Tuesday

The routes to growth and success
Marketing management

Key benefits of the day

1. Listening to and understanding what customers value most
2. Responding to these values to generate an excellent response from our customers
3. Appreciate your own role in marketing – regardless of your function
4. Contribute actively to making your customers successful
5. Implementing and evaluating marketing actions
6. Predicting change and responding to threats
7. Developing a marketing strategy
8. Busting through the jargon

Content

Organisations where every individual considers themselves a marketer achieve the greatest success. These companies understand that enhancing the total customer experience by listening to what really excites customers and then responding with products and services which makes customers successful builds trust and confidence from the market. Every individual in the company is then committed to this customer success. This module explores vital elements such as segmentation and positioning, designing a marketing plan and making it work by understanding product/service development, pricing strategies, how to communicate the value to the market and selecting the best routes to market.

Every opportunity will be given to ensure that you are able to apply key concepts to your own business situation whether you are from a business-to-business environment or a business-to-consumer one. Engaging and informative, the day provides a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of marketing today.

Topics covered include:

• What is marketing all about?
• How marketing fits into the rest of the organisation
• The external marketing environment – analytical tools and techniques
• Marketing strategy
• Segmentation, positioning and targeting
• Establishing the marketing mix – the four Ps and beyond
• Marketing communications – managing the promotional campaign
• Price, product and distribution channels
• Drawing up the marketing plan
• Implementation, monitoring and control

 

Wednesday

Business viability and financial strength
Financial management

Key benefits of the day

1. Understanding the content of financial accounts
2. Introduction to the tools and techniques of financial accounting – balance sheets, profit and oss accounts, cashflow statements
3. Making better decisions: management accounting techniques for investment decisions
4. How key financial ratios work and what they tell you about a business
5. Applying the principles and structures of financial management to strategic, tactical and operational decision making

Content

Your decisions, proposals and actions will have a financial impact on the company. This module will open your understanding of finance, the implications of your work on the wealth of the organisation. You will be more confident in meetings and with reading financial reports. In one extremely intensive but rewarding day, you will transform your financial and accounting skills and will gain the confidence and ability to make a more effective contribution to your business and your team. Even those with an accounting background may benefit from this stimulating examination of the basic principles of this essential area of business activity.

Topics covered include:

• Financial accounts – users and uses of financial information
• Financial statements – analysis and interpretation, internal and external measures
• Company accounts: fact or fiction?
• Understanding the financial press
• Management accounts – costing and pricing, product profitability, management information
• Financial management – future decisions, discounted cash flow, IRR, payback period

Friday

Making it all happen – planning and implementing
Integrated management

Key benefits of the day

1. Reinforcing the skills of management and subjects covered in the preceding four days through application to an actual business.
2. Bringing together the tools and techniques in an integrated and useable way.
3. Making robust strategic/business plans and clear, effective decisions.
4. Making a case for change and anticipating the problems of implementation.
5. Presenting ideas and proposals at board level for positive outcomes.

Content

As a senior manager, to make sound decisions you must understand the total business process. Appreciating the impact of change on all functional areas – marketing, finance, operations, people management, will help you to put your finger on the key nerve of the problem and the find the best solution. This practical workshop will give you ‘hands on’ experience by working on a real business in small teams, pooling your experiences and applying your acquired skills. Having analysed the situation you will plan forward its strategy and implementation, then present it convincingly.

Topics covered include:

• Assimilating the business analysis from the preceding days and applying the tools of business strategy.
• Finalising the corporate mission/vision, objectives and strategies and planning through to operations and marketing plans.
• Demonstrating the financial viability of the plan and decisions – P&L projections…
• Implementation – managing the process and the risks
• Making the best case – getting the plan accepted

Programme Director
	Sanjeev Loomba A renowned speaker and people developer, Sanjeev’s training vision is of ‘integrated management’. He trains people in strategy, marketing, finance, leadership and communication. As an independent consultant, he works with the management of companies to develop and implement their strategies. With an MBA from Cranfield and an accountancy degree, Sanjeev is ideally qualified to direct this programme. His corporate management career started in manufacturing and spans the IT and service sectors in multinational corporations as Director of Finance, Marketing, Strategy and Managing Director.
Programme Speakers
	Stephen Walmsley Stephen is a chartered accountant who is a fellow of the ICAEW having been admitted in 1987. Stephen joined Kaplan in 1996 following the successful completion of a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Henley Management College. His role involves designing, developing and delivering financial training courses to both public and private sector organisations. Current assignments include the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the BBC and Close Invoice. Stephen has extensive experience of delivering finance training to non-financial managers, particularly those in the legal sector where clients range from large firms of solicitors such as Clifford Chance to smaller firms.
	Chantal Dunham Chantal trained at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with ICAS. She spent three years in audit at PwC before joining their consultancy arm where she worked as a training consultant. As a training consultant, she designed, developed and delivered global finance training programmes for large blue-chip clients, covering subject areas such as internal control, risk management, intercompany and internal audit. She also advised clients on training strategy to support on-going skills development as well as behavioural change programmes. Since joining Kaplan, Chantal has been involved with clients such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department of Health and Shell.