Do you want to create more of a data-driven culture within your organisation? Using facts, analysis, and metrics to drive strategic decisions within an organisation is associated with higher profits, stronger performance, and business longevity. But often this involves better communication, cultural change, and much stronger data analysis skills throughout the company.

Help your organisation to become more data driven by improving your analysis skills, learning new reporting techniques, and sharing key data to support business decision making. Grow your knowledge and confidence to turn financial insights into positive action.

Improve the financial performance of your organisation

You’ll learn the various approaches that can be used to improve the financial performance of your organisation. The tools and techniques you will employ in this course can be used to justify recommendations for improving financial performance based on the business’ specific requirements and situation.

Put data-driven decision making at the heart of your business

So, you have the data and the analysis needed to drive better business performance - now the hard part is sharing it and turning it into strong strategic decisions. You’ll learn how to articulate key data and processes required to support business decision making to make your organisation stronger as a whole.

Syllabus

Week 1
Introduction to the course and financial performance
- Welcome to the course
  Introduction and welcome to the course.
- Levers to improve financial performance
  In this activity, we’ll cover the main cost control levels that drive financial performance, specifically value drivers and cash flow management.
- Week 1 wrap up
  Summary of this week's activities.
Week 2
Improving financial performance
- Welcome to Week 2
  Introduction to Week 2
- Data-driven performance decisions
  In this activity, we’ll cover the key metrics to track business performance, best practices for presenting metrics, and how to use a decision tree.
- Delivering actionable value
  In this activity, we’ll present an overview of the insight generation process and explain how to manage it. We’ll also discuss how to build a data-driven culture and the fundamentals of actionable insights.
- Week 2 Wrap-up
  Summary of this week's activities.
Week 3
Business decision making: Part 1
- Welcome to Week 3
  Introduction to Week 3
- Introduction to data analytics and data-driven decision making
  You will be introduced to data analytics and its importance for data-driven decision making. You will also explore the skills needed for an organisation to make data-driven financial decisions.
- Week 3 Wrap-up
  To complete the week, let’s recap the key points.
Week 4
Business decision making: Part 2
- Introduction
  Introduction to Week 4: Business decision making. Familiarise yourself with the week’s topics and listen to this week’s case study.
- Types of data
  You will learn how to define data, identify various sources of data, and discuss some of the challenges of working with data for businesses and organisations.
- Data-driven decision making
  You will learn why we make decisions with data, the types and value of business analytics, roles and responsibilities in data-driven organisations and creating a culture that values data-driven decision making
- Week 4 Wrap-up
  To complete the week, let’s recap the key points.

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Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

Explain the various approaches which can be utilised to improve financial performance of an organisation
Justify recommendations for improving financial performance based on the situation of the business
Articulate key data and processes required to support business decision making

Who is the course for?

This course is designed to support learners who need to engage with large volumes of financial data. This includes entry-level finance or accounting professionals who would like to progress to higher-skill positions, and current finance professionals. It would also be useful for new managers and leaders, as well as business workers and entrepreneurs.

What software or tools do you need?

During this course we’ll be using Excel. If you don’t have Excel, you might find this online version useful.

We recommend you use a computer to access this course.

Who will you learn with?

Alysha Randall (CPA)

Commercially focused Finance Director / CFO with experience working with fast growth online SMEs in different sectors, including two successful exits (Amazon acquisition & Funding Circle’s IPO)

Who developed the course?

FutureLearn

FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform and has been providing high quality online courses for learners around the world over the last ten years.

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About this ExpertTrack

Discover how sound financial analysis and the employment of cutting-edge technologies can transform business performance.

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