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Commercial Loans to Small Business

Business Issue - A small business is not just a scaled-down large business. Lenders pursuing this lucrative but risky market need different skills than those concentrating on larger businesses, including:

  • Analyzing low-quality financial information
  • Considering the impact of the business owner’s personal finances and management skills, and
  • Understanding how small businesses differ from larger organizations.

Omega Performance’s Solution - Commercial Loans to Small Business (CLSB) teaches a comprehensive analysis process for profitably extending credit to small business borrowers. It provides commercial lenders with the skills and information they need to make sound, well-informed loan decisions.

Additionally, CLSB includes enhanced usability and user-friendly content that reflects the latest business trends and risk drivers affecting commercial borrowers, including technology, globalization, operations and management. The new CLSB focuses on high-value, high-impact competencies by emphasizing interpretation and analysis instead of mechanical calculations.

The core of the system is our exclusive Decision Strategy™, a step-by-step process for investigating, analyzing and interpreting borrower information— including risk analysis, financial statement analysis, cash flow analysis and loan structure—as they apply to the small business market.

What Is Included

Commercial Loans to Small Business contains the following self-study modules, each of which covers an important facet of the Decision Strategy for lending to the small business market:

Opportunity Assessment includes an introduction to commercial lending and the asset conversion cycle, and provides a framework for comprehensive risk analysis.

Identifying Borrowing Causes teaches participants to probe into the real reasons behind a borrower’s loan request. Participants learn that by understanding the true cause they can anticipate the borrower’s needs, be better able to understand the risks in lending to a company and structure a loan appropriately.

Analyzing Industry Risk addresses changes in the environment in which the borrower operates by examining the economic, market, demographic and other forces that are generally outside the borrower’s or the lender’s control.

Analyzing Business Risk teaches participants to identify and make judgments about risks inherent in various stages of business growth and general risk factors unique to a particular business, its market and its management.

Analyzing Business Financial Statements teaches how to interpret financial statements as a reflection of the entire range of a company’s operations, from sales and distribution to purchasing. This module also reviews techniques to use business tax returns to verify and gain insight into small business financial statements.

Analyzing Personal Financial Statements teaches participants how to analyze the creditworthiness of a small business owner or guarantor by evaluating personal assets and income, as well as personal liablitites and expenses.

Analyzing Cash Flow and Sensitivity teaches participants how to prepare and analyze a cash flow summary, indicating where in the asset conversion cycle cash is flowing into or out of the company, and analyzing the underlying causes of cash inflows and outflows.

Structuring the Loan identifies the most common types of credit facilities and helps participants determine how to lend money to a small business customer.

Delivery Options

Omega Performance offers flexible delivery options, including print self-study only with coaching, print selfstudy plus workshop, workshop only with minimal prework and online with print accompaniment. All of the content for Commercial Loans to Small Business is available online, including pre- and post-testing, online progress checks and online skill assessment corresponding to each module of content, with feedback and remediation links to relevant content.