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As finance professionals we are often asked to bring numbers to life, or tell the story behind the numbers. We often have good intentions, but either don’t find the time or aren’t really sure where to start. In a World of Big Data, the gap between the data and the people that need to make decisions based on it is becoming ever larger. This redefines our role as a finance business partner, because, if we can bridge the gap, then we become highly valued. Data visualisation is a good start, but visualised data is still data. Spending more and more time making the data look good has diminishing returns, unless we turn it into information.

"Great course! a bit of an eye-opener for me. This will help me focus on what, why, how I need to get the right level of reporting. Boost my confidence :)"

Delegate feedback

Decisions though are really driven by insight, and there is not a MI or BI tool in the world that can deliver genuine insight. This course will show you how to bridge that gap between the data and the decision makers. Bring along a report you want to transform, and during the day you’ll apply the learning so you can see the results there and then.

"A very enjoyable course, it was to the point and will be easy to adapt into the work place."

Delegate feedback

You’ll learn to transform data into information, and the commercial insight that earns your seat at the table. You’ll learn powerful techniques to elevate your emails, conversations, reports and presentations to a whole new level. You’ll feel more confident delivering the key messages, and your audience will see, hear and feel the difference immediately.

Learning outcomes:

• How to transform data into insight and build your commercial credibility.
• What it means to ‘be commercial’ and how to demonstrate commercial awareness.
• How to boil down long reports into simple, succinct key messages.
• How to deliver key messages using a simple storytelling technique.
• The five simple visuals that are perfect for making financial data to easy to understand and insightful.
• How to use powerful slides and visuals to convey your message.
• Learn the number one secret to bringing numbers to life.

Who should attend?

Finance professionals who want to increase the impact of their reports to support the business find commercial solutions.

Trainer

Iain Dewson Iain is an audit-trained senior finance leader. He qualified as an ACA and took a finance career path through various industries and financial control and FP&A roles until he landed at TUI to run their global Finance Academy. He was responsible for the learning and development of over 3,500 finance colleagues in more than 42 countries, which was a radical change in direction and a real eye-opener. Spending almost six years running a global learning platform, as well as designing and delivering bespoke training programmes around the world, was a richly rewarding experience. His finance background combined with his viewpoint of looking into finance as a senior learning and development leader has given him a unique perspective. He now concentrates on finance business partner training: building relationships, turning data into insights and bringing numbers to life. "Ian was excellent." - Delegate feedback

Click here for course webpage.

Strategic planning is critical to the success of any organisation, but what makes a good strategy? And how, as finance professionals, can you contribute to the debate beyond the numbers?

This course helps you explore the lessons from the world’s most successful businesses. Learn the importance of creating customer-focused business plans, and how finance should contribute to organisational strategy.

"This is one of the very best training courses I've ever been on."

"Great practical tools - just what I needed right now."

Delegate feedback

Learning outcomes:

• How some of the world’s leading companies leverage different strategic models to achieve competitive advantage.
• The seven deadly sins of strategy to avoid being the next Kodak, Blackberry or Blockbuster.
• How as finance professionals we can best contribute to strategic discussions and influence outcomes.
• Use a strategic toolkit to assess your organisation’s current strategy, and to identify potential new sources of competitive advantage.
• Apply a five-stage strategic planning process to create a strategic plan and appreciate how you can add value at each stage.

Who should attend?

Senior commercial finance business partners, finance leaders and directors who want to increase their impact on the strategic planning process.

Trainer

Oliver Deacon FCA Oliver is a former Finance Director at Microsoft, an ICAEW member and a PCC Executive Coach through the ICF. He brings a refreshing and inspiring perspective to modern finance. His last team at Microsoft cut 2 days from their month end reporting work by using Power BI. He relocated back to the UK from Seattle in September 2019. "Great to hear from someone with several years' practical experience rather than standard 'common sense' stuff." - Delegate feedback

Click here for course webpage.

Finance professionals can add real business value through influencing decisions based on commercial ROI. Has that promotion led to an incremental uplift in sales? Do your rebate structures deliver value? How has that advertising campaign performed? How are your new offerings performing in the market? What impact does your social media activity have?

This course equips you with powerful techniques to partner with commercial colleagues to get to the core of commercial ROI and influence business outcomes. If there is a need for ‘Commercial Acumen’ in your role, this is the course for you.

"Really engaging and thought provoking course with participants from a broad range of industries, helped to promote out of the box thinking and generated a lot of ideas on how to improve going forward."

Delegate feedback

Learning outcomes:

• Generate real business impact using Return on Investment (ROI).
• Use ROI insight to drive commercial decisions and influence commercial strategies.
• Improve how you measure and present ROI with the latest tools and techniques used by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.
• Build better ROI models informed by business drivers, unit economics and risk-reward.
• Make better decisions and recommendations considering optionalities, synergies, and externalities.
• Adopt big tech’s latest profitability framework: customer lifetime value (CLV) and how it applies to your business.
• Address uncertain outcomes using sensitivity analysis and scenarios planning.
• Bridge the gap between strategy and commercial activities through robust financial analysis.
• Think like a commercial team: how and why they work differently from finance.

Who should attend?

Appropriate for all levels of finance professionals, those who need ‘strong commercial acumen’ in the role and are looking to gain a deeper understanding of how to challenge and support commercial colleagues to generate profitable value creation.

Trainer

Oliver Deacon FCA Oliver is a former Finance Director at Microsoft, an ICAEW member and a PCC Executive Coach through the ICF. He brings a refreshing and inspiring perspective to modern finance. His last team at Microsoft cut 2 days from their month end reporting work by using Power BI. He relocated back to the UK from Seattle in September 2019. "Great to hear from someone with several years' practical experience rather than standard 'common sense' stuff." - Delegate feedback