Can non accountants really be taught how financial management works in just a few weeks? What’s more, can it actually be made fun? Gina Dyer earns her wings with CIMA’s Business Flight Simulation Certificate, a new interactive course which claims to do just that.
Nowadays it seems everyone is an accountant, with financial management (or perhaps the lack of it) at the top of news and boardroom agendas. The credit crunch has shown the pitfalls of bad economic planning and the scramble is on for everyone to get up to speed with the financial aspects of their business. Many non-accountants have trouble understanding the interconnections between different parts of the financial management process. With time and cash in short supply, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants has come up with a novel way of helping non-financial senior executives get to grips with the mechanisms of financial cause and effect.
Calling it a Business Flight Simulation Certificate might seem like spin, but the course does exactly what it says on the tin. In the same way that pilots are taught techniques in a computerised flight simulation, the course developed in collaboration with Metapraxis and the British Computer Society (BCS) allows users to users run their own virtual business in a risk-free setting. They are then able to try out financial management methods without putting their own necks on the line.
The course material is accessed over the internet and delivered in-house by accredited trainers in two different models: the standard Top Team Seminar takes place in a single three hour session at a specified location; or customised Senior Executive Workshops are arranged at the company's premises in three three-hour sessions that take place over two months or so, with case study materials tailored to the business.
The Top Team seminar is structured around two sessions. The first period is entitled ‘A Dream of Future Wealth’ and covers key concepts surrounding the flow of cash and value around the business,. It covers the workings of the profit and loss account, balance sheet and cash flow and their crucial inter-relationships. Once users have mastered, the basics, they move onto a second session called ‘The Hidden Art of Management’, which introduces key business decisions such as pricing, advertising, quality improvements and other real-world issues. Users are encouraged to experiment with these factors and learn how to find what the tutors call a ‘sweet spot’ - or a perfect balance - that maximises bottom line success.
The sessions are set up like a game: users control the flow of cash and value around their businesses by moving dials up and down on a giant flow chart. The chart takes on a life of its own, showing how the users’ actions feed down the line to affect other parts of the business. For example, if you crank the stock volumes up (indicating that you’ve purchased a lot of goods at once), your bank account drains, and you have to crank up the sales dial to show that you’re shifting the products, before the bank account will go back into the black.
Like a video game, there are different levels that users must navigate before reaching the final round where all the elements interconnect. The basic set up is simple to master and gets users thinking about the whole process, with a test at the end of each round to help you track your progress. At the end of the course, learners have the opportunity to play against their classmates, with the businesses going head to head to try and create the best financial outcome: not just securing the most profits, but also managing those profits effectively.
This all sounds good so far, but can a standardised model really apply to businesses that work within different parameters. The good news here is that customised business models can be built into the system to make it as similar as possible to how your business works. Simulations are available for a variety of business models including retail, manufacturing, banking, insurance, property and other business sectors.
Overall, the Business Flight Simulation presents a much more visual and intuitive way of looking at what less numerate colleagues might view as dull digits and tables, without patronising learners or oversimplifying the issues at stake. Just like learning to tell the time as a child, no amount of explaining on anyone else’s part will make these paradigms any clearer: it’s just something you have to master alone by actively doing it. And this course provides users with the tools to do just that.
