Management accounting conference: day one

KN1 Western Australia / New South Wales: Creating a high performance culture

Most leaders today are in pursuit of a high performing culture, and the greatest challenge is getting people to think in similar terms about the purpose of the business and understanding their individual contribution toward accomplishing that purpose. This session will outline a tried and tested roadmap to changing organisational behaviour, and provide guidance in implementing, promoting and sustaining a high performance culture.

It will address:

• what does a high performance culture mean?
• how do leaders create it?
• how do you measure it?
• how to engage employees in the journey?
• the experience, key achievements and lessons learnt

Western Australia: Mathew Bullen
Director, MABU Packaging

New South Wales: Shenaz Khan
General manager, People, BT Financial Group

KN1 Queensland: Case study: Effective management systems — creating value with a lean strategy

Waste can be found in most things that occur within all our workplaces and is usually a result of ineffective work processes and practices. Kangan Institute was the first education provider to begin the lean journey, which has seen the development of a culture within its management and staff that is tuned in to eliminating waste. In this insightful and informative session, Richard Turnball will detail some of the challenges faced and benefits achieved, providing practical insights on how value was created as a result of several iterations using lean.

Queensland / Victoria: Richard Turnball
Chief financial officer, Kangan Institute

A1: Shared services: optimise internal processes for effective service delivery and cost efficiency

Management accountants and executives need to understand the key drivers for shared services and the impact they can have on reducing operating costs, increasing productivity, enabling more efficient service delivery, and strategy execution. This case study session will provide a practical 'how to' implement shared services, and how to continue driving maturity.

It will outline how to:

• provide guidance on selecting the right projects and services for adoption
• identify hidden cost savers
• create win-win opportunities
• deliver better internal controls and a better risk reward for the organisation

Queensland / New South Wales: Joseph Soalheira FCPA
Independent shared services practitioner

Western Australia / Victoria:: Andrew Crawford FCPA
Head consultant, Group Executive Office, Westpac

OR

A2: Performance reporting, action planning and forecasting

One of the keys to effective management accounting is being able to communicate with your stakeholders at all levels, whether that stakeholder is internal or external to your business. Many stakeholders don’t understand the accounting language which can often make communication a challenging task.

This session will focus on working with your stakeholders to:

• identify what can be improved in the business
• develop an action plan to address the improvement areas
• report on progress of the action plan
• identify what cash the business can generate

Western Australia / New South Wales:: Stephen Krygger CPA
Finance manager - supply and logistics, BP Australia

Queensland / Victoria: Gerry Maguire FCPA
Director, CFO Connection

B1: Innovation in sustainability management

Management accountants and business managers are in an ideal position to help organisations interpret sustainability issues in a relevant way for their organisations, and to integrate those issues into the way they do business. This insightful session will draw on a range of industry case studies to assist you in your role as knowledgeable change agent by outlining an initial best practice framework for managing sustainability change.

Dr Retha Wiesner
Associate professor in HRM, University of Southern Queensland

OR

B2: Considering risk, return and ranking in business modelling

In the aftermath of the GFC, business leaders are placing an ever-growing reliance on business and financial models. Quantifying decisions is commonplace and Excel models are frequently pivotal in refinancing, acquisition, project finance and working capital / cash flow management project appraisals.
But does senior management always have the necessary skills to objectively critique and review these key models?
This overview considers risk, return and ranking in business modelling and provides examples of how end users can test the integrity of the model, in tandem with the assumptions, to provide greater comfort in making business-critical decisions.

Liam Bastick
Director, SumProduct

KN2 Western Australia / Queensland: Leading transformation ─ the role of the finance function in driving organisational success

The finance function has a key part to play in developing competitive strengths by re-engineering business processes, identifying process waste, removing the non-value adding activity, and continuously improving the business so that costs go down without compromising on service. In this session, George Savvides or Michael Sammells will address the importance of organisational renewal and building new competencies that develop the competitive strengths that sustain exceptional performance.

They will take you behind the scenes at Medibank and uncover how they used their 'purpose journey' to build competitive strengths and turn Medibank around.

Western Australia: Michael Sammells FCPA
Chief financial officer, Medibank

Queensland: George Savvides
Managing director, Medibank

KN2 New South Wales: Leading finance teams – the importance of the finance function in organisational change and business viability

In this session, Gary Stewart will examine the role that executive leadership has in driving long term viability of businesses in the global context and the role that finance and costing must fulfil in developing the right business case to support strategic decision making to suit this new 'Global' world.

Gary will explore sustainable approaches and outline how the development of new 'leadership' models focusing the entire business on design for 'whole of product life' can aid in better customer, quality, cost and business viability outcomes.

New South Wales / Victoria: Gary Stewart
Former general manager, Aisin

C1: Communicating effectively – presentation skills for the accounting professional

It is widely accepted that it is not just what you say, but how you say it, which determines the outcomes, your influence and, in many cases, your career direction. To be successful, every accounting, business and finance professional must be able to confidently communicate financial information, strategies and ideas to small and large audiences, and stakeholders at all levels.

This session will focus on:

• what differentiates a good presentation from a bad one?
• what techniques do luminary speakers use?
• how to avoid being the executioner in the ubiquitous and unpopular play; 'Death by powerpoint'

Western Australia: Geoffrey Harris FCPA
Director, CDC Liberty

Queensland / New South Wales / Victoria: Gerard Byrne FCPA
Director, business development, Faculty of Law, Business, and Creative Arts, James Cook University

OR

C2 Western Australia / New South Wales / Victoria: Case study – driving performance to increase business value

In this insightful case study session, David Felthun will outline some tips and traps in driving improvement to performance. He will take you on a journey through the transformation of McDonald's toward increased business value in addressing:

• aligning the finance team with the corporate strategy
• where finance added value to the organisation
• instilling a culture of continuous improvement
• tools and KPIs used to drive performance

Western Australia / New South Wales / Victoria: David Felthun
Senior vice president and chief financial officer, McDonalds

C2 Queensland: Case study - driving performance to increase business value

Ensure performance management can partner the business to generate additional value through using specialist finance strategies, skills, tools and appropriate interventions. In the form of a case study, Richard Sargent will outline how this can be effectively applied with a focus on:

• mix analysis used to understand hidden shifts in product costs and pricing
• using 'dashboards' to quickly focus on material issues
• using ABC to drive out waste and generate profit enhancing behaviours
• price waterfalls used to identify opportunities for margin improvement
• project deliverables and the relationship with outcome oriented plans

Queensland: Richard Sargent
Head of finance, BP Castrol Lubricants ANZ

KN3 Queensland / New South Wales / Victoria: Reinventing finance: value creators and trusted business partners

Academic and practice based research evidences the need for finance to be more than just number-crunchers and backward looking accountants. Global surveys of CEOs’ and CFOs’ suggest that the future for finance lies in it becoming a value creator and a trusted business partner. To achieve this position, finance needs to be good at balancing and executing two key areas; finance efficiency and business insight.

This session will provide an informative and thought-provoking perspective on reinventing finance, and provide insights into a range of issues including:

• improving finance processes and applications
• designing appropriate management accounting systems to drive business insight and strategy
• developing finance 'soft skills'

Queensland / New South Wales / Victoria: Paul Thambar Lecturer , University of Technology and president, CIMA Australia

KN3 Western Australia: Harnessing the power of strategic management accounting for successfully achieving business outcomes

Organisational success is enhanced by integrating strategy with business performance for managerial decision-making. Therefore, by embedding strategic management accounting in strategic and operational processes for planning, measuring, implementing and reporting can lead to achieving the competitive advantage.

This thought provoking keynote provides insights to decision-making using strategic management accounting for bridging the business outcome gaps and covers issues including:

• robust decision-making for strategic options
• aligning strategy, operations, forecasts and budgets
• executing strategy using scorecards, drivers and indicators
• advanced decision-making capabilities with scenario planning, value-based and activity-based management
• scorecard for strategic oversight
• business intelligence for real-time decision-making

Western Australia: Atul Chandra FCPA, CEO, Trans Business Dynamics, and senior lecturer, Edith Cowan University