Commercial Awareness for Technical People

Technical staff need to understand the commercial context within which their work exit. Today, technical people are expected to be multi-faceted; understand stakeholder’s management, sales and how the business profit is derived, the business value chain, operating environment and change control.

This course will help them understand how they and their work fit into a larger picture, why they may be asked to undertake roles that may not appear to be technical and the impact their interactions have within the commercial context.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, participants will:

• See collaborative roles within a business context
• Understand the need to support, sales and marketing
• Differentiate between excellence and perfection
• Recognize the factors affecting profitability
• Control costs and consider the bottom-line impact of decisions
• Manage change requests 
• Keep abreast of market and competitor changes
• Seek and exploits new business opportunities. 

Learning Contents

• Perspectives on technical role at work
• Stakeholders’ management technique
• Business phases
• The sales process
• Customer/supplier relationships
• The value chain
• Cost of quality
• Estimating: Estimating techniques
• Cost consciousness
• Change control: How to deal with change requests
• Negotiation skills
• Intellectual property :Non-disclosure agreements
• Course review and action planning

For Whom

This programme is designed for anyone in a technical role or who has come from a technical background and would need a commercial perspective to aid their work.