Talking Numbers “Finance For Non Financiers & KNOLSKAPE Build Your Business Simulation”

Workshop Overview

Organizations today, more than ever, need managers and employees who can contribute to the financial success of the business. Impactful members of the organization are expected to think and act like business owners; recognizing how they fit into the company and how their actions affect the bottom line. That’s what “Talking Numbers” is all about.

The workshop helps attendees recognize the full depth of what it takes for a business to make money, what the numbers mean and how everyone’s actions impact the financials and viability of the company in the end. The workshop is boosted with a powerful online simulation – Build Your Business® by Knolskape – that takes participants right into action to apply what they have learned.

Learning Outcomes

• Distinguish what drives some of the most common errors in business and how to avoid them
• Break through the language of finance
• Analyze and interpret financial statements within the context of industry analysis 
• Appreciate & distinguish the inter-connectedness & impact of business decisions among the different functions
• Utilize and effectively manage the three axes of strategic execution: Competitive analysis, Financial Acumen, Market Trends
• Extrapolate why ‘cash is king’
• Identify risk and explain the options available to manage risk
• Apply management accounting tools to business problems

Workshop content

Module One: Analyzing and Interpreting Financial Accounting Statements

Part One: The Financial Accounting model

Participants will learn the common model that is often used  to evaluate business performance, its limitations, and how to overcome them: 

• Understanding the accounting process 
• Applying the fundamental accounting concepts 
• Evaluating the performance of listed companies 
• Tools used to identify ‘value’ 
• Why ‘Cash is King’ 
• Understanding commonly used words and acronyms, e.g. EBITDA, ROCE, CFROI, etc. 
• Learning the limitations of the traditional accounting model and how to overcome them 

Part Two: Management Accounting

Organizations with excellent Management Information Systems have a significant competitive advantage. When an organization is under pressure to lift profits, a reflex reaction is often to slash costs. Therefore, a more creative approach is needed. In this section, participants will be exposed to:

• Understanding what drives a company’s ‘bottom line’ 
• Cost – Volume – Profit analysis

Module Two: Understanding Financials in a Business Context

Part One: Deriving and Implementing Strategy

• Comprehensive ratio analysis and linking ratios to the strategic view of the firm
• Putting a measurement system in place to include both financial and non-financial metrics, through budgeting and designing a KPI system

Part Two: Risk & Return in the Valuation Model

• Managing risk and building certainty to add value 
• The Risk & Return Tradeoff and the impact on the company’s value

Part Three: Strategic Management Accounting 

• Linking accounting to strategy  
• How value drivers are identified and what benefits they deliver valuation tools 
• The most commonly applied valuation tools

Part Four: Appraising Investment and Financing Decisions

• Discounted Cash Flow analysis (DCF), A key Valuation approach
• Net Present Value of an investment (NPV) 
• Forecasting cash flows 
• Measuring the required rate of return 
• Cost of capital 
• WACC 
• IRR 

 Forecasting Techniques, Tips and Pitfalls

Simulation Overview

Teaching Business Acumen can be a very dry & boring topic, that’s where “BYB“ comes!

Business Acumen tackles the three competencies that need to be mastered by any true business leader: Market Perspective, Financial Literacy, Business System Thinking

• Participants of (BYB) will experience the thrill of running business in a safe learning environment. They learn to interpret financial statements and realize their impact on business decisions.
• Participants will be tested on critical thinking and effectiveness of their individual strategies to make the most net profit at the end of the simulation (12 virtual months).

Simulation content

This web-based simulation is competitive in nature and can have up to 6 teams of 3-5 members each, competing against each other. Each team will be assuming the role of the organization’s CEO’s, who are in charge of building & growing their business through strategic business decisions. 

At the beginning of every round in the simulation, the CEO makes decisions in six different functional areas: Human Resources, Production, Pricing, Marketing, R&D, Banking. Then they get to see the impact of their decisions on the overall revenue, market share, and customers’ satisfaction 

The winning team is the one who manages to make the highest success by the end of the simulation.

Simulation De-brief

The de-brief highlights the experiences learners witnessed through the simulation, and how to use the grasped insights as areas of focus for future application in day-to-day work & strategic decisions

• • Importance of market sensitivity for monitoring changing needs & trends
  • Managing Competition 
  • Building on financial data for deciding appropriate business strategies
  • Making the best out of opportunities & challenges
  • Choosing the right growth strategy according to company and market status
  • Creating, delivering, and capturing value
  • Optimizing service portfolio and margins to capture the market

Who should attend?

• Middle managers who make strategic decisions 
• Professionals who deal with several stakeholders inside and outside the company 
• Business owners and entrepreneurs

Workshop Fees: EGP 5,200