Effective Commercial Management Skills

Course overview

Learn how to maximise your profits by reducing cost and risk and developing new and existing commercial relationships.
The key aim of any commercial manager is to improve the profitability of the organisation, this means not just focusing on the figures. Successful holistic commercial management involves recognition of not just the price and product but also strategic analysis, risk, delivery, strong client and suppliers relationships, and getting the right people on board to deliver the goods.
This course has been specifically developed to cover every aspect of this multi-faceted role. It provides best practice techniques and skills to allow you to understand how to choose and win the business, the subtleties of each contract, build lasting relationships, manage and mitigate risk and ultimately contribute positively to the bottom line every time.

Who should take this course?

• Commercial directors and managers
• Contract directors and managers
• Business development directors and managers
• Sales and marketing directors and managers
• Commercial engineers
• Procurement and purchasing managers
• Operations
• Project managers

What this distance learning course offers you:

• FLEXIBILITY – learn at a pace and place of your own choosing
• WELL-DESIGNED courses focusing on practical relevance
• MANAGEABLE weekly instalments and self assessment progress questions
• SELF-MANAGED study – no marked tests or assignments for submission
• PRACTICAL focus on key areas of contract management and administration skills
• ENJOY the flexibility of studying at work, home or on the move
• ACCESS to professional advisors and authors of the course
• CERTIFICATE on course completion
• 50% DISCOUNT OFF the public course Business and Contract Law
• GUIDELINE ANSWERS for self-assessment questions

Structured to fit into your working day

The course is designed to fit around your current commitments with each module requiring an average study time of 3 to 4 hours. Course materials can be sent to you anywhere in the world and offer the flexibility of studying at work, at home or on the move, while always having access to confidential help and support.

Course modules

MODULE 1 – COMMERCIAL AWARENESS

• The importance of profit
• The value of intellectual property
• Using business analysis
• Applicable law
• What is a contract?
• Contract types, terms and formation
• Legal remedies
• Breach and damages
• Product liability
• Contract requirements
• Bringing the contract into effect
• Intentions to purchase and instructions to proceed
• Changing the contract

MODULE 2 – KEY ISSUES IN COMMERCIAL CONTRACTING AND RELATIONSHIPS

• Including the right boilerplate clauses
• Seller and buyer obligations
• Price and payment
• Delivery and the passing of property and risk
• Acceptance, rejection and inspection
• Time schedule for performance
• Cancellation and termination
• Warranties, bonds and guarantees
• Intellectual property rights
• Liabilities and indemnities
• Impact of competition law
• Importance of confidentiality
• Purchasing, procurement, buying and outsourcing
• Partnerships, partnering and joint ventures
• Win/win negotiations

MODULE 3 – STRATEGIC COMMERCIAL ANALYSIS

• Achieving business stability and growth
• Techniques of strategic analysis
• Approaches to market analysis
• Defining business unit strategy
• Competitor profiling
• Directional policy matrix
• Competitive positioning
• Differentiation and price
• Understanding the volume-cost-profit relationship
• The contribution approach
• Product and service pricing
• Cost profiling

MODULE 4 – COMMERCIAL OPTION APPRAISAL

• Tips and tricks of option appraisal
• Force-field analysis
• Stakeholder analysis
• Identifying financial sensitivity and evaluating risk exposure
• Evaluating business development options
• ‘AID’ analysis
• New business development options
• Key stages in business development
• Vision statement
• Quantum leap approach
• Strategic options
• Organisation structure
• Business development projects

MODULE 5 – PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

• Essentials of the profit and loss account
• Essentials of the balance sheet
• Cash flow statement
• Key performance indicators: strategic, financial, operational, City
• Return on investment
• Freehold land and building valuation
• Profit margin on sales
• Asset turnover
• Ratios: stock, debtor, creditor, liquidity, current, quick, gearing, employee
• Comparisons with competitors

MODULE 6 – FINANCIAL ANALYSIS FOR DECISION-MAKING

• Budgets and budgeting control
• Overhead costs and capital expenditure
• Useful techniques for forecasting and reporting
• Effective cash management to ensure liquidity
• Improving profitability
• Product, service and customer profitability
• Practical financial techniques and commercial factors: evaluation, pay-back period, NPV and more
• Essential replacements and legislation requirements
• The management role
• Investment risks and rewards

MODULE 7 – COMMERCIAL RISK MANAGEMENT

• The risk pendulum
• Risk bearing, risk sharing
• Partnership sourcing and contracting
• Exclusion clauses
• Insurance
• Customer characteristics and company culture
• Key contractual milestones
• Residual obligations and risks
• Pricing
• Account management

MODULE 8 – COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT OF PROJECTS

• Risk management through sensitivity analysis
• Analysis of price and volume changes
• Identify the risky parameters and tie them down
• Schedules and milestones
• Budgets for projects: labour, material, equipment and other costs
• Preparing estimates
• The project plan
• Monitoring a project to success
• Building in quality
• Overcoming problems effectively and without penalty

Course contributors

Tim Boyce has been involved in contract management for over 20 years. He began his career in the Ministry of Defence holding executive positions in contracts, contracts policy and finance. His industrial career began at Plessey in 1980 after which he enjoyed appointments with Siemens, British Aerospace and as commercial director at BAE Systems. His functional responsibilities have included contracts, commercial, procurement, estimating, legal, project accounting and the implementation of the European Business Excellence Model. He is a former member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). His committee work included the CIPS National Contracts Management Committee, the CBI Contracts panel, the CBI Defence Procurement Panel and the CBI/MoD working groups on partnering and incentive contracting.

Paul Elkin provides consultancy services with a particular focus on business strategic development, performance management and corporate image. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. After many years in a range of senior management roles in both public and private sector industry with UK and US businesses
plus time with Price Waterhouse, he formed the TMMi group at the end of 1989.

Cathy Lake MA (Oxon) is a freelance editor, writer and project manager. During the past two decades, she has taken part in, and also managed, almost every aspect of the publishing process. She has worked for most of the major national publishers and has written about 40 training manuals and textbooks. As well as writing for commercial publishers in the UK and abroad she has also written management development workbooks for corporate clients.

Barrie Pearson is Chief Executive of Realization, which he established to provide world-class mentoring and coaching for CEOs and entrepreneurs in acquiring and disposing of companies. In 1976 Barrie Pearson founded Livingstone Guarantee plc, the first corporate finance boutique in the UK, advising on acquisitions, disposals, management buy-outs and buy-ins, fund-raising and stockmarket listings. When he sold it, the company had become the largest and most successful independent corporate finance house in the UK. He has written 17 books, including Trade Secrets of Business Disposals, and has presented seminars on acquiring and selling companies in the UK, Europe, New Zealand and SE Asia.

Ralph Tiffin is a chartered accountant and registered auditor – principal of McLachlan+Tiffin. The firm has a wide range of clients and supports clients with audit and advisory work in areas such as introduction of IFRS, ethics and fraud prevention. As consultant he acts for many companies in the UK and overseas on subjects ranging from understanding accounting for pharmaceutical companies, project appraisal, budgetary control systems through to fraud prevention. Ralph lectures and consults widely on accounting topics particularly on understanding what financial reports mean and how proper accounting practice can help business.

You might also be interested in...

Delegates who attended this course also went on the following courses:

Advanced Business and Contract Law 27-28 Apr 2009 3-4 Nov 2009 This two-day no nonsense plain English practical advanced course enables you to further your technical knowledge to deliver and manage successful contracts every time.

Effective Contract Management 2-3 Dec 2008 15-16 Jun 2009 A logical, systematic and comprehensive approach to proactively managing and administering contracts.

Effective Contract Negotiation 4 Dec 2008 17 Jun 2009 Negotiate your way to commercial success with this one-day intensive contract negotiation workshop.

Business and Contract Law 1-2 Dec 2008 9-10 Mar 2009 17-18 Jun 2009 22-23 Sep 2009 30 Nov-1 Dec 2009 A two-day no-nonsense plain English practical course to get-to-grips with business and contract law for busy business executives.

Successful Contract Management and Administration 16 Mar 2009, 8 weeks 12 Oct 2009, 8 weeks A SELF-MANAGED WRITTEN DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE. This practical step-by-step course is designed to ensure that your contract administration and management skills allow you to fully control your commercial contracts. Build your knowledge of best practice techniques in 8 modules over 8 weeks (approx 3-4 hours study a week).

Academy of Distance Learning in Business

ADLiB

The Academy for Distance Learning in Business (ADLiB1) has developed out of Falconbury’s pioneering work on short-course management and professional development.

As with the face-to-face training we do in our public and in-house programmes, our focus is on the practical and application-rich skills and techniques, which will enable individuals to develop their full potential as managers and professionals.

Our approach to distance learning is to use the self-study method at its best to make sure that you can flexibly acquire the knowledge and understanding of each chosen area in a way that suits you and your current work commitments.

ADLiB was set up to give a consistent approach across different subject areas, so that its users would know that our rigorous standards of excellence would be met in each course.

Every programme and each of the component modules is a combination of the training and learning expertise of Falconbury and input from its wide range of practically skilled writers and trainers. Where a course bears the ADLiB logo, you can be sure that our (and your) exacting standards will be met.

To learn more about how ADLiB and the courses can help you and/or your business call +44 (0)20 7729 6677

¹ ADLiB is the Academy for Distance Learning in Business and offers ‘best in class’, flexible self-study in key business, management and leadership via distance learning modules delivered directly to you, to work through at your convenience.

Ad lib is from the Latin ad libitum meaning ‘at one’s pleasure’ – we aim to make management and professional development enjoyable as well as worthwhile.

Ad lib could also be a loose latin short-form of ‘to the library’ – but in our case, we save you that trouble by using the best material available to us on each topic and assembled to give you maximum benefit.