Business Foundations (Autumn 2024)

Abstract

The course is for students looking for an introduction to strategic management to be able to understand and navigate todays and tomorrows business world.

The student will be given a toolbox of academic frameworks and models to be able to analyze current business situations and propose strategic changes. Through case studies and group work the student will become familiar with the business language which will help to bridge the gap between business and technology.

Description

In order to support a business with effective IT based processes, it is necessary to understand what the business is doing and how it is done. The aim of this course is to provide the student with an insight of business management both private and public and introduce the business vocabulary.

The course will provide the students with a framework to analyse a business to understand its competitive position. As such the students will read and reflect on classic as well as new management theories and use these in relevant case studies. The aim of the course is to sharpen the students’ analytical skills within the field of business management.

Several perspectives on business management will be presented to allow the student to adapt his/her point of view to a particular situation. 

A broad selection of classic management theories will be presented and discussed related to both the public and private sector. Some new theories will be presented e.g. Blue Ocean, such that students are aware of the new trends. 

• Introduction to business strategy 
• The external environment 
• Business systems and the value chain 
• Product portfolio 
• Customer orientation 
• Public management 
• Financial resources 
• Strategic positioning

Formal prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for this course.

Intended learning outcomes

After the course, the student should be able to:

• Describe different perspectives on business strategy
• Relate different competitor based strategies to different situations
• Analyze value chain and value system and relate this to various forms of diversification and integration
• Perform a stakeholder analysis and relate this to setting of objectives and measurement of performance (e.g. Balanced Score Card)
• Describe various aspects of portfolio management
• Create a simple business plan using the taught concepts.
• Describe and apply common external and internal financial concepts (e.g. EBIT, P/E, cost allocation, WIP, business cases etc.)
• Reflect on business issues associated with climate change and the opportunities that digital technology provides for addressing them.

Ordinary exam