Expand your Career
The ICMA education programs run at SBS are built on a platform of specific case studies linked to all topic areas. Case studies are a great way to build your employability skills and apply your studies in a business environment. Students work individually or in teams on real business cases from real organisations.
Nowadays, it’s up to you to take control of your professional future and make sure that you are progressing wisely down the right career path. SBS can provide you with a tried and tested pathway.
Our 4 Pillars
Career Enhancement
Syme Business School has many programs that help develop a career strategy and facilitate the sharing of knowledge and skills between students. SBS can provide you with a tried and tested pathway.
Extensive Library
You can access our range of resources and services in a variety of ways – online, in person at the extensive ICMA Library in Melbourne and through Research and Learning skills activities provided by our staff through the academic and professional program.
Quality Educators
SBS’s professional educators not only need to have high academic qualifications, but also need to have significant and relevant professional experience in the subject matter they are teaching.
Flexible Learning
SBS has a powerful online electronic media learning management system (LMS) that is very easy to use. Syme Business School's LMS is a versatile, cost effective, and yet easy and intuitive learning platform.
Message From The CEO
The Syme Business School (SBS) was founded by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants (ICMA) to provide mature men and women an opportunity to undertake further studies in their chosen profession. The professional programs offered by SBS provide an opportunity for occupational experience, specialised training and independent reading to be recognised, assessed and accepted as meeting the educational requirements for membership of professional bodies in the fields of business, finance and management.
The initial professional courses offered by SBS are the online delivery of ICMA’s Graduate Conversion Program (4-courses) and the CMA Certification Program (2-courses). The SBS also offers the ICMA Certificates of Proficiency and Corporate Training of tailor made programs in face-to-face seminar or online modes of delivery.
In the two ICMA programs, students complete online any required coursework, assignments, projects, readings, reports, research or writing which may be required in his or her professional body program. During this process, the student is given the opportunity to either study independently or participate in online discussion forums with the SBS faculty. Examinations are invigilated by supervisors approved by the relevant professional body residing in the locality of the student.
The 4-Pillars of any SBS education program are: flexible learning, quality educators, and extensive library and opportunities for career enhancement.
I hope you will be successful in your studies at the Syme Business School.
Professor Janek Ratnatunga, PhD MBA (Bradford, UK), FCA, CMA
Chief Executive Officer
Our Focus
BUSINESS ANALYSIS
The Syme Business School’s focus on the area of Business Analysis seeks to provide specialisation-level knowledge to accountants and financially motivated general managers in the interface areas between modern managerial accounting and the business functions of strategic planning, marketing, manufacturing, international business, human resource management, supply-chain management, finance, international finance and risk management.
Specific areas focused on are: Corporate Objectives, Strategy and Structure, Strategic Marketing Analysis and Budgeting, Financial Analysis in Product Portfolio Management, Pricing Methods and Strategies, Financial Dimensions of Pricing in International Business Strategies, Promotion: Push Strategy and Human Resource Management, Promotion: Pull Strategy and Integrated Marketing Communication, Supply Chain Management and the Place-Distribution Decision, Performance Valuation and Strategic Financial Structures, Free Cash Flows and Strategic Value Analysis, Risk Management – Corporate Radar and Early Warning Systems, Strategic Scorecards and Key Performance Indicators.
FINANCIAL MODELLING
The Syme Business School’s focus on the area of Financial Modelling seeks to provide students with the skills of analysis, evaluation and interpretation in the areas of financial and management accounting from a user’s perspective and in the process, create an awareness of some current developments in the accounting profession. This subject examines the information requirements of two major groups: external users such as owners, shareholders, investors, potential investors; and internal users such as managers of an entity at various levels of managerial responsibility. The emphasis throughout the subject is on the information provided by accountants and accounting systems and on the use of that information for decision-making purposes.
Specific areas focused on are: Accounting: A Profession; Modelling the Accounting Equation; Modelling Depreciation Methods; Modelling the Accounting Cycle; Company Accounts; Financial Statement Modelling; Product Cost Modelling; Profitability Planning Models; Budgetary Modelling; Modelling in Financial Mathematics; Investment Decision Models; Modelling Working Capital.
BUSINESS FINANCE
The Syme Business School’s focus on the area of Business Finance seeks to provide students with skills in corporate finance to solve key finance problems of for-profit non-financial organisations. The four key financial management decisions (capital budgeting, financing, acquisition and dividend) of mangers in non-financial organisations will be examined. Students will learn analytical skills to solve these practical problems using the body of knowledge that comes from finance discipline. Emphasis will be placed on applying received knowledge (given the capital market behaviour in Australia and Asian economies) to address recurring financial problems of all firms.
Specific areas focused on are: Financial Mathematics; Theory of Valuation; Portfolio Returns and Risks; Capital Asset Pricing Model; Efficient Markets Theory; Dividend Policy; Bond Yields and Bond Pricing; Capital Markets and Funding Sources; Capital Investment Projects; Project Cash Flows; Capital Budgeting; Cost of Capital.
COST MANAGEMENT
The Syme Business School’s focus on the area of Cost Management seeks to provide students with specialisation-level knowledge to accountants and financially motivated general managers on the role of the management accounting in complex modern industrial organisations. The subject includes the discussion of management control systems, costing systems and activity-based costing, activity management, and implementation issues in modern costing systems, environmental and social management accounting, strategic governance and the strategic audit. The subject is designed to prepare students for careers as professional management accountants.
Specific areas focused on are: Management Control Systems; Lean Manufacturing and Quality Control; Cost Accounting and Cost Management in a Lean Environment; Life Cycle Costing Systems; Benchmarking; Activity Based Cost Allocation Systems; Customer Profitability Analysis; Process Control and Activity Based Management; Implementing Cost Analysis and Control Systems; Strategic Performance Management Systems; Environmental and Social Management Accounting; Strategic Governance and the Strategic Audit.