Mini MBA: Accounting & Finance

This course offers an in-depth overview of the accounting and finance world.

Part 1 emphasized the internal workings of the finance/control function as it communicates with external and internal constituencies to provide information for decision making under uncertainty.

Part 2 emphasizes the capital markets impact on corporate finance, risk, and governance.No preparation is necessary except to bring an open mind and a budget document or other financial documents of interest.

By combining techniques with analysis, problems and examples with real case studies, and supporting theories the course provides delegates with key finance terminology and practice.

This course not only presents the key financial tools generally used, but also explains the broader context of how and where they are applied to obtain meaningful answers.

It provides a conceptual backdrop both for the financial/economic dimensions of strategic business management and for understanding the nature of financial statements, analyzing data, planning and controlling.

The course is targeted at providing a university-quality ‘MBA’ overview of finance/accounting, planning/control, risk management, and corporate governance.

Participants are expected to be high-potential learners seeking the next level of learning. Additional bibliographies, readings, and spreadsheets will be provided as takeaways.

The Structure

• Module 1 - Accounting, Decision Making, & Financial Communication
• Module 2 - Finance, Risk Management & Corporate Governance

The Goals

This course will help you learn how to:

• Specify the exact nature and scope of corporate financial reporting
• Identify and criticize specific concepts, rules, and procedures are in place for corporate financial reporting
• Understand multiple interpretations of financial statements via IFRS, FAS, SEC, etc
• Integrate risk management and corporate governance
• Understand the content of and relationships between financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows)
• Understand how to use financial statements to evaluate the financial performance of an organization
• Understand discounted cash flow (DCF) techniques and their application to financial decision making
• Understand the budgeting process, including performance evaluation
• Understand cost behavior and its impact on management decisions
• Learn how to communicate and to question financial information effectively

The Process

This workshop will be highly participatory and your seminar leader will present, guide and facilitate learning, using a range of methods including discussions, case studies and exercises.

Where appropriate, these will include real issues brought to the workshop by delegates.Lessons learned from the seminar will be applied to your own organization.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) for the critical success factors (CSFs) will focus attention on high priority action plans for taking back to your organization.

The Benefits

• Improved appreciation for the finance/accounting/governance approach
• Better integration of business plans and strategic intent
• Reduced inter-functional territorial battles
• Improvements in communications between staff and line management
• Higher productivity during the decision making process
• Increased skill set in all phases of finance/accounting/governance
• Greater ability to participate in and to lead the finance/accounting process
• Recognizing the increased professionalism to deal with the current and future topics
• Increased recognition by the organization of their learning and professional commitment
• Challenging themselves in an immersive learning environment

The Core Competencies

Attendees will gain in the following competencies as a result of the program:

• Using financial information for guiding decisions
• Clarifying KPIs across different functions
• Building strategic thinking and implementation orientation into their professional lives
• Challenging the status quo of finance/accounting, budgeting, and decision making
• Recognizing the value of external standards, governance requirements, and measurements of qualitative elements
• Identifying Value Creation principles as the driving force for decision making