"Business acumen covered in six hours was more effective than what I recently took at (a large Texas University) for two days."

Zone Manager of an Automotive component aftermarket company

"By asking: what is business acumen? Prompted me to think about what I can do to help my company's sales cash flow. Think from my customer's perspective what they are prioritizing."

Account Manager with a global chemical company

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Business Acumen for Managers / Supervisors / Team Leaders

Can Your Managers / Supervisors / Team Leaders Manage their Teams in a Cost Effective Manner?

Objectives:

Provide financial knowledge and skills to supervisors, managers and directors to manage their "team" to provide the best in class service to external and internal customers in a cost effective manner.

Equip supervisors, managers, and directors with tools to analyze team processes and procedures to: reduce time to process, reduce manpower to process, eliminate / combine processes or, enhance value-added content of the process while maintaining best in class customer service.

Business Acumen Training / Management Skills 101


What is Business Acumen? It is defined as "keenness and depth of perception especially in practical matters." A ton of training is focused on leaders; but what about the basic skills of how to manage, profitably, a team of employees? This course is designed to apply business acumen to the day-to-day operation of the team by developing:

  1. An understanding of financial metrics and tools that gauge the cost effectiveness of the team
  2. Skills to staff a team to include hours, coverage, training and closely calibrate the cost-service ratio
  3. Efficient use of supplies, ordering sequences, inventories, and "leakage" control
  4. Decision making skills that use a business case format that applies the cost-value model
  5. Skills to analyze processes and procedures and use cost-based decision making criteria to identify alternatives, potential unintended consequences, while maintaining best in class customer service and support
  6. Empowered team members who participate in the analysis, craft alternatives and fully support implementation of the selected alternative solution
  7. Balance between the emotions of great customer service and the reality of the cost structure
  8. Skills to overcome resistance of team members to change

The target audience for business acumen skill development training are those close to the action. Where their decisions aggregated significantly impact the financial success of the organization: supervisors and managers with technical backgrounds that were promoted from within, sales people, customer service team members, program and project managers, engineers, estimators, team leaders, and any one else who does not have a financial background yet their decisions directly affect the financial health of the organization. Our effort here is to take business acumen skills, that many see as a complex issue, and break in down into a logical flow of measurements that can be applied to successfully managing a team to met the financial goals of the organization. Then, use the resources of the team to analyze, dissect, and review the processes and procedures used by the team to add value to the organization. These processes and procedures, when established, were direct, lean, and met the needs of the organization. In many cases over time the processes and procedures are expanded, complicated, or altered all in an effort to improve. This business acumen workshop will provide tools to review the processes and procedures that enable managers and supervisors to steer them back on course and within a financial model that will identify the hard dollar, measurable cost savings.

Methods:

  • Instructor lead on-line training
  • One-on-one coaching
  • National / annual Associate meeting topics with break out sessions
  • Classroom instruction emphasizing technique practice with role-plays and case studies