SME Management Consultant Examination study plan

Build a one-page diagnostic toolkit checklist covering financial, operational, and organizational assessment areas, citing at least three analytical frameworks per area

Draft a 10-question structured interview script for a client discovery meeting and rehearse it aloud twice

Map the full financial accounting cycle from journal entry to closing trial balance without notes, then verify against a textbook

Compute and interpret the eight core financial ratios (current, quick, debt-to-equity, gross margin, operating margin, net margin, ROA, ROE) on one sample income statement and balance sheet

Solve two full-length case-style diagnostic scenarios end to end, producing issue trees, root-cause hypotheses, and prioritized recommendations

Construct a three-statement financial model (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow) from a single year of sample data and check that it balances

Explain the difference between NPV, IRR, and payback period and apply all three to one capital budgeting decision

Write a one-page executive summary of a diagnostic finding using a pyramid-principle structure

Compare four organizational structures (functional, divisional, matrix, flat) and match each to a plausible SME scenario

Diagram the five forces for one industry and translate each force into a concrete implication for an SME client

Calculate capacity, utilization, and bottleneck throughput for a simple multi-step production process

Distinguish push versus pull scheduling and identify which fits a made-to-order SME

Apply lean concepts (value stream mapping, waste identification, takt time) to a documented sample process and propose three improvements

Perform a basic quality-cost analysis distinguishing prevention, appraisal, internal failure, and external failure costs

Assess organizational culture and change readiness using a named model and list resistance risks for a proposed change

Draft a 90-day implementation roadmap for one operational improvement, with owners and metrics

Segment a sample market using at least two segmentation bases and justify the target segment choice

Build a positioning statement and a simple 4Ps plan for one SME product line

Explain the transmission channels from monetary and fiscal policy to SME demand and financing costs

Identify three current regulatory or trade-policy factors that affect SMEs and describe their likely business impact

Map a sample SME's core processes to a digital tool stack and identify three digitization gaps with priority ranking

Explain cloud, ERP, CRM, and data-analytics value propositions in business terms without jargon

Outline the main SME support instruments (credit guarantees, subsidies, tax incentives, advisory programs) and the eligibility logic for each

Design a support-application roadmap for one hypothetical SME, matching needs to instruments

Consolidate lighter domains into a single condensed review sheet of no more than four pages

Answer 60 mixed practice questions across domains 1, 5, 6, and 7 and log every error with its cause

Re-teach the three weakest concepts aloud as if to a client, without notes

Convert every logged error into a flashcard or one-line rule

Complete two timed full-length mock exams under exam conditions and score each by domain

Recompute the highest-weight domain ratios and diagnostic frameworks from memory to confirm retention

Review every missed item from both mocks and classify each as knowledge gap, misread, or time pressure

Finalize a one-page exam-day strategy covering time allocation per domain and question-skipping rules