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This five-day module is a highly intensive introduction to finance and financial techniques with the objective of providing sufficient understanding of finance and financial analysis to enable good financial decision making within a business environment. It will help you effectively manage projects and businesses within the capital-intensive ICT industry.

It also includes key business environmental issues relevant to the ICT industry such as regulation, legal considerations and the economics of telecommunications infrastructure.

Syllabus covers:

Financial accounting and management accounting

• The primary financial statements consisting of the balance sheet, profit and loss account, cash flow statement and how to read them
• Depreciation, ebitda, profit, cash flow, working capital, gearing, cost of capital, share price dynamics and dividend policy. Valuation of companies
• Management accounting - the application of management accounting to the business so that you can apply the principles to your own company circumstances
• Corporate finance - understanding the different sources of finance to businesses and the importance of gearing and financial risk in structuring the company balance sheet

Business cases

The key aspects of a business case will be introduced, covering its role in corporate governance, the essential content, the financial case and supporting evidence. You'll be able to create your own credible and plausible business cases for capital and current account projects, including the use of discounted cash flow (DCF) techniques, evaluating the cost of capital and deciding on financing options. You'll be able to analyse the regulatory and legal risks and plan to mitigate them.

Infrastructure economics

This will look at the cost dynamics of a telecommunications infrastructure, covering access and core – fundamental to all networks (including railways, airlines, electricity supply, etc.), fixed and variable cost, effect of volume on unit cost, cost and revenue apportionment, and long-run costs. In particular, the lectures will examine how the network size, structure and choice of technology, together with the systems support infrastructure, impact on the financial performance of a network operator. You'll understand the particular relevance of this to the development of next generation networks (NGN) and the provision of new-wave services.

The regulatory and legal scene

The UK, European and worldwide legal and regulatory frameworks will be presented, showing the regulatory drivers and constraints involved in managing Telco operators and service providers. The principles of why industries are regulated and what the aims of regulators are is also covered

Learning outcomes:

On completion of this course, you should be able to understand:

• financial statements and how to read them, as well as the principles of depreciation, ebitda, profit, cash flow, working capital, gearing, cost of capital, share price dynamics and dividend policy
• the concept of convergence in the ICT marketplace and be able to identify the opportunities and threats created for new and existing players
• the drivers and constraints involved in regulating businesses and have gained an appreciation of the legal principles involved
• how to construct business cases and their importance in supporting decision making in a corporate environment
• the cost dynamics of a telecommunications network and support-systems infrastructure, in terms of the effects of volume, quality of service, range of services supported, resilience, etc.
• the key business drivers for next-generation networks (NGN) and the components of the supporting business case