Controlling & Finance

You will gain a systematic overview of the composition, function and use of cost accounting as a management instrument. This seminar will enable you to analyze the cost accounting concept in your own company, and identify potentials for improvement. In this process you will learn the operationally aligned classic full cost accounting, as well as contribution analysis. By means of various practical examples from industrial and service companies, you will discover industry-specific special features and will be able to adequately take these into account in your professional day-to-day life.

• Cost accounting as a basic tool for the Controller
• Cost element accounting as a basis for cost transparency
• Cost center accounting as a basis for responsibility for costs
• Internal cost allocation and the analysis of deviations: Strengthening responsibility for costs
• Cost estimation as a basis for operational decisions
• Contribution analysis, break-even analysis, and production program planning
• Company profitability analysis
• Strategic cost management with target costing
• Decision-making support and cost management with process costs

In this seminar you will gain a practical and systematic overview of the fundamentals of business administration, finances, and Controlling. Through the use of a FactoryTM business simulation, you will be familiarized with the principles and relevant value drivers of successful business management. The simulation will enable you to understand the core terms in business management as well as central, relevant financial KPIs, and organize them in an integrated context – with no need for a business management degree, making it an ideal entry point even for non-Controllers.

• The composition, functions, instrument and role of Controlling
• Controlling process model
• The Controller as a business partner
• Operational accounting as a source of information
• Systems in internal and external accounting: Cost, cash flow and investment accounting, balance sheet, P&L, cash flow statement
• Business management and business valuation using KPIs (e.g. EBIT, EVA and ROCE)
• Levers for increasing business performance
• Fundamentals of Planning and Budgeting
• Fundamentals of Reporting

In this e-Learning you will learn the most important basic terms and subsystems in Controlling and Accounting. You will be able to define the terms, as well as allocate them appropriately and use them correctly. The objective of this e-Learning is to create a uniform knowledge base in order to ensure efficient sharing of information and rapid learning progress in subsequent seminars.

Important terms and definitions on the following topics:

• Functions and responsibilities of Controlling
• Instruments of Controlling
• Business management with KPIs
• Key terms relating to costs
• The composition of cost accounting
• Fundamentals of cost estimation
• Strategy development and implementation
• Efficiency of planning and budgeting
• Functions and responsibilities of investment Controlling
• Monetary and non-monetary instruments of investment Controlling
• Value management and value driver models
• Annual financial statements
• The responsibility and content of management reports
• Important KPIs relating to the analysis of annual financial statements

Business cases are needed to enable the best possible decisions to be made about projects that have long-term effects on the company. Generally, there are more ideas in companies than financial and personnel resources to implement them. For this reason, it is a basic requirement that, for business cases to be approved, they are prepared in a way that is both comprehensive and clear to decision-makers. In this seminar you will learn how to answer decision-makers’ four most important questions in a comprehensive manner: Does the project fit into our strategy? Is it cost-effective? What risks are associated with it? Are there other aspects that need to be taken into account?

• What is a business case, and what type of project is it needed for
• Clarifying the link to the strategy
• Assessing cost-effectiveness
• Evaluating risks
• Taking non-financial considerations into account
• Tips for presenting a business case
• Business case reviews as a success factor
• Accompanying case study including tips on spreadsheet modeling in Excel

Growing demands from financiers, volatile financial markets, and new business and payment models are increasing requirements on financial business management. Effective financial Controlling must create a structure for financing and capital that ensures situational and structural liquidity at optimal costs. The objective of this seminar is to enable you to efficiently support financing decisions and to refine financial management in your company through the use of the latest financial and treasury management instruments. In this seminar you will gain an in-depth insight into the interactions between financial accounting, financing, investment and liquidity, as well as becoming familiar with and learning to apply the most important tools in financial Controlling. Both best practice standards and practical examples will be demonstrated in this process.

• Tasks and current challenges in financial Controlling
• Financing-related considerations in financial accounting (German Commercial Code and IFRS)
• Corporate finance and the latest financing instruments
• Cash flow analysis and cash flow statement
• Investment analysis and business valuation
• Requirements and responsibilities in treasury management
• Integrated liquidity and financial planning
• Working capital management: Objectives, KPIs, and processes

The professional management of project activities plays a key role both for internal projects and in external project business. In this seminar you will gain comprehensive insight into the responsibilities of project Controllers and the instruments of project Controlling. The objective is to critically scrutinize the management of projects in your company, and to refine it through the application and adaptation of strategic and operational instruments. You will learn key methods for analyzing and assessing the economic efficiency and risks of projects, as well as acquiring and finding out how to apply best practice standards for the measurement, monitoring and presentation of project progress. In addition, you will learn how to deal with changes in the course of the project, and will be able to promptly identify and counteract deviations. In order to be able to implement the content directly, you will receive checklists and templates that you can immediately make use of in your everyday working life.

• Challenges and success factors in project Controlling
• The distribution of responsibilities between the project manager and project Controller
• Assessment and prioritization of projects by means of scoring models
• KPIs and methods for analyzing profitability of projects (project earnings and cash flow, net present value method, internal interest rate, peak funding, payback period)
• Concepts for analyzing and assessing project risks
• Collating and managing development costs in projects
• Revenue and profit realization in customer projects
• Methods for measuring and monitoring project progress (milestone and cost trend analyses, earned value method)
• The composition and design of meaningful project reports

Big Data, predictive, cloud, and collaboration — these and other buzzwords are also becoming increasingly relevant to Controlling. How do digitization and automation affect forecasting, reporting and analytics? How can this development be managed on a centralized basis and successfully supported? You will learn what requirements need to be met in Controlling in order to make optimum use of the opportunities offered by digitization. In this seminar we will work out both development approaches and specific requirements for planning, forecasting and reporting. Referring to a case study focused on Predictive Analytics in forecasting throughout, we will discuss the typical approaches. From the case studies used you will learn the requirements for digital management and become aware of their content-related and organizational effects.

• Digitization – key trends and developments
• Effects of digitization on management
• Influence of digital business models on Controlling
• Digital strategy for the CFO organization and Controlling
• Alignment of the CFO with the Group digitization strategy
• Forecasting – support by means of Predictive Analytics?
• Practical case study relating to digital forecasting
• Planning – greater automation to reduce resources required?
• SAP S/4HANA® – advantages for digitized management
• The roadmap for expanding business management
• Requirements for the organization and employees
• Transformation of the CFO organization

In this seminar you will gain comprehensive insight into the phases of the strategic and operational investment process. In addition, we will demonstrate the latest quantitative and qualitative instruments for the assessment and management of investment projects. One objective of the seminar is to enable you to assess the economic efficiency of investment projects at the time of investment and during the period of investment. Furthermore, you will be able to analyze and assess investment projects in the context of strategies and value-oriented business management. In this seminar you will learn how to critically review your own investment policy, or create a new one.

• Interplay between financing and investment
• Capital cost rate department (WACC)
• Instruments in investment Controlling (non-monetary approaches, and monetary approaches)
• A deeper look at the procedures and KPIs in investment analysis (net present value, internal rate of return, annuity, and payback period)
• Special questions for the case of replacement, expansion, and rationalization investments
• Function and content of the investment policy
• The correlation between investment Controlling and value-based management (VBM)
• Deeper exploration of value-oriented business management

IIn this seminar you will learn the key ways to measure and assess risk, and will be able to link these with strategic business planning. You will identify and assess the various entrepreneurial risks in a specific forecast. In the seminar, you will also learn how to calculate and interpret the most important KPIs. Using a set of typical clauses from covenants as an example, you will identify how risks with different probabilities of occurrence may affect a company’s earnings and cash flow. Finally, you will cover the fundamentals of distribution range planning via Excel using a Monte Carlo simulation, and will be able to transfer these to your own business situation.

• Risk management and Controlling: Legal foundations, objectives, functions, responsibilities and instruments
• Identifying, measuring and assessing risk
• Organizational aspects: Psychological pitfalls, risk principles, IT connection
• Strategies for minimizing, avoiding and managing risk
• Risk Controlling and strategic business management: Making decisions when there is uncertainty, risk KPIs, internal control system and risk management, from scenario analysis to planning in distribution ranges, and credit covenants
• Assessment of planning and cash flow risks (Excel)

In this seminar you will gain comprehensive insight into Purchasing Controlling. This comprises both measuring purchasing performance, and planning and managing purchasing activities. The objective of this seminar is to enable you to critically interrogate and develop the status quo in terms of Purchasing Controlling in your company, as well as adapting and applying strategic and operational instruments to use in Purchasing Controlling. Experts from Controlling and Purchasing will look at both the Purchasing and Controlling perspectives of the problems. The qualifications conveyed in this seminar are derived on the basis of the Horváth & Partners Talent Index in Purchasing, and represent the future requirements for Purchasing Controllers.

• Fundamentals of Purchasing Controlling: Purchasing as a lever for profit, measuring success, benchmarks, and KPIs
• Strategic Purchasing Controlling: Quantifying, implementing and measuring the Purchasing strategy, and portfolio management in Purchasing
• Operational Purchasing Controlling: The use of KPIs, Purchasing planning, and make-or-buy decisions
• Supplier management and special topics: Risk management and early cost influencing (including total cost of ownership, value analysis, and design to cost)
• Reporting
• Organization of Purchasing Controlling