Professional Services Professional: Business Executive Training

Business Executive Training Outline

• Developing Your Industry Sector Skills

  Assessing the playing field

  • Identifying the forces that drive competition in your industry sector using Porter’s five forces
  • Examining the prevailing market structure in your industry
  • Using perceptual mapping to position products/services relative to competitors and highlight potential market gaps

  Knowing your playing field

  • Appraising your organization’s cash cows, stars, dogs and question marks using a Boston matrix
  • Knowing where your product/service is in its life cycle – R&D, introduction, growth, maturity and saturation, decline
  • Sourcing and comparing information on company and competitor performance

  Recognizing the key players in the field

  • Classifying the key players in the business-to-business chain that links to end-consumers
  • Diagnosing the current Political, Environmental, Social and Technological (PEST) factors that influence the sector
  • Determining the underlying trends, cyclical factors and random movements that underpin your market sector

• Enhancing Your Financial Acumen

  Deciphering financial statements

  • Cash flow statement
  • Profit and loss account
  • Balance Sheet

  Analyzing accounts

  • Determining if the four criteria for making a satisfactory return on investment are being met
  • Identifying whether a sound financial position is being maintained, avoiding risks from overtrading or heavy borrowing
  • Selecting an appropriate growth strategy, either by becoming more efficient, gaining economies of scale or improving quality of products

  Appraising investments

  • Investigating the internal rate of return for an investment
  • Applying discounted cash flow to an investment to determine the value of future returns
  • Utilizing break-even analysis to determine the payback period for an investment

• Establishing Marketing Fundamentals

  Selecting your strategy

  • Choosing the strategic position of your product/service in the marketplace using Kotler’s 4Ps
  • Selecting and analyzing which of Porter’s three marketing strategies is most effective for your product/service: differentiation, cost leadership or focus
  • Developing a growth strategy using the Ansoff matrix

  Researching your markets

  • Selecting the marketable features and benefits of your product/service
  • Specifying the needs of the three categories of business buyer
  • Deciding the 20% of customers that account for 80% of your profit

  Sending your message to your people

  • Determining which of your market segments are worth trying to sell to
  • Knowing your unique positioning proposition
  • Applying the five questions that underpin all advertising and promotion activities