Probably one of the most difficult challenges professionals face in making decisions is estimating and projecting future events. This difficulty is usually dealt with, unfortunately, by excessively depending on professional judgement and educated guessing. Though judgement and experience play a significant role in building proper forecasting, there are certain tools and techniques that help professionals in this daunting task. This course focuses on these tools and puts them into practice utilizing MS Excel.
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
Apply different forecasting techniques that will help in making financial and business decisions
Utilize Microsoft Excel to build forecasting models effectively
Explain the different macro and micro assumptions affecting financial and business forecasts
Build models for forecasting income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements and their components
Differentiate between various forecasting models and approaches and assist senior management in understanding their impact
Content
Forecasting models
Qualitative models
Market research approach
Delphi method technique
Quantitative models
The indicator approach
Causal models
Econometric models
Regression analysis: simple and multiple
Correlation coefficient and coefficient of determination
Time series methods
Simple average
Moving average
Exponential smoothing
Expected value
Decomposition forecasting
Auto regressive integrated moving average
Box-Jenkins forecasting
Types of forecasting
Micro and macro factors
Forecasting sales
Estimating market demand
Estimating company demand
Developing sales forecast
Forecasting cost of sales
Forecasting operating expenses
Forecasting key assets and liabilities accounts
Modeling the income statement forecast
Modeling the balance sheet forecast
Building forecasting models
The units, quantity and activity levels
The price and cost per unit of activity
Pricing strategies
Cost plus pricing
Pricing: business objectives
Pricing: return on investment
Expansionistic pricing
Price skimming
Variable cost pricing
Breakeven pricing
Cash flow forecasting
Using published cash flow statements
Understanding and analyzing cash flow statements
Forecasting free cash flows
Working with uncertainty and risk
Scenario forecasting and analysis
Judgmental forecasting
Probability and risk
Course Target
Financial controllers, analysts, finance and accounting managers, supervisors, and finance professionals who need to create, interpret and maintain forecasts in their organizations.
