Business acumen for local government

Business acumen is a key management skill that enables managers in local government to improve community outcomes. On completion of this workshop you'll be able to leverage the strengths and opportunities faced by your council to improve both service delivery and value for money. This workshop will provide the tools to think outside the box and identify changes that are both practical and workable. You'll be in a position to make better business decisions based on sound business analysis and management skills. As you work through this workshop you'll be able to put together your own action plan to improve value to the community, using business acumen principles.

What our participants say:

'Enjoyed flexibility of course. Kevin adapted his approach to answer specific requirements/ questions of the group' - Craig Pritchard, NZCCM Manager, Auckland Council.

Objectives:

After completing this workshop you will be able to:

Understand local government business activities and context: What services should local authorities provide? How should they provide them? Under what business model? What is the role of council? Segmenting and differentiating services; establishing core competencies
Improve value from a resident's perspective: The need for trade offs: needs vs wants, public good vs private good, achieving key social outcomes; opportunity costs; balancing quality and quantity of services against costs; trading off environmental issues and costs; seeking out realistic and achievable initiatives; social trends; the importance of public perception
Determine who should pay for services? How should they pay? Over what timeframe? General rates, targeted rates, user pays, grants and subsidies; intergenerational equity; differential pricing
Identify efficient and effective methods of service delivery: lease vs buy; make vs buy; operate ourselves vs using contractors/ outsourcing; maintain equipment vs replacement option; public private partnerships; horizontal/ vertical integration
Create continuous improvement: Internal improvements; synergies from third parties; creative and innovative solutions
Manage costs and make financial decisions: Fixed and variable costs; entry and exit costs; the full cost of a decision; lifetime costs; business and financial drivers; economic drivers; cost benefit analysis; ROI; Payback, NPV, IRR
Mitigate risk: manage gross risk to net risk; analyse options; avoid cost blow outs
Establish performance measures to drive value for money and improved service delivery
Align management actions with council and community values, business models and priorities

Our training programmes:

Introduce practical tools and techniques to improve organisational performance
Build business acumen and commercial orientation competencies
Develop critical thinking and evaluation skills
Cater for all learning styles and use accelerated learning techniques
Engage participants in business cases and examples

Participant feedback from 'Business acumen for local government'