About

In these trying times of budget constraints and increased competition, managers need to present and convince their value propositions or risk missing out on opportunities.

As managers are under increasing pressure to fight for more resources and budget allocations, now more than ever, it’s imperative you provide CFOs with tangible facts and demonstrate robust business cases to win the financial resources you need for your programmes. In other words, CFOs are much more likely to be engaged if you knew what they are looking for when signing off on new spending initiatives.

Think like a CFO, win the support of your CFO and get the hands-down approval for your budget submissions and project funding requests.

Outline

Scoping the Business Case
• Determining the business needs and desired outcomes
  - Problem/opportunity statement/new venture/project
  - Prioritised requirements (high level)
  - Assumptions
  - Constraints
  - Dependencies
• Establishing parameters
• Results measurement

Resource Allocation Decision
• Mutually exclusive projects
• Financing decision

Interpreting and Presenting Financial Metrics to your Best Advantage
• ROI
• NPV
• Payback Period (Breakeven)
• TCO
• IRR
• Opportunity Cost
• Economic Profit
• Applying the metrics top management needs for short and long term planning

Business Case Best Practices
• What are the critical success measures?
• How are market trends affecting profitability?
• Building the competitive advantage
• Revenue growth, cost reduction, product or service quality, customer retention, profitability, shareholder value
• Value and benefits
• Hidden costs, cost avoidance, business impacts
• Risks and potential business failures
• Opportunity Cost Analysis - Business consequences of doing nothing

Budget Justification and Reliable Forecasting
• Comparing costs and benefits – tangible and intangible
• Evaluating and selecting financial appraisal methods
• Forecasting benefits
• Four common financial analysis tools
• Creating a robust cost model
• Cashflow projections

Risk Management and Sensitivity Analysis
• Classification of risks
• Identifying and assessing risks involved
• Balancing opportunities with risks involved
• Creating a risk register
• Determining the areas of greatest risk within your business case
• Impact of time and risk
• Applying the risk assessment matrix

Proposals and Presenting the Business Case
• Developing value propositions that are quantifiable
• Presenting multiple scenarios
• Short term and long term value of a project
• Ensuring measurability of results
• Showcasing positive track records (if any) to reinforce credibility

Presentation Skills
• Understanding your own communication style and the ability to assess others' styles
• How to best present data
     - Tailoring financial information to the decisions to be made
     - Choosing your graph/chart and visual style
     - Preparing intelligible displays

Facilitator

Susan Hansen, Principal, [Financial Training Organisation]

Susan has worked in Financial Services since 1980.  She is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and South Africa and has an MBA from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

She worked for a ‘Big Four’ firm from 1980 to 1985 in Cape Town and London.  She then spent five years with Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street Investment Bank.

Since 1990 she has facilitated seminars on Financial Management and Accounting to Executives and University Students in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia and South Africa.

In 1995 Susan moved to Auckland and as Strategy Consultant to the Auckland Regional Services Trust was the Project Manager on the feasibility study of the America’s Cup Infrastructure.  Following this she was Chief Executive of Viaduct Harbour Holdings Limited. 

Susan is currently Principal of a Financial Training Organisation.  She facilitates both public courses and in-house courses in New Zealand, Australia, China, South East Asia and Dubai.

Susan is currently a non-executive Director of Utilico Limited, listed in Bermuda. 

Susan is consistently rated as excellent in her delivery and content for presentations.

Susan Hansen is also facilitating:

• Finance for Executive Assistants & Personal Assistants
• Finance for the Non Financial Manager
• Finance for the Non Financial Manager in the Public Sector

In-house Training