Business Foundations (Autumn 2020)

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

This course is part of the third semester in the bachelor's degree in Global Business Informatics.

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 marketing 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.)

Learning activities

The course will consist of lectures and exercises under supervision. The exercises will be theoretically based analysis of business situations with a student presentation and discussion in plenum. Newspapers and Company web sites will be used as background material. The fact that cases are actual and appear in newspapers make the concepts more relevant for the students.

Mandatory activities

There are no mandatory activities

The student will receive the grade NA (not approved) at the ordinary exam, if the mandatory activities are not approved and the student will use an exam attempt.

Course literature

Strategic Management Awareness and Change. 9th edition by John Thompson, Jonathan Scott and Frank Martin

Selected papers will be provided

Student Activity Budget

Estimated distribution of learning activities for the typical student

• Preparation for lectures and exercises: 30%
• Lectures: 20%
• Exercises: 20%
• Assignments: 20%
• Exam with preparation: 10%

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
C: Submission of written work, Internal (7-point scale)
Exam variation:
C22: Submission of written work – Take home

Time and date