Financial Management for Executives

Area of Focus

A Look at Financial Management Tasks

• Financial analyses, financial statements and earnings statements
• Profit and cost management
• Liquidity and profitability
• Financial value creation, corporate value management
• Controlling, review and evaluation

Setting Financial Objectives

• How to set ambitious profit targets, that are also logical from a business and market sense
• The process of achieving above-average corporate resultsn begins with the right profit planning
• How to calculate corporate value

Capital Expenditures

• Capital expenditures as a «profit killer»
• Capital expenditures as a strategic competitive advantage
• Determining the right value-added depth
• In or out-sourcing?
• Cost variability by concentrating on core activitiesn

Capital Costs, Modern Forms of Financing

• How to lower the cost of capital
• Modern forms of financing
• Internal or external financing?
• The logic behind the capital market
• Negotiating with banks
• Understanding credit-ratings

Investments and Financial Decisions

• The criteria for making decisionsn
• Increasing capital intensity as threat to profit targets
• Investing where it’s necessary
• Make or buy – finding the optimum value-added depthn

Liquidity Management, Working-Capital Management

• Warning – liquidity traps ahead!
• How many liquidity reserves are needed?
• Tools for managing liquidity
• Working-capital management

Increasing Corporate Value

• Factors influencing return on investment and corporate value
• The tools for managing results
• Measures that will improve results
• Realizing cash-flow objectives
• Getting rid of the sources that cause losses
• Taking advantage of untapped potential for improving results
• Cementing fixed costs as a loss of flexibility

Profitable Growth

• Exceeding your minimal necessary size
• Growth in a growing market
• Growth in a stagnating market
• How to achieve profitable growth?

Designing the Right Cost Structure

• Determining allowable costs
• Designing an appropriate cost concept based on market realities
• Specifying a break-even point based on the logic of business fluctuation
• Seeking cost leadership – yes or no?
• Making decisions locally

Mergers and Acquisitions

• Acquiring companies or parts of companies
• Acquiring market share
• Acquiring size, real or presumed synergies and the effects of added experience
• Buying into new business and new core competencies
• Assessment, due diligence

Restructuring and Portfolio Adjustment

• Recognizing the need for restructuring at an early stage
• Recognizing profitable and unprofitable business activities
• Securing the viable parts of a company
• Divesting yourself of non-viable parts of a company
• How to develop a feasible restructuring concept
• Corporate portfolio and portfolio adjustment

Restructuring to achieve a Turnaround

• Revitalizing a company’s ability to restructure
• The restructuring concept
• Achieving a turnaround

Controlling, Review and Evaluation

• What do you need to evaluate to achieve effective financial management?
• What review and evaluation tools are necessary, and don they reveal deviations early enough?

Managing by Using Key-Performance Indicators

• What KPIs allow you to reduce the tasks of financial management to their essentials?
• What content should a management report have to be an concise controlling tool?
• Analyzing business models using KPIs