A key leadership competency, often missing in leaders, managers and finance professionals
, is business acumen.
Acumen is defined in the dictionary as “quickness, accuracy and keenness of judgement
or insight” and derives from Latin “acute” meaning to sharpen. Acumen is a key skill
required in all business decision making. It requires understanding of how a business
works and how it makes money ie the business model.
2 combinations are key to this:
- Business literacy - strategies, behaviours and actions and their associated relationships
on the impact of the business
- Financial literacy - an ability to understand the underlying numbers and measures
in the business.
Used together, there is an understanding beyond the theoretical financial numbers
and an ability to interpret what’s really happening in the business and what decisions
to be made as a result of this. This is the ability to ‘synthesise’ as well as ‘analyse’.
Indigo offers a fresh approach to the key skill of business acumen. Our consultants
are financially trained, have a broad range of industry experience and have often
worked as Finance Directors. Our team have been chosen for their excellence in communication,
engagement and practical finance business partnering experience.
The bespoke programme process, entails interviews and meetings with your business
stakeholders, financial and non-financial, to understand your business model. This
is then developed into a ‘case study’ or ‘business simulation’ unique to your business,
which is built into a training programme with follow up learning sets. See also our
Commercial Awareness programmes.
Please see Our Approach and Indigo Story for further information on our unique service,
or contact us for more detail.
