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Fall semester - BA - Mktg - Year 2 Calendar view

Essentials of Business Environment (2022-2023)


Class
Christophe de Landtsheer
Enrolment for this class is currently closed.

Lessons

Here is the class outline:

Week 1 - Competition, Performance and Change

This session will introduce you to the structure of the module. We shall see that competition means that goods and services are compared to one another continually. For firms this means two things. First, that their performance is being continually evaluated in terms of profitability, price and quality. And secondly, that they are continuously confronted with the need to change. We shall explore how the proper management of these two realities can be transformed into a powerful competitive advantage.

Competition, Performance and Change

Week 2 - Strategy Management and Stakeholdership

In order to be profitable a company needs to develop and adapt viable strategies. I must - above all – also act in alignment to the strategy. This means that all stakeholders must be made aware of it and act according to plan. This is the major challenge of executive management. In this session we shall introduce some basic – but fundamental - strategy and stakeholder management concepts and tools.

Strategy Management and Stakeholdership

Week 3 - Accounting Principles and The Personal Balance Sheet

First we'll have a look at the most fundamental of financial statements, the balance sheet. We shall see that every person can make up its own personal balance sheet, exactly in the same manner than it can be done for a corporation.

Accounting Principles and The Personal Balance Sheet

Week 4 - Creating a Corporate Balance Sheet

In this session we shall actually be creating a fictitious corporate balance sheet from a list of financial transactions and we shall make exercises.

Creating a Corporate Balance Sheet

Summative Test 1

This exercise covers lessons 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3 of the module and aims at assessing your understanding of the business environment and stakeholder management.

Assessment details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid

Formative test 1

Creating the Vertico Ltd. initial balance sheet statement

Establish Vertigo Ltd's Balance Sheet on the basis of the attached general ledger postings

Week 5 - Creating a Profit and Loss and a Cash Flow Statement

We shall now look the two other essential financial statements, the profit and loss, and the cash flow statements. Using the fictitious corporate balance sheets used in previous exercises we shall deduct their P&L and CF statements.

Creating a Profit and Loss and a Cash Flow statement

Formative test 2

Creating Vertico Ltd's P&L and cashflow statements

Establish Vertigo Ltd's P&L and Cashflow on the basis of the attached Balance Sheet

Summative Test 2

This exercise covers lessons 2 to 7 of the module. The student will be asked to populate balance sheet, P&L and cash flow statements based on general ledger data input.

Assessment Details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
BE2122 Summative Test 2

Week 6 - Introduction to Financial Analysis

We shall now see that by re-arranging the balance sheet we can get a better financial understanding of a company's operations and funding.

Introduction to Financial Analysis

Week 7 - Financial Analysis of the Enterprise and the Corporate Funding Structure

During this session we will analyse high level financial indicators, such as, return on capital employed, expense and capital ratios, and see why they are so important for both management and investors. We shall point out the fundamental flaw of financial statements as management tools: they reflect past performance and say little about the future. We shall see how trend analysis and benchmarking can help us interpret ratios in a more meaningful manner.

Financial analysis of the enterprise and the funding structure

Summative Test 3

This exercise covers lessons 8 to 10 of the module. It will assess your ability to define and calculate some of the most commonly used accounting ratios using basic financial statements and a re-arranged balance sheet.

Assessment Details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
BE2122 Summative Test 3

Week 8 - An Introduction to Business Process Management

In today's business environment value is usually created through the execution of processes. The precision of the execution of these processes determines to a high extend the quality of the products, indifferently whether these are facts or services. The customer perspective is essential in value perception and that is why we shall start our exploration of business process management from that point of view.

An Introduction to Business Process Management

Week 9 - Current State Process Modeling

The first thing to understand in an activity is its current state from initial supplies to the product delivered to the customer. This activity does not come all at once. Value is added step-by-step, and in this session we shall examine how this can be represented in a manner useful to the possible improvement on the value producing activity.

Current State Process Modeling

Summative Test 4

This exercise covers lessons 11 to 13 of the module. It will assess your ability to analyse a customer experience chart and to deduct a SIPOC chart and a list of implied activities from it.

Assessment Details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
BE2122 Summative Test 4

Week 10 - Activity Value Analysis and Process Improvement

In this session we move from the customer perspective to the corporate point of view. The question here is: do we really understand the value the company is creating and could we design better ways to improve our performance?

Activity Value Analysis and Improvement

Week 11 - Process Metrics

Once the process flow has been documented financial, quantitative and qualitative metrics can be applied to it. In this session we shall focus on financial metrics and show how process cost information can be fed back into the corporate P&L statement and budget.

Process Metrics

Week 12 - Strategy Alignment and Change

Corporate performance should be aligned with the strategy. This is not always obvious and mangers sometimes face complex problems of prioritisation. In this and the following sessions we shall show how activity indicators provide efficient means to achieve alignment.

Strategy and Performance

Week 13 - From Strategic Objectives to Critical Success Factors

In any company, however small, a myriad of factors can be measured. In this session we look at how to identify the essential indicators and measurement of which are really important for the realisation of the company's operational and ultimately strategic objectives.

From Strategic Objectives to Critical Success Factors

Week 14 - Scorecards and Performance Management

Sometimes the formal project approach to change is too bulky a procedure. In this session we shall study what methods companies have developed to integrate continuous improvement of goods and services at the very heart of their daily operations and corporate culture. We shall also see how these approaches presuppose continuous performance measurement and the redaction of business cases. Innovation is a change different in nature than an improvement. It supposes a more radical disruption of the strategy and operations of a company. It can be induced by external (scientific discovery, regulatory, …) or internal (research and development) factors. Technology always has been the driving force of industry and, recently, big data have become a source of innovation, mainly in the services sector.

Scorecards and Performance Management

Summative Test 5

This exercise covers lessons 19 to 21 of the module. It will assess your ability to prioritise a set of CSFs and KRIs from a list in function of a corporate strategy statement.

Assessment Details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
BE2122 Summative Test 5

Practical Assignment: Annual Report Analysis

The final test of the module is a practical assignment consisting in the application of the business management techniques covered during the semester to the analysis of the annual report of a selected public company.

Assessment Details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
BE2122 Summative Test 6 (final)

Resit- In-class exercises

Assessment details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
Resit - Compilation of in-class exercises - Submission

Resit - Process costing

Assessment details
Assessment Criteria - Marking Grid
Resit - Practical Assignment - Submission