Core block 3

New Venture Creation

This module equips you with the knowledge you require to develop and refine your business creation strategy and provides an academic underpinning to the process.

Broaden your knowledge and understanding of the entrepreneurial and innovation agenda, the need for innovation and all aspects of the new venture creation process including feasibility testing, marketing financial forecasting and securing finance. You will be expected to come to this practical programme with a business idea which you intend to develop. Your business concept plan will be reviewed prior to the start of the formal teaching of the module to ensure its suitability. At the end of this module you will be able to produce a comprehensive business plan so you can then launch a business.

Learning outcomes

• Evaluate the business planning process.
• Review and analyse the entrepreneurial environment.
• Evaluate the innovation process and how it impacts on business ideas.
• Assess the appropriate business models for commercialisation of business ideas.
• Evaluate financial forecasting methods.
• Evaluate the sources of funding and the investment process.

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Digital Technologies & Business Innovation

Understand and then unlock the competitive advantage that technology can bring to business. This module aims to introduce you to three pillars where technology is changing the way we do business. These are:

1. Processes: From the early days of information management the focus has been on efficiency in managing organisational processes. Today these form the standards on which agile organisations are built.
2. Business model: With the emergence of the internet, the way businesses engage with customers has been in a constant state of change. Dominant models (even the early internet models) have been challenged by new models based on new technology.
3. Organisations: The Generation Y workforce is changing our organisations. From virtual collaborative networks to knowledge management, privacy and security to ubiquitous access - our own expectations are changing.

Along with these three pillars we will also discuss the founding concepts on managing technology and some mega-trends in information management that are likely to impact your business in the future.

Learning outcomes

• Understand how the combination of emerging technologies and innovative ideas is leading to transformation in customer relationships, products and services, organisation strategies and market structures
• Demonstrate insight into best practices in information technology and the information systems domain in the context of business strategy and processes
• Understand key success criteria for driving value from investments in technology.

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Human Resources Management

The Human Resource Management module aims to stimulate thinking and understanding about the management of people in an organisational context.  The focus is on specific human resource management practices and policies, their effectiveness as well as skills necessary for their implementation.  The course is designed for line managers and it is not intended to meet the detailed technical requirements of full-time HR professionals.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module, you will be expected to be able understand and have skills in:

• Introduction to HRM: best-practices, best-fit and stakeholder approaches
• Recruitment and selection
• Talent and career management
• Performance management: appraisals & pay/rewards
• Work-life balance and employee well-being.

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Corporate Finance

In this module you will examine the long-term financial decisions taken by companies. The component starts by defining the various financial instruments which firms use in their long-term financing and then addresses questions such as: How to compute the cost of capital, how debt and equity are issued; how much debt should a company use; does dividend policy matter; and why mergers and acquisitions occur. The component is also concerned with corporate control as operations of financial institutions in monitoring and controlling corporations are considered to be as important as their function in funding.

Learning outcomes

• Corporate financial decisions, the role of financial manager and the value of the firm
• The classical objective function
• Sources of long-term financing
• Debt financing.
• How companies raise equity
• The cost of capital
• General models of risk and return
• Capital structure.

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International Consultancy Week

This module is the integrating element of the MBA core teaching, bringing together the theoretical elements of the course so far in a practical experience, enabling you to draw out the principles from the core modules. You will be asked to apply your classroom learning to some very demanding problems often in a challenging business consultancy environment.

Consultancy is undertaken to bring added value to the client and the temporary nature of the field trip projects stands in contrast with class room teaching and as such requires the development of distinct research skills, organisation and interpersonal skills.

This project is designed with a multidisciplinary approach to business development, in order to better prepare you to use your new and existing knowledge, and to reflect the reality of consultancy projects which cannot be solved by a segmented discipline but rather by insights taken from all business disciplines and in an integrated way.

Outcomes

1. To provide an international experience - you will be tasked with conducting a mini-consultancy project in different SMEs (examples of destinations include but are not limited to: Russia, Poland, Iceland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Vietnam)
2. To provide a practical experience you will experience differing ways of doing business from within a company; you will be provided with the insights that come from the `hands on experience of entrepreneurs and managers in a transitional company.
3. To allow for application and integration of the MBA learning from core courses you will be required to use knowledge obtained during your core modules to solve problems in new contexts by applying acquired knowledge, techniques and principles
4. To allow for application of your own professional experiences you will be asked to use insights from their own experiences and bring an outside objective perspective to the consultancy project analysis
5. To work as a team - you will be asked to work in a small groups of 5-6 (with a translator if required) in order to collaborate in a cross-cultural environment to achieve the goal of your project and write up the final report.