BCS Certificate in Commercial Awareness

Key areas include: 

• Financial reporting

• Budgeting, costing and pricing

• Evaluating a financial case

• Organisational behaviour and culture

• Organisational structure and operating models

The course uses a mixture of discussions and group and individual exercises to explore the topic areas and, at the end of each section, test questions help participants prepare for the BCS examination. A comprehensive course manual is provided.

Financial reporting

•  The balance sheet

•  The income and expenditure statement (profit and loss account)

•  The cash flow statement

•  Financial ratio analysis

Budgeting, costing and pricing

•  Budgets and departmental businesses

•  Cash flow and cash management

•  Costing and pricing

Evaluating a financial case

• The purpose of building a financial case

•  Techniques for evaluating a financial case:

•  Payback / breakeven

•  Discounted cash flow / net present value (DCF/NPV)

•  Internal rate of return (IRR)

Market analysis and competitive advantage

•  Analysing the business domain

•  Analysing the product / service portfolio

•  Delivering business value

Organisational behaviour and culture

•  What is organisational behaviour?

•  Organisational effectiveness and the balanced business scorecard

•  Understanding and analysing culture

Working in groups

•  Groups and group dynamics

•  Formal and informal groups

Organisational structure

•  Organisation structuring

•  Types of jobs

•  Line, staff and functional responsibilities

•  Formalisation of rules and procedures

•  Centralisation and decentralisation

Operating models

•  Organisation structures and their characteristics

•  Organisational boundaries

BCS certificates

The course prepares participants to sit the one-hour, multiple-choice examination leading certificate in Commercial Awareness offered by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. This certificate is a knowledge-based specialist module in the BCS Diploma in Business Analysis.