What is strategic and financial planning

• The role of strategy in business and why it matters
• The ingredients of a good strategy
• Customer analysis and market segmentation
• Effective strategy making processes with proper financial planning
• Tools for understanding industry developments
• The core strategic financial choices for a business
• Who is responsible for strategy making and who should be held accountable?
• Lessons Learned

Integrating strategic and financial planning with operational management

• Contrasting management with strategic leadership
• The competencies of strategic leadership
• The top manager as strategist
• The CFO as strategist
• Using Scenario analysis and environmental scanning
• SWOT and other acronyms
• Corporate Culture and its effect on strategy and financial planning
• The operational manager’s role in strategy
• Lessons Learned

Using objective evidence for strategic and financial planning

• Analyzing the market and the customers
• Understanding the competition
• Financial analysis: past, present, and future
• Knowing the core strengths and weaknesses of your business
• Identifying your core competitive advantage
• Developing Vision statements that make a difference
• Developing mission statements that make a difference
• Examining alternative strategies
• Creating the strategic plan
• Lessons Learned

Implementing strategic and financial plans

• Preparing the ground for change in the business via financial planning
• Communicating the strategy and control points
• Overcoming internal political resistance
• Reviewing and measuring progress with proper variance analysis
• Turnaround and corrective measures
• Managing implementation as a continuous process
• Lessons Learned

Becoming a leader of strategic financial planning

• Building strategy making and implementation into the role of managers at all levels
• Developing strategic leadership capability
• Creating organizational commitment to the business strategy
• Leading strategy making teams effectively
• Incentive systems
• Balanced Scorecard and other performance management systems
• Realistic action planning
• Lessons Learned