Commercial Awareness - How Important Is It?

The organisation I work for holds various Management Training Sessions throughout the year which are deamed as essential for all managers to attend.

Last week the training session was on Commercial Awareness - a very dry topic.  The run up to which was spent debating between colleagues how useful the training would actually be given the roles we do.  This subject was new to me as a manager with little to no knowledge of commercial awareness previously.

The training session itself was a full day looking at and discussing what commercial awareness meant to the organisation and to the staff, how we as managers and budget holders could influence and think about commercial awareness in our roles on a day to day basis.  How could we and our teams get the best quality products and give the best quality service whilst being aware of issues such as cost, resources, time, processes and all the pitfalls and hazards of contract law?

It was, I have to say, a very dry topic and at the time it was difficult to see how it was relevant in my role as I do not establish contracts with suppliers, agencies or anyone else.  However, on reflection, it is crucial I feel at this time, to have some knowledge of commercial awareness.  As the recession continues, some may say with little or no sign of us coming through it just yet, we need to make sure that we get the most from the money we spend.....more so as we are a charity who's funding is from donations and legacies (no government or lottery funding).  We need to be able to show those who donate their money to us, that we are spending it wisely, economicably and sensibly.  It's not always a case of cheaper is best, but a case of ensuring we get value for money, be that in terms of quality, service, returns and so on.

So yes it was a long day but it was worth it.  The team are already looking at what processes can be made more efficient and how, where spending can be reduced (be it by buying in bulk rather than bits at a time or even as simple as printing on both sides of the paper to reduce wastage). 

It made me think whether a simpler more concise version of this awareness training should be rolled out to all staff, engage staff in putting forward ideas on how we can become more commercially aware.  I know our CEO is keen to get ideas from staff, surely this would have a greater impact if they had more knowledge on the subject instead of relying on managers to cascade the info, which some may not fully understand themselves?

So, do other organisations feel commercial awareness is important?  Have they or do they plan to engage their staff in commercial awareness? 

I'd be interested to find out what others think!