Weekly online
Join interactive online teaching, with guided reading, practical activities and assessment work around the live sessions. Your written course plan confirms the timetable, learning hours and masterclass arrangements for this module.
Professional learning · Executive Leadership
Strategic Financial Management.
Evaluate financial choices with the confidence to question the assumptions.
Strategic choices become more credible when you can explain their financial consequences. This module helps you interpret organisational performance, evaluate budgets, compare funding options and appraise an investment proposal. You will connect calculations with management judgement: what the figures reveal, what they depend on and what they leave out. KBC’s proposed case follows an organisation considering a major change while managing everyday cash requirements. Through worked examples and decision discussions, you develop a financial recommendation that a non-specialist stakeholder can understand and a finance colleague can challenge. The focus is sound reasoning alongside accurate and transparent calculations.
Weekly route3 months
Live online2 hours a week
Module startsOctober · February · June
Learning structure1 module
The professional challenge
Make the next decision with more confidence.
A promising investment could improve capacity, but the organisation already faces pressure on cash and competing demands for funding. The headline return looks attractive. You must examine the underlying assumptions, assess affordability and risk, and recommend whether the proposal deserves investment compared with the alternatives available.
Who will benefit
For managers who contribute to budgets, business cases or investment decisions, and professionals preparing for wider strategic responsibility. It is relevant to finance and non-finance backgrounds. You should be prepared to work with numerical information, explain assumptions and build confidence through practice with spreadsheets and financial statements.
What you take back to work
Practical capability, built through learning.
- Interpret financial information in relation to organisational performance and decisions.
- Evaluate budgets and management accounting evidence with attention to their limitations.
- Compare funding and working-capital choices in an organisational context.
- Appraise investment options and present a financially reasoned recommendation.
Inside the course
A connected learning journey.
KBC’s published route is a three-month module within the 18-month diploma programme. These learning blocks connect the unit outcomes with reading, discussion and practical application. A full OTHM unit includes 100 guided learning hours and 200 total qualification hours; your learning plan explains the allocation across teaching, directed activities, study and assessment.
01Understand the financial picture
Read financial statements as connected information about performance, resources and cash. Use relevant ratios to ask questions and identify areas requiring explanation. Learners compare organisations or periods carefully, recognising the effects of context and accounting choices, then practise communicating what the figures suggest without treating a single measure as a complete diagnosis.
Apply it at work: Prepare a financial performance commentary with clearly stated limitations.
02Use management information for decisions
Examine how cost information, contribution and budget assumptions inform operational and strategic choices. Consider when an allocated cost is useful and when it can mislead a decision. Learners work through a management case, select relevant information and explain how capacity, uncertainty or non-financial factors change the interpretation of an apparently straightforward calculation.
Apply it at work: Complete a decision worksheet and explain the relevant costs.
03Evaluate budgets as management tools
Explore how targets, forecasts and budget reviews shape decisions and behaviour. Investigate a variance by asking what caused it, who can influence it and what response is appropriate. Learners assess whether the budgeting approach supports the organisation’s priorities, then propose improvements that make planning more useful without implying that greater numerical detail removes uncertainty.
Apply it at work: Review a budget process and recommend a practical improvement.
04Connect funding with cash requirements
Compare sources of finance in relation to purpose, timing, flexibility and risk. Examine why a profitable organisation may still face a cash constraint and how working-capital choices affect operations. Learners construct a funding recommendation that recognises both the longer-term investment and the cash needed to sustain activity while the expected benefits develop.
Apply it at work: Prepare a funding and working-capital options brief.
05Appraise an investment and defend the decision
Use net present value, internal rate of return and payback to compare investments, examining cash-flow timing and assumptions. Learners examine how a result changes under different scenarios, distinguish calculation accuracy from forecast reliability and consider non-financial consequences. The final discussion requires a recommendation, an account of key risks and a plan to review results.
Apply it at work: Build an investment appraisal with sensitivity analysis and a recommendation.
Learn around your working life
Time to understand. Space to apply.
Online or in a city near you
Face-to-face delivery can be arranged in London, Maidstone, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool. Your course offer confirms the venue and teaching dates.
A London masterclass to start your module
Meet your tutors and fellow professionals at an optional full-day London event. KBC covers the event, agreed transportation, refreshments and an open buffet dinner. Confirm arrangements with the team before booking travel.
Support between sessions
Return to class recordings and learning resources, bring questions to your tutor and use free one-to-one tutoring and coaching support. Your course plan sets out the guided reading and practice needed alongside live teaching.
Your route to recognition
Know what the assessment involves.
The OTHM unit is assessed through coursework; the current specification indicates approximately 4,500 words. KBC’s proposed preparation case develops a financial analysis, budget evaluation, funding comparison and investment recommendation, supported by transparent calculations. Your final submission must satisfy the issued assignment brief and all assessment criteria. Work is internally assessed by the centre and externally verified by OTHM. Numerical exercises are intended to strengthen understanding, while the final argument must show judgement about assumptions, context and the limits of the evidence.
Your written offer records the award or course completion requirements, any examination fees included, and the relevant eligibility checks.
The professional knowledge behind the course
Explore the books and standards.
The learning themes above bring together the relevant guide, syllabus and workplace practice. KBC’s teaching sequence connects these ideas through discussion and application.
- OTHM Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership — qualification specification ↗OTHM · Current linked file: July 2025; document retains May 2020 footers
Official qualification structure and Strategic Financial Management learning outcomes, assessment criteria and coursework guidance. Full specification read.
- Corporate Finance — Jonathan Berk and Peter DeMarzo ↗Pearson · 6th edition; © 2024
Recommended reading: financial statements, cash flows, investment appraisal, capital costs, financing and working capital.
Your investment
Get a course offer that fits your route.
Request the standalone fee for your chosen format, including the teaching, reading materials, assessment and membership arrangements relevant to this course.
Standalone professional development is self-funded or employer-funded. The agreed course offer explains any available support and the costs included.
Your questions, answered.
Must I already be an accountant?
The intended audience includes managers outside finance. Willingness to practise calculations and explain their meaning is essential.
Will I use spreadsheets?
Spreadsheets are useful for transparent calculations and scenarios. The important skill is understanding and defending the model’s assumptions.
Is this personal investment advice?
No. The module concerns financial management and investment choices within organisations.
What would this help you achieve?
Talk to KBC about your experience, your goals and the right learning route for you.