Course Outline

Business Finance

• Evaluating a Financial Case
• Purpose of Building a Financial Case
• Techniques used for evaluating a Financial Case
  • Payback
    • Calculation
    • Payback and Risk
    • Limitations of Payback
  • Discounted Cash Flow /Net Present Value
    • Purpose
    • Calculation
    • The NPV Decision Rule
  • Internal Rate of Return
    • How to derive IRR
    • How IRR is used
    • The IRR Decision Rule
  • Budgeting, Costing and Pricing
    • Budgets and Departmentalised Businesses
    • The purpose of budgets
    • Reasons for departmentalization
    • Cost centres and profit centres
  • Cash Flow and Cash Management
    • Cash flow forecasting
    • Use of cash flow in decision making
    • Cash flow and profit
  • Costing and Pricing
    • Fixed and Variable costs
    • Direct and indirect costs
    • Break even and Contribution Analysis
  • Financial Reporting and Analysis
    • Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet)
    • Purpose and Structure
    • The nature, purpose and types of Capital
    • Current and non-current liabilities
    • Current and non-current assets
  • Income and Expenditure (Income Statement, Profit and Loss Account)
    • The importance of Operating Profit
    • Revenue (turnover)
    • Cost of Sales
    • Administrative Expenses
    • Profit after Tax
  • Statement of Cash Flows (Cash Flow Statement)
    • Ratios (formulae and interpretation)
    • Profitability Ratios: Operating Margin and Return on Capital Employed ratios
    • Liquidity (Cash Management) Ratios : Current and “Acid Test” ratios
    • Gearing (Leverage) Ratio: Debt/Equity Ratio

Organisational Behaviour

• Market analysis and competitive advantage
  • Analysing the business domain - Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
  • Analysing the portfolio - Boston Box
  • Delivering value - Porter’s Value Chain
• Organisational behaviour and culture
  • What is organisational behaviour?
  • Organisational effectiveness and the Balanced Scorecard
• Understanding and analysing culture
  • Organisational Cultural Types (Deal and Kennedy; Handy)
  • International Cultures (Hofstede)
  • The Cultural Web
• Group formation
  • Groups and group dynamics
  • Formal and informal groups
  • Groups and group tasks
  • Characteristics of formal groups
  • Homan’s theory of group formation
  • Tuckman and Jensen’s theory of group development
  • Characteristics of informal groups
  • Social networks
• Principles of organisational structure
  • Organisation structuring
    • Elements of organisation structure
    • The six Structure Levels
    • The Leavitt Diamond
  • Types of jobs
    • Work specialisation
    • Flat and tall hierarchies
    • Span of control
  • Line, staff and functional relationships
  • Formalisation of rules and procedures
  • Centralisation v decentralisation
    • Advantages
    • Disadvantages
  • Operating models
    • Organisation structures and their characteristics
      • Functional
      • Divisional – product or service/ geography/ customer
      • Matrix
      • Team-based – cross-functional/ project
    • Organisational boundaries
      • Boundaryless organisations
      • Outsourcing
      • Offshoring
      • Hollow organisation structures
      • Modular organisation structures
      • Virtual organisations
      • Collaborations and strategic alliances