Course Outline

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"Accountants seem to imagine that a pile of money will grow if only you count it often enough. The point is simple: if you want to know what your future cash flow will look like, investigate where it comes from - the market. A farmer whose livelihood depends on a river flowing through his land will be concerned with the upstream situation, especially if the river could be diverted to a neighbour's property. Yet this is exactly where many boards give too little attention. Our research shows that companies that look to the sources of cash flow - those that think about the market - are more profitable."

Tim Ambler

Managing for Growth and Value

“Without customers a company’s value isn’t even worth discussing.”
Peppers & Rogers - Managing Customer Relationships: a Strategic Framework

Managers need a broad perspective if they are to compete successfully and grow the value of the business in real, rather than accounting, terms. At HappyAtom we try to get behind the numbers and uncover their real meaning. The HappyAtom's approach focuses on: value management - the traditional financial statements and ratios were fine during the “industrial age”; nowadays they can give a very misleading picture.

We place customers and the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) at the centre. By focusing on revenues and the costs of acquisition, retention and service we cut straight to the heart of the matter. With customer satisfaction as a key driver of loyalty we explore the relationship between shareholder value and, for example, answering the phone in under three rings.

Please contact us for more information on any of HappyAtom's courses.

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Intangibles, which are normally invisible on day-to-day financial reports, exert the greatest influence on the shareholder value. For instance, on average, 75% of the value of a company does not appear on the balance sheet. The real value in a company lies not in its balance sheet assets but in the skills of its people, its accumulated R&D knowledge, relationships, brand, systems.

Most financial measures are based on historical data and are therefore a crude indicator of future performance. In addition, they track “symptoms” not “causes”. To illustrate: a reduction in profit margin tells you that you are making less on each sale but it does not tell you why. However, analysing “performance drivers” – for example, how many visits made by a salesman – will point towards “causes”. This is the approach of the “Balanced Scorecard” and this “balanced” perspective is a recurring theme of our courses.