Serco

“The best of this course was the presenter, who was very knowledgeable and great at answering questions” Tom from Serco

“Session was well presented” Amber from Serco

“The best part of this course was being in a room with people of the same interest in business” Mitchell from SBDC

“I enjoyed the collaborative approach” Mia from SBDC