Skillsoft announced a new solution created to help managers develop a chief financial officer (CFO) mindset in the management of their departments to ensure that their decision making is founded on solid financial considerations and aligned with the overall goals of the organisation. The new series, Thinking like a CFO, is offered through Skillsoft’s award-winning Business Skills Library.
Skillsoft, a pioneer in the field of learning with a long history of innovation, based the new series on the financial priorities and mindset of a CFO, including growing the top line, keeping fixed costs low and maintaining cash flow needed for paying bills and making funds available for new projects. The series also discusses how to make key organisational decisions involving financing, investments, and risk. Skillsoft provides cloud based learning solutions for its customers worldwide, ranging from global enterprises, government and education to mid-sized and small businesses.
“When departments are competing for more resources and budget, professionals need to make a strong business case and value proposition for their operations,” said Russ Howard, director, content programmes, Skillsoft. “Having a CFO mindset when running a department helps managers make decisions and business proposals that are more likely to win senior management’s support, as they’ll be based upon sound financial and operational analysis. This new series teaches professionals how to take a strategic view of financial decisions and activities in their organisations and introduces the vocabulary that CFOs speak and understand.”
To start thinking like a CFO, professionals need to understand what the role of a CFO is in an organisation and what is important to them. The first asset in the series, Thinking like a CFO: Mindset and Financial Priorities, introduces the key role, priorities and mind set of a CFO in maintaining profitability, controlling cost and managing cash flow in an organisation.
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The second asset is Thinking like a CFO: CFO Guide to Operations. This asset illustrates, through examples, how CFO mindset and strategies can be applied to common investment, inventory and financing decisions that managers are involved with. It presents guidelines for managers for creating budgets, and best practices that may contribute to reduced working capital needs. It also teaches how a request for incurring an incremental cost or making a buy or lease decision could be evaluated from a CFO perspective.
Asset three in the series is Thinking like a CFO: Developing and Presenting a Business Case and it discusses the process, best practices and key considerations that are important when developing a business case for purchases, projects and budgets. This asset introduces some of the common financial metrics (payback period, net present value and risk analysis) for supporting a business case from a CFO perspective.
The fourth asset is Thinking like a CFO: Risk Management and Compliance. This asset presents a CFO’s approach in identifying and managing risks associated with managerial decisions and day-to-day operations, and discusses how CFO thinking can help managers manage and comply with regulatory requirements and financial standards.
