16 Business Plan courses in Manchester

ABOUT THIS VIRTUAL INSTRUCTOR LED TRAINING (VILT) The energy industry has started its journey to be more data centric by embracing the industry 4.0 concept. As a result, data management - which was considered until recently as a back-office service to support geoscience, reservoir management, engineering, production and maintenance - is now given the spotlight! To become an active stakeholder in this important transition in E&P data management, it is necessary to understand the new technical opportunities offered by the Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and how data governance can pave the way towards more reliable and resilient processes within E&P domain. Several key questions that need to be addressed: 1. Why place more focus on data assets? 2. Is data management just about serving geoscientists or engineers with fresh data? 3. What is the value of data management in the E&P sector for decision making? 4. How to convince the data consumers that the data we provide is reliable? 5. Is the data architecture of my organization appropriate and sustainable? The purpose of this 5 half-day Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) course is to present the data challenges facing the energy organizations today and see how they practically solve them. The backbone of this course is based on the DAMA Book of Knowledge for Data Management. The main data management activities are described in sequence with a particular focus on recent technological developments. Training Objectives Upon completion of this VILT course, the participants will be able to: * Understand why the data asset is now considered as a main asset by energy organizations * Appreciate the importance of data governance and become an active stakeholder of it * Understand the architecture and implementation of data structure in their professional environment * Get familiarized with the more important data management activities such as data security and data quality * Integrate their subsurface and surface engineering skills with the data managements concepts This VILT course is unique on several points: * All notions are explained by some short presentations. For each of them, a set of video, exercises, quizzes will be provided to help develop an engaging experience between the trainer and the participants * A pre-course questionnaire to help the trainer focus on the participants' needs and learning objectives * A detailed reference manual * A lexicon of terms for data-management * Limited class size to encourage the interactivity Target Audience This VILT course is intended for: * Junior/new data managers * Geoscientists * Reservoir engineers * Producers * Maintenance specialists * Construction specialists * Human resources * Legal Course Level * Basic or Foundation Training Methods The VILT course will be delivered online in 5 half-days consisting 4 hours per day, with 2 breaks of 10 minutes per day. Course Duration: 5 half-day sessions, 4 hours per session (20 hours in total). Trainer Your expert course leader is a geologist by education who has dedicated his career to subsurface data management services. In 2016, he initiated a tech startup dedicated to Data Management using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. He is heavily involved in developing business plans, pricing strategies, partnerships, marketing and SEO, and is the co-author of several Machine Learning publications. He also delivers training on Data Management and Data Science to students and professionals. Based in France, he was formerly Vice President, Sales & Marketing at CGG where he was in charge of the Data Management Services strategy, Sales Manager at Spie O&G Services where he initiated the Geoscience technical assistance activities and Product Manager of interactive seismic inversion software design and marketing at Paradigm.       POST TRAINING COACHING SUPPORT (OPTIONAL) To further optimise your learning experience from our courses, we also offer individualized 'One to One' coaching support for 2 hours post training. We can help improve your competence in your chosen area of interest, based on your learning needs and available hours. This is a great opportunity to improve your capability and confidence in a particular area of expertise. It will be delivered over a secure video conference call by one of our senior trainers. They will work with you to create a tailor-made coaching program that will help you achieve your goals faster. Request for further information about post training coaching support and fees applicable for this. Accreditions And Affliations

In today's competitive business world firms are under unprecedented pressure to deliver value to their shareholders and other key stakeholders. Senior executives are finding that they need some financial know-how to cope with the responsibility placed on them as decision-makers. Key financial skills are not as difficult to learn as many people believe and in the hands of an experienced senior executive can provide a formidable competitive advantage.   This one-day workshop is not intended to take you from a managerial position to that of a Chief Financial Officer. However, these topics will familiarise you with the most common terms and practices in terms of working with finance.   This course is suitable for managers and others in finance related roles: * with some or no financial knowledge * who need to understand the financial implications of every day decision making? * who need to increase profitability and performance of their business? This one-day workshop will help you teach participants how to: • Understand fundamental business finance concepts • Understand the vital difference between profit and cash flow • Evaluate pricing decisions • Use powerful analytical tools to measure performance of their own company and competitors • Understand the role of business finance in formulating and implementing competitive strategy   Course Overview You will spend the first part of the day getting to know participants and discussing what will take place during the workshop. Students will also have an opportunity to identify their personal learning objectives.   Business and finance fundamentals The objectives of the firm: delivering value to shareholders and key stakeholders, leading to a better understanding the drivers of shareholder return and who uses financial statements and why.   Basic principles Understanding business funds flow, using the balance sheet the profit statement. This would help to recognise the vital difference between profit and cashflow and what financial statements can and cannot tell us.   Managing and improving Budgets and Forecasting We will look at why you need to set budgets and what is known as ‘the bottom line’. We will also explore the purpose of forecasting over a period of monthly, quarterly and also annually.   Managing and improving profit Understanding how profits generate cashflow. The fundamental nature of costs: fixed and variable business costs and realising gross margin and break-even   Managing business performance We will explore the business planning cycle, by using budgets to support business strategy and monitoring and managing financial performance. We will look at a ‘Pyramid of Ratios’ to manage business performance that will help us understand and use key performance indicators   Measuring and managing business performance We will understand Return on investment (ROI): the ultimate measure of business performance and how profit margin and net asset turnover drive return on net assets. We shall do a case study on why some companies are more profitable than others.   Workshop Wrap-Up At the end of the course, students will have an opportunity to ask questions and fill out an action plan.

No-one in business will succeed if they are not financially literate - and no business will succeed without financially-literate people. This is the ideal programme for managers and others who don't have a financial qualification or background but who nonetheless need a greater understanding of the financial management disciplines essential to your organisation. This course will give the participants a sound understanding of financial reports, measures and techniques to make them even more effective in their roles. It will enable participants to: * Overcome the barrier of the accountants' strange language * Deal confidently with financial colleagues * Improve their understanding of your organisation's finance function * Radically improve their planning and budgeting skills * Be much more aware of the impact of their decisions on the profitability of your organisation * Enhance their role in the organisation * Boost their confidence and career development 1 REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL STATEMENTS * What each statement contains * Outline * Detail * Not just what the statements contain but what they mean * Balance sheets and P&L accounts (income statements) * Cash flow statements * Detailed terminology and interpretation * Types of fixed asset - tangible, etc. * Working capital, equity, gearing 2 THE 'RULES' - ACCOUNTING STANDARDS, CONCEPTS AND CONVENTIONS * Fundamental or 'bedrock' accounting concepts * Detailed accounting concepts and conventions * What depreciation means * The importance of stock, inventory and work in progress values * Accounting policies that most affect reporting and results * The importance of accounting standards and IFRS 3 WHERE THE FIGURES COME FROM * Accounting records * Assets / liabilities, Income / expenditure * General / nominal ledgers * Need for internal controls * 'Sarbox' and related issues 4 MANAGING THE BUDGET PROCESS * Have clear objectives, remit, responsibilities and time schedule * The business plan * Links with corporate strategy * The budget cycle * Links with company culture * Budgeting methods * 'New' budgeting * Zero-based budgets * Reviewing budgets * Responding to the figures * The need for appropriate accounting and reporting systems 5 WHAT ARE COSTS? HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR THEM * Cost definitions * Full / absorption costing * Overheads - overhead allocation or absorption * Activity based costing * Marginal costing / break-even - use in planning 6 WHO DOES WHAT? A REVIEW OF WHAT DIFFERENT TYPES OF ACCOUNTANT DO * Financial accounting * Management accounting * Treasury function * Activities and terms 7 HOW THE STATEMENTS CAN BE INTERPRETED * What published accounts contain * Analytical review (ratio analysis) * Return on capital employed, margins and profitability * Making assets work - asset turnover * Fixed assets, debtor, stock turnover * Responding to figures * EBIT, EBITEDIA, eps and other analysts' measure 8 OTHER KEY ISSUES * Creative accounting * Accounting for groups * Intangible assets - brand names * Company valuations * Fixed assets / leased assets / off-balance sheet finance

This half day or whole day course is designed to support both novice and experienced trustees in providing effective governance within their organisations. It considers their roles and responsibilities in general before looking at particular areas in more detail. The half day course covers all the essential information; the whole day session includes specific exercises and case studies to develop the participants’ problem-solving skills.

Successful account management requires time and investment to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction and develop new business opportunities. Ensuring you are equipped with the right tools to approach every customer interaction in a structured way will help you have productive relationships with your clients. Whether you're new to account management or experienced in business development and looking to expand your skillset, understanding how you can maximise customer relationships will be key to your success. We have developed this programme to be practical, fun and interactive. Participants will have the opportunity to learn and practice a number of key skills that will see successful results, and are encouraged to bring real life examples to the course so that learning can be translated to real world scenarios. This course will help participants: * Learn how to plan growth and increase revenue from existing accounts * Develop skills to build and develop essential relationships to increase value and visibility * Learn how best to create loyalty and customer satisfaction * Identify how to set account targets and development plan for building contacts and cross-selling * Develop persuasion and influencing skills to better define needs and develop opportunities * Learn how to add value at all stages; plus gaining competitive advantage * Develop an up-selling, cross-selling strategy 1 PERFORMANCE METRICS FOR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT * Introduction to the PROFIT account management model * Using practical tools to measure account performance and success * Planning your account strategy - red flags and green lights 2 RELATIONSHIPS FOR ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT * How to build and manage key relationships * Producing a 'relationship matrix' * Developing a coach or advocate 3 SETTING OBJECTIVES FOR YOUR ACCOUNT * Developing an upselling cross-selling strategy * Setting jointly agreed goals, objectives and business plans * Planning session 4 FEEDBACK AND RETENTION - BUILDING LOYAL AND SATISFIED CUSTOMERS * How to monitor and track your customer's satisfaction * Building a personalised satisfaction matrix * Customer service review meetings 5 INFLUENCE * Getting your message and strategy across to C-level contacts * Being able to better develop a business partnership within an accountes 6 TEAMWORK AND TIME MANAGEMENT * Working with others to achieve your account goals * Managing and working with a virtual team * Managing your time and accounts effectively 7 GAINING COMMITMENT AND CLOSING THE SALE * Knowing when to close for commitment * How to ask for commitment professionally and effectively * Key negotiation skills around the closing process - getting to 'yes' * Checklist of closing and negotiation skills * Practice session

Our Team Building Programmes are 'simply excellent' (quote from Unilever). They always deliver much greater energy' motivation and efficiently accelerates to a galvanised, integrated team for their Manager/Team Leader. They're great fun and very commercially orientated - the best of both key elements to a successful and long-lasting high performance team. A successful company is always made up of successful teams. Teams that can work autonomously with a clearly defined set of goals, roles, vision, responsibility and culture will always reach for and achieve far greater success than a team that works just as a group of individuals. Our team building solutions are individually built and geared towards teams at any level within an organisation, providing an independent and objective perspective to promote a common purpose such as the creation of a 'high performance team'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OUT WITH THE OLD Traditionally, team building events have been restricted to certain levels of management where they head off site for a bit of archery, quad biking and paintballing or something along those lines. Then over some coffee and cocktails, business plans and more efficient ways to work are casually discussed. Whilst being out having fun instead of being at work may improve an individual person's mood, the effect will only be short-term, and will not go far in creating permanent and cohesive teams who are able to overcome challenges together and drive the business forward when back in the workplace. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN WITH THE NEW Today's business thinking is more strategic and certainly has to look for returns on the investment. That is why Dickson Training Ltd's team building programmes are bespoke and built to your requirements through research, understanding your business and, most importantly, what results and achievements you are looking to get out of the programme. Once "what success looks like" has been established, we create tasks and activities that will test your leadership, problem solving, communication and team work skills. When the tasks have been completed, the learning - both practical and theory - is debriefed to the group as well as how it will translate back in your business. Not only are our events great fun, but they provide participants with learning points they can act upon to improve or enhance the working practices/environment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TEAM BUILDING THAT GETS RESULTS We have a highly innovative team who design team builds to suit all budgets and time or space restrictions. Large or small, we will develop the perfect event to meet your commercial objectives, keeping in line with your values and company culture. More recently we have combined team galvanising events with ways to engage the participants with and support their local communities. This solution has proved extremely popular with our clients and we are continuing to develop more and more programmes doing exactly this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Phil did everything in a very professional and focused manner, without losing sight of the overall aims or having 'fun'. When I moved to Airbus UK and subsequently European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), I had no hesitation in recommending Phil and the team to deliver the required training and team events.  Without doubt Phil and his team are excellent providers of training, to suit even bespoke requirements, and I would not hesitate in recommending the team to any business in the future. " Glenn Brown, Systems & Expertise Manager, Airbus Personnel Service -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUGMENTED SKILLS – AN ESSAY BY PHIL DICKSON All of you, who are reading this, and all the people you meet and work with will have – ‘Augmented Skills’. So – if you are an IT Engineer or a Pharmacist; perhaps you are, or know, a Departmental Leader and you work with a Logistics Project Manager; these roles will demand core skills, whether they be technical know-how or qualifications in the discipline. But to be that bit better; more reliable; more effective & productive and therefore more valuable and, frankly, marketable – capitalizing on ‘Augment Skills’ comes into play. The I T Engineer who was a Chess Champion at Uni, which would indicate that they possess some key ‘Augmented skills’ including how they plan 3 steps ahead and are always prepared for the unexpected. The Pharmacist, who is a keen sportsperson in their private life, will likely be tenacious, team-orientated and disciplined – again these are superb qualities to have in this – or any – role. Your colleagues, as well as yourself, will have ‘Augmented Skills’ that will be an asset if only they are explored and applied to their role and indeed, career. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN 'SUPER-POWER' If they love gardening, they are probably strategic, patient and inclined to research; if they cook or bake, they are usually well organized and comfortable with multi-tasking. A big reader will tend to be considered and possess good critical thinking faculties, and an amateur mechanic or keen DIY person will often be practical, resourceful and very determined. I have observed that many new Parents discover they have ‘Augmented Skills’ they didn’t know they had... such as getting order out of chaos and displaying industrial amounts of patience and good grace when they really do not feel like it. They very often become far more compassionate and empathetic. Most people have their very own ‘Superpower’. Invite your team members to offer their ‘Augmented Skills’ to your work-place – and just watch as it elevates the motivation levels and improves results. It’ll be very rewarding for all concerned – and for meeting the Team’s objectives, to encourage the person who is a talented artist to be a sounding board on some of the marketing imagery and layouts; for the team member who is great at Maths or resolving crosswords to be asked for their input to solving a problem that is causing logistical or operational headaches. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEVER EXPLOIT A TEAM MEMBER’S UNIQUE SPECIAL SKILLS AT THEIR EXPENSE I would like to stress, however, that it must never be an area where a team member gets exploited by harvesting their unique special skills to coerce them into taking on greater responsibilities and tasks without providing them with the commensurate salary and status. To do so would be immoral and, ultimately, counter-productive as it would lead to resentment and disenfranchisement. This is about encouraging people’s capability and inviting their input to boost confidence and enhance the team’s capability. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OFTEN, WE NEED TO BE MORE THAN WHAT OUR JOB DESCRIPTION SAYS It is also important to highlight that whatever a person’s role or function is – they will definitely need to have additional capabilities to be effective. The best example of this is when we designed and delivered a range of ‘Advanced Customer Care skills’ training sessions for the Met Office a few years ago…we met so many remarkably super-bright Meteorologists, many of whom were having to make significant adjustments to answering questions from Customers that seemed to be illogical and often, obtuse. It wasn’t enough for these Meteorologists to be highly skilled at interpreting data and identifying patterns – they needed ‘Augmented skills’ to make that information accessible to members of the public (and Council workers and Air Traffic controllers and Shipping agents) and many other people, as to what that particular weather system was going to be like in their area and at what time. They have to know how to ‘de-jargonise’ the material and provide succinct, clear, and yet temperate, descriptions without ever appearing exasperated, impatient or judgmental in response to sometimes quite silly questions. For a highly trained scientist – that can be counter-intuitive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEING PHILOSOPHICAL... AND A WEE BIT PRETENTIOUS At the risk of being a little Philosophical (and probably a wee bit pretentious) – in my own role of Trainer – my core skills have to include – being a very good communicator, an active listener and have innovative and engaging ways to convert an idea, or a model, into practical application that my Delegates and Clients gain tangible benefits from. This is how it applies to me... I really enjoy composing short, light classical-style piano pieces. Now, to do this well, you need to be able to find a transition from one chord or melody to a different theme or key. It has to be worked out very carefully to have incremental transitions and pleasant-sounding developments as the piece unfolds. I think I have become better at this as I have honed my skills as a composer. But I have realized that these very same skills have ‘Augmented’ my ability to help a Manager, or a Team, move from a state of conflict; tension; disfunction; disenfranchisement; lack of confidence to a place that is more harmonious with far greater productivity. The very same process of careful listening, considering options, taking well-considered steps, having a creative, sometimes brave, move towards a resolution are at play in both Training and Piano Compositions! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCHEDULED COURSES Unfortunately this course is not one that is currently scheduled as an open course, and is only available on an in-house basis. Please contact us for more information.