Through our Business Acumen workshop your participants will improve their judgment and decisiveness skills. Business Acumen is all about seeing the big picture and recognizing that all decisions no matter how small can have an effect on the bottom line. Your participants will increase their financial literacy and improve their business sense.
Business Acumen will give your participants an advantage everyone wishes they had. The master class will help your participants recognize learning events, manage risk better, and increase their critical thinking. Business Acumen has the ability to influence your whole organization, and provide that additional edge that will lead to success.
- Gain a realistic picture of your company’s position, market, and potential
- Examine the external environment and understand how customer and business changes affect your company’s ability to succeed
- Analyze where your business stands in relation to your key competitors and what the future will look like
- Measure the performance of your business using standards that are highly correlated with value creation
- Integrate your competitive analysis and financial metrics to improve your business decision making
- Create an actionable business strategy, get stakeholder buy-in, and develop a complete strategy implementation map
- Improve your business skills by learning the right financial terminology
Course Outline
Module One: Getting Started
- Housekeeping Items
- The Parking Lot
- Workshop Objectives
- Pre-Assignment
- What really works in business
- Action Plans and Evaluations
Module Two: Seeing the Big Picture
- Business Modelling
- Short and Long Term Interactions
- Recognize Growth Opportunities
- Mindfulness of Decisions
- Everything is Related
- Case Study
- Module Two: Review Questions
Module Three: KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)
- Decisiveness
- Flexible
- Strong Initiative
- Intuitive
- Case Study
- Module Three: Review Questions
Module Four: Risk Management Strategies
- Continuous Assessment
- Internal and External Factors
- Making Adjustments and Corrections
- Knowing When to Pull the Trigger or Plug
- Case Study
- Module Four: Review Questions
Module Five: Recognizing Learning Events
- Develop a Sense of Always Learning
- Evaluate Past Decisions
- Problems are Learning Opportunities
- Recognize Your Blind Spots
- Case Study
- Module Five: Review Questions
Module Six: You Need to Know These Answers and More
- Five Essential Elements of Business
- Activity: What Do You Know About Your Company?
- What Makes My Company Money?
- What Were Sales Last Year?
- What is our Profit Margin?
- What Were Our Costs?
- Case Study
- Module Six: Review Questions
Module Seven: Financial Literacy (I)
- Assets
- Financial Ratios
- Liabilities
- Equity
- Activity: Navigating an Annual Report
- Case Study
- Module Seven: Review Questions
Module Eight: Financial Literacy (II)
- Income Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Cash Flow Statement
- Read, Read, and Read
- Case Study
- Module Eight: Review Questions
Module Nine: Business Acumen in Management
- Talent Management
- Change Management
- Asset Management
- Organizational Management
- Case Study
- Module Nine: Review Questions
Module Ten: Critical Thinking in Business
- Strategic Thinking
- Ask the Right Questions
- Organize the Data
- Evaluate the Information
- Make the Decision
- Case Study
- Module Ten: Review Questions
Module Eleven: Key Financial Levers
- Investing in People
- Effective Communication
- Process Improvement
- Goal Alignment
- Case Study
- Module Eleven: Review Questions
Module Twelve: Wrapping Up
- Ways to Develop and Strengthen Your Business Acumen
- Words from the Wise
- Review of Parking Lot
- Lessons Learned
- Completion of Action Plans and Evaluations
The Master Class would be useful for all Line Managers, HR professionals, People Managers, Talent Managers, Functional Heads/Leaders, Other HR support roles including Business Partners & Consultants, or others looking to become more strategic.
