Finance for Marketing and Sales People

9.30 –9.45    Coffee & course objectives

9.45 –10.30    What information is needed:

• time frame
• format
• accuracy

10.30 –11.15    Reading your profit and loss account

• what it tells you
• what it doesn’t tell you
• applying ratios and measures of performance
• benchmarking against your competitors

11.15 –11.30    Coffee break

11.30 –12.45    Actions to improve profitability

• fundamentals of costing
• knowing your break even point
• understanding how costs may vary with sales
• key measures of efficiency and productivity
• identifying your key performance drivers
• using budgets; dealing with variances

12.45 –13.30    Lunch Break

13.30 –14.30    Understanding your Balance Sheet

• what it tells you –how much is invested
• what it doesn’t tell you
• identifying working capital
• applying ratios and measures of performance

14.30 –15.30    Managing working capital

• stock management
• debtors and credit management
• creditors and other payments

15.30 –16.15    Managing your cash resources

• understanding cash flow forecasts
• profit v. cash

16.15 –16.30    Action plans –what will you do now?

• Understanding how costs may vary with sales
• Understanding cash flow forecasts
• How to apply ratios and measures of performance
• It will make people aware of the financial benefits of their decision making
• Give people confidence when negotiating financial aspects of transactions with customers; even the customers finance staff !