Hard Skills Training

Our management training focuses on "hard skills training" - those skills associated with achieving sustainable competitive advantage through: differentiation, market selection and segmentation, branding, investment etc.

Executive Perspective

Our Executive Perspective programme is a comprehensive approach to hard skills training and is divided into 3 modules. Our approach is unique, combining value management, marketing variables such as brand and new insights into the development of strategy.

The marketing perspective

The aim of the marketing perspective modules is NOT to turn all managers into marketing managers; it is to give them a better understanding of why people buy (rarely because of the product or service alone), how firms can achieve competitive advantage and, most importantly, how they can contribute to the marketing effort. If you do not understand why customers buy (or don't buy) from you, then any decisions that you make will be flawed.

With marketing understanding, managers will be better able to make decisions within their own departments, setting each decision within the context of meeting customers' needs within a competitive environment. [see our notes on the marketing concept]

• market analysis

• segmentation

• the marketing mix - 7Ps

• product (including branding)
• place (channels)
• promotion
• price
• physical environment
• people
• processes (including IT)

• customers / prospects - attitudes, beliefs, feelings

• competitors

• suppliers

For more information see our marketing pages

The financial perspective

The second part of our hard skills training looks at finance. Many managers ask - why do I need to understand a balance sheet, how will that help me to do my job better? We empathise with this view. Many profitable companies are actually declining in value; conventional financial analysis looks backward, not forward.

Therefore our modules aim to provide managers with the financial perspective and essential tools they need to make better decisions in the future. Through cashflow analysis and value management we help managers to understand the true drivers of financial performance in the business and help them to identify the activities that create and destroy value.

• critical importance of cashflow

• financial analysis

• profitability
• financial status
• resource allocation
• financial management

• value management

• understanding financial statements - P&L, Balance Sheet etc

• project finance

• payback period
• discounted cashflow and IRR
• discounted payback
• risk analysis
• accounting versus economic profits

• business planning, budgeting, forecasting

For more information on our approach to finance, see our financial overview.

The strategic perspective

The strategic aspect of our hard skills training build upon the knowledge and techniques covered in the preceding modules. Managers will gain a strong strategic perspective that will enable them to make make sense of the competitive environment and so make decisions that achieve sustainable success.

• mission, values and vision

• establishing the current position

• generating alternatives

• evaluating alternatives and formulating strategy

• performance drivers and implementation

Within these stages we cover analsysis of the macro-environment (PESTLE), competitive analysis, strategic options (with particular emphasis on differentiation) and so on. Our emphasis is always on pragmatism - strategy can be an esoteric subject. We focus on the nitty-gritty - how do we achieve sustainable competitive advantage and so sustainable success.

For more detail on the topics covered in this module, please visit our Approach to strategy page.

As with all HappyAtom training courses, the emphasis is on practical skills, hard skills, not abstract theory.