Past Clients

• PTTEP, Thailand
• Guiness Anchor Berhad
• Mars
• The Bank of Nova Scotia
• PT Bank OCBC NISP TBK, Indonesia
• Maybank Investment Bank
• Malayan Banking Berhad
• CIMB Investment Bank
• Bank Negara Malaysia
• Pos Malaysia Berhad
• Tenaga Nasional Berhad
• Publicis Re:sources
• TAIB Bank, Brunei
• CIMB Niaga
• Oman Oil Refineries
• UAE Oil & Gas Company
• UK Logistics Organizations
• Bintulu Port Holdings Berhad, Malaysia
• Kuwaiti Trading Group
• European Electronics/Technology Joint Venture Company
• Saudi Arabian Industrial Manufacturing Conglomerate
• Petronas Malaysia

Why You Should Attend:

• Control and manage ALL of your organisation’s costs
• Fully understand the actual and forecasted expenditure, and the underlying business causes of costs, by undertaking a comprehensive analysis using a variety of cost analysis techniques
• Enhance your cost control and cost management processes to reduce waste and improve the bottom line
• Identify different ways to calculate costs and how best to determine your company’s profitability and plan for future investments and expansion
• Provide cost information for use in corporate decision making and predict cost behaviour by estimating cost

Program Agenda

The course is structured into 4 half-day sessions, following a logical sequence. Each session will include a presentation, discussions, case study learning and spreadsheet hands-on exercises. Delegates should bring a laptop and have a basic familiarity with Microsoft Excel.

Day 1

SESSION 1 – Cost Control

Strategic cost management will NOT happen by accident – it will only be successfully achieved as an explicit component of overall business strategy. This ­first session is principally focused on the alignment of business strategy and cost management. A supporting theme is to review briefly the various budgetary techniques and to consider which are most suited to strategic cost management.

• Introduction to the course
• Cost management within the context of overall business strategy
• Linking cost control with the strategic balanced scorecard
• Establishing sensible cost control targets – within a strategic context
• Using a ­financial planning model to project future costs, evaluate options
• The role of budgeting in achieving meaningful cost control
• Which budgetary techniques are most relevant for effective cost management
• Managing and controlling costs as part of a specifi­c cost reduction/downsizing on a regular on-going basis

SESSION 2 – Cost Analysis

We cannot manage what we do not understand. This session focuses on the need for a proper understanding and analysis of costs and what causes (or “drives”) costs and cost-behaviour. The supporting technique of Activity Based Costing is explored with a special focus on a pragmatic approach of “simpli­ed ABC” rather than the over-complex and in­finitely time-consuming version of ABC. Key ­financial and business issues such as breakeven and ­fixed/variable cost structures are explored.

• Introduction – what we want to achieve from cost analysis
• Different cost analytical techniques: their benefi­ts, downsides and business uses

- Cost/volume/profi­t
- Breakeven analysis
- Product and customer relationship costing/pro­fitability
- Fixed/variable/mixed cost structures: achieving the optimum balance

• Understanding the impact of shifting the cost structure mix

- Direct and indirect costs – and how to control each
- Marginal costing and its practical application
- Standard costing: its uses and limitations
- Opportunity costs
- Sunk costs

• Activity Based Costing (ABC) and its effective employment in cost control

 - An 80/20 pragmatic solution to simplif­ed BC
 - Using Activity Value Analysis (AVA) as a proven technique to eliminate non-value activities and associates expenses.

Day 2

SESSION 3 – Capital And Project Costing & Control

In a rapidly changing world, much cost is directed to capital and project spending: the basic concepts of these disciplines are widely known but often poorly applied in practice – resulting in lack of cost discipline and much cost wastage. For many organisations, cost structure is built in at the design and project stage and we explore issues such as full-life cost and the underlying business strategies.

• Cost of capital and how to optimise the debt/equity mix
• Evaluating and controlling capital investment

- Option evaluation
- Sensitivity analysis
- The vital importance of an effective post-project audit discipline

• Building in lean-cost at the outset
• Project management/cost control disciplines

- Evaluating and controlling projected future costs
- Project monitoring
- Job costing – considering each job as a project

• The cost/quality challenge: achieving the right balance

SESSION 4 – Necessary Business Management Disciplines

Organisations often need to establish specifi­c programmes for improved cost efficiency and sometimes, downsizing (unpopular but can be vital top business survival). We explore that management disciplines and practices necessary to support such cost management programmes, without which failure is almost inevitable. Behaviour and culture are essential but often overlooked components of a successful cost management regime.

• Case study examples of the wrong behaviour and what we learn from them
• Analysis and control of overhead and support costs

- How to achieve meaningful controls rather than endless unresolved debates

• Establishing explicit levels of accountability for costs at every level in the organisation
• Managing a specifi­c cost reduction/downsizing programme
• Communication of cost management strategy, targets and delivered performance
• A performance culture: carrots and sticks
• Leadership and sponsorship for realising cost control targets – without which little will be achieved

Who Should Attend?

This course is designed primarily for those Managers/Supervisors within the ­finance function who need to strengthen their cost control and management capabilities, including:

• Those responsible for budgeting, ­financial planning, financial control, credit management, accounting
• Any ­finance professional with an interest in controlling the cash‑flow for their organisation
• Non-Finance business managers who want to ensure that costs are successfully managed within their Business Units

     *******For more details, kindly download the brochure*******