BCS Certificate in Commercial Awareness

The period of self-governing organisations with monopoly position with their product or service is fading. The organisations are into the more competitive environment with perfect competition. To be successful, they need to collaborate with suppliers, competitors and outsourcing partners along internal efficiency. For the successful operation of the business in the current environment, they are forced to change their organisational behaviour and use techniques to evaluate organisational performance. For the Business Analysts to be efficient in contribution, the knowledge of all impact factors of an organisation is required. The BCS Certificate in Commercial Awareness course covers Business Finance and Organisational Behaviour aspects that relate to fiscal as well as behavioural skills. At MSP Training, there is assurance that the delegates will improve upon their skills related to organisational behaviour as well as the decision-making regarding legal matters.

The course BCS Certificate in Commercial Awareness is divided into two parts. One part covers Business Finance and other part focuses on Organisational Behaviour. Business Finance covers finance related skills required by IT Decision Makers, the latter i.e.  Organisational Behaviour covers Business Analysis Techniques (BAT) and Organisational Behaviour (OB). We, at MSP Training, ensure that the delegates get the training from those trainers who are certified and expert.

Examination

The candidates can sit for the exam only after attending the Commercial Awareness course. This closed book exam lasts for one hour and has multiple choice questions. The candidates sitting for the exam are required to correct 65% questions to pass the examination. BCS allows the use of simple calculators while no mobile devices are not allowed during the exam.

Candidates must carry identification of some kind. The ID proof can be in the form of a driving license, a passport or even a student id card. After the exam, the result of the candidates will be emailed to them by BCS. The candidates can then view their result from their accounts. Candidates who are specially abled have to take permission for extra 15 minutes from BCS in advance before the examination. 

Module 1 – Business Finance Fundamentals                       

• Assessing a Monetary Situation
• Why Create a Monetary Incident?
• Techniques used for evaluating a Financial Incident
  • Payback – Calculation, Risk and Limitations
• An overview of IRR
  • Define Decision Rule of Internal Rate of Return
  • Deriving and Using IRR (Internal Rate of Return)
• Discounted Cash Flow
  • Purpose, Calculation and The Decision Rule of Net Present Value
• An overview of Budgeting, Costing and Pricing
• Define Cash Flow and Cash Management
  • Forecasting Cashflow
  • Cash flow in making decisions
  • Define profit and Cashflow
• Define Budgets and Departmentalised Businesses
  • Describe purpose of budgets
  • What are reasons for departmentalisation?
  • Define Cost centres and profit centres
• Costing and Pricing
  • Fixed and Variable costs
  • Direct and indirect costs
  • An overview of Contribution Analysis and Break-Even analysis
• An introduction to Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet)
  • Purpose and Structure
  • The nature, purpose and types of Capital
  • Current and non-current liabilities
• An introduction to Income and Expenditure
  • What are Operating Profit and its importance?
  • Define Revenue (turnover)
  • What is the Cost of Sales?
  • Define Administrative Expenses
  • What is Profit after Tax?
• Statement of Cash Flows (Cash Flow Statement)
• What are Ratios?
• Types of Ratios
  • Profitability Ratios
    • Operating Margin Ratio
    • Return on Capital Employed ratios
  • Liquidity Ratios
    • Current ratios
    • Acid Test ratios
  • Gearing (Leverage) Ratio
    • Debt/Equity Ratio

Module 2 – Organisational Behaviour Summary

• An Overview of Market analysis and competitive advantage
  • Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
  • Analysing the portfolio - Boston Box
  • Delivering value - Porter’s Value Chain
• Organisational behaviour and culture
  • What is organisational behaviour?
  • Organisational effectiveness and the Balanced Scorecard
  • Understanding and analysing culture
    • Organisational Cultural Types (Deal and Kennedy; Handy)
    • International Cultures (Hofstede)
    • The Cultural Web
• Group formation
  • Groups and group dynamics
  • Formal and informal groups
    • Groups and group tasks
    • Characteristics of formal groups
    • Homan’s theory of group formation
    • Tuckman and Jensen’s theory of group development
    • Characteristics of informal groups
    • Social networks
• Principles of organisational structure
  • Organisation structuring
    • Elements of organisation structure
    • The six Structure Levels
    • The Leavitt Diamond
  • Types of jobs
    • Work specialisation
    • Flat and tall hierarchies
    • Span of control
  • Line, staff and functional relationships
  • Formalisation of rules and procedures
  • Centralisation v decentralisation
    • Advantages
    • Disadvantages
• Operating models
  • Organisation structures and their characteristics
    • Functional
    • Divisional – product or service/ geography/ customer
    • Matrix
    • Team-based – cross-functional/ project
  • Organisational boundaries
    • Boundaryless organisations
    • Outsourcing
    • Offshoring
    • Hollow organisation structures
    • Modular organisation structures
    • Virtual Organisations
    • Collaborations and strategic alliances