Join John Stretch, A Global Authority on Rolling Forecasts & Expert Author of 4 Books!

John Stretch
John Stretch has over 30 years of experience working with companies on their financial planning and reporting systems. He is a past visiting lecturer and program director at the Graduate School of Business at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and is a current faculty member of the Duke University Executive Education program. He is a Chartered Accountant (CASA) with a Master's degree in Financial Modelling (M Com).
Client List:
Barclays | Volkswagen | Woolworths | First National Bank | Imperial Logistics | Pick 'n Pay
Petro SA | Cape Span | Engen Petroleum | Goldfields of South Africa | Anglo American
Author Of:

Testimonials:
“It was a pleasure attending your well-planned and captivating training sessions”
Geoffrey Ndalama, Reserve Bank of Malawi
“Excellent, my expectations were well met. Best lecturer I have ever come across.”
Peter Neubert, General Manager, Food and Allied Group, Mauritius
“It was an exceptional experience. Greetings to you all”
Joseph Ifeonyemetalu, Project Accountant, Nexus Alliance Limited Nigeria
“Your training was very useful. I am applying most of the stuff we discussed. We are going to have a strategic review meeting from 3rd to 5th September and I have been given a slot to discuss Finance Aspects of the Balanced Score card model. I will also be discussing the need to have accurate forecasts and introduce the aspect of Rolling Forecasts for branch managers.”
William Simfukwe FCCA FZIC, Finance and Administration Manager, Professional Insurance Corporation Zambia Plc
“Nice to meet you again. It was very fruitful session this week. We learnt a lot from you.”
Mussa A. Juma, Financial Director , Peoples Bank of Zanzibar , Zanzibar, Tanzania.
“I would like to thank you for the most informative financial course presented by you. The past two days has changed my mind about financials .You have broken a barrier in me in the manner of your presentation which has helped me to look at my division with a different mindset. ”
Managing Director, Masakhe Logistics
“It was an honour & a pleasure to have been able to share some of the incredible knowledge you have. There are very few people who have the required skills to help people walk away from a course, feeling a whole lot more confident & better skilled to do a better job. I really enjoyed the many true case studies & stories about the companies & individuals in the business world.”
Credit Portfolio Manager (Agriculture & Business) - First National Bank Commercial Credit, Kwazulu Natal, RSA
"John thank you for pointing us on to the road to strategic budgeting and planning at UNISA, we have come a long way with your help and guidance. Top qualities: Great results, expert, high integrity.”
Budget and Planning Director - University of South Africa
Why you cannot miss this event!
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Rolling forecasts offer greater visibility into the future. Unlike budgets, they reflect the fact that operations don’t switch off at year-end.
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A continuous view of the likely business future enables better operational decision making, greater commitment to realistic targets, and improved profit performance.
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This course will explain how to combine your annual budget with a continuous forecasting process and still keep control of costs and revenues.
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It will address practical techniques for forecasting, and show how to improve forecast reliability.
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With many practical examples drawn from large organisations, it will illustrate how managers should use forecast information for improved, agile decision making.
What will you learn by the end of the course:
Go beyond the traditional budget process and discover how to:
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Master the key steps for moving from traditional budgeting to rolling forecasts for achieving the financial goals of your organisation.
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Align your rolling forecast to your strategic plan in order to effectively meet your long-term goals.
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Apply leading edge techniques to develop powerful rolling budgets and forecasts.
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Effectively link your rolling budgets with individual employee performance to successfully drive your organisation’s overall business strategy.
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Integrate your organisation’s financial reporting systems with your rolling budget and forecast process.
Program Agenda
Day 1 - Using Rolling Forecasts to Translate Strategy into Action
Session 1: Why Change from Traditional Budgeting to a Rolling Forecast?
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Why annual budgets don’t work anymore
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But we already do forecasts
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The Board still wants a target
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The changing role of the CFO
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Features of 21st century management systems
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Identifying your reasons for changing to a rolling forecast
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Symptoms of budget failure
Case Study: Electrolux
Session 2: Forecasting 101
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What is a rolling forecast and how is it different from a budget?
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Understanding the cone of uncertainty
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The nitty gritty of preparing a forecast
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The rolling forecast process
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Matching forecast and actual information
Session 3: Motivating the Change to Rolling Forecasts
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Forecasting vs budgeting
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Auditing the effectiveness of your budget system
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The advantages of rolling forecasts
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Preparing the case for change
Case Study: The Microsoft rolling forecast process
Session 4: Working with Rolling Forecasts in Management Meetings
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Using rolling forecasts for management control
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The contents and layout of rolling forecast reports
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How the managing director should discuss rolling forecasts in management meetings
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Impact on incentive compensation
Case Study: American Express
Session 5: Designing the Rolling Forecast Process
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The 7 key decisions
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Identifying the constituency for rolling forecasts
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Providers of information
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Who owns the view of the future?
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Users of the information
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Identifying and understanding the drivers that are specific to your organization and processes
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Building the pilot model
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Use of IT in Rolling Forecasts
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Choosing the software
Case Study: American Express
Session 6: Forecasting, Model building and Excel
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Basic stats – how useful in practice?
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The Excel forecasting functions
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Time series forecasting in Excel
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The Excel Regression function and its applications in forecasting
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Monte Carlo simulation
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Goal seeking and what-if analysis
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Building a forecast model
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Sales and revenue planning
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Headcount planning
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Expense planning
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Asset and liability (balance sheet) forecasting
Case Study: National Grocery Retailers
Day 2 - Integrating Rolling Forecasts As Part of A Total Management System
Session 7: Strategic Planning as the Foundation of Budgets & Forecasts
Session 7.1: Strategic Planning Essentials
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From strategic plans to business plans
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Corporate strategy and business unit strategy
Case Study: Taste Holdings
Session 7.2: External Analysis
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Customers and markets
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Competitor and industry analysis
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The socio political environment
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Key success factors
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Identifying strategic risk
Session 7.3: Internal Analysis
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SWOT analysis
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Tangible assets and Intellectual capital
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Culture
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Reviewing financial performance
Case Study: The Super Group
Session 7.4: Developing and Implementing Strategy in your Organisation
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Linking your strategy with vision and mission
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Goal setting
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Corporate strategy and Business unit strategy
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Using rolling forecasts to implement strategy
Session 8: World Class Budgeting
Session 8.1: Budgeting: The Board Wants a Target
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Relating growth goals and rolling forecasts to the Board’s master budget
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The role of the budget committee
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Approving the annual budget base target
Session 8.2: Budgeting and Forecasting: Organisation and Processes
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The right person in charge
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Give managers forecasting assumptions and historical data
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Design working papers
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Top class accounting systems
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The fast close
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Build the right organisation structure
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Choose your responsibility centres
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Internal control and corporate governance
Case Study: Empire Glass Works
Session 8.3: Use the Right Techniques
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Fixed and flexible budgets
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Unit budgeting
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Program budgeting
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Activity based budgeting
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Zero based budgeting
Session 9: Performance Measurement, Scorecards and Dashboards
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Performance management and the rolling forecast
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Why should performance management and forecasts be more closely linked?
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The balanced scorecard
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The 5 quadrants in the scorecard
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Designing a performance dashboard
Case Study: Acme Refrigerated Transport - Performance measurement system for a logistics business
Session 10: World Class Reporting and analytics
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Converting data to decisions with control reports
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Report layouts and new techniques
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Ideas for creative reporting
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Analytical techniques for reviewing financial results and forecasts
Session 11: The “Beyond budgeting” movement
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Towards a new management control model
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Beyond budgeting principles and practice
Case Study: Svenska Handelsbanken
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You may wish to consider having an in-house course delivered locally on-site if you have a number of participants with similar training needs. This course can be customised to fit specific requirements. For more information about IHT kindly send your enquiries to
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