Overview

Economic and business uncertainty, rapid rates of change in technology, shifts in trends and needs and fierce competition all conspire to create an ever more challenging business environment. Traditional planning, budgetary and forecasting processes struggle to cope well in this environment often evidenced by the effort expended on (and frequency of) reforecasting and planning revisions. This course examines the underlying causes of budgetary and forecast difficulties and considers more advanced planning and forecasting techniques and alternative budgetary processes and methodologies more fit for today’s challenges.

Key features

  • Planning for uncertainties and instabilities in the business environment
  • Taking account of what’s not in our control: external macroeconomic and political impacts and competition
  • Development of robust planning frameworks
  • Substituting science for guesswork - statistical and non-statistical techniques to improve forecast and planning accuracy
  • Difficulties we encounter in budgeting: management disaffection, lack of transparency, constant reforecasting and forecast error.
  • Alternatives approaches – Scenario Planning, Rolling forecasts, Driver-based, Activity-based and Output budgets

What will I get out of this course?

A greater understanding of the key (and sometimes hidden) pressures on planning, budgeting and forecasting; gaining an understanding of alternative processes and techniques that bring more transparency and predictive capability and are management friendly and involving , all to address the limitations of traditional approaches; binding the budget, the business plan and our strategy more tightly and in alignment.

Who should attend?

Finance Directors, senior finance and management personnel and any staffs involved in business planning processes

Speaker

John McKenzie

He has held a variety of roles in F&A, manufacturing, sales, marketing & business development with 21 years in the automotive sector with Ford & Unipart, then 12 years in the IT sector with Armstrong Laing & SAS.

He now pursues freelance lecturing, consulting and writing. In 2008, his first book, ABC/M to the Max was published and has spoken at over 500 public conferences and seminars worldwide.

He has lectured for the Management Centre of Europe and currently lectures, as an acknowledged subject matter expert, for major accounting bodies both U.K and abroad on, business planning, budgeting and forecasting, strategic accounting, strategic planning, ABC/M, margin management, change management, cost management, shareholder value and performance measurement.

Amongst many clients he has worked for are The World Bank, DHL, Barclays, Oracle, Cisco, British Airways, UBM, Mercer HR, Tetrapak and Pfizer.