Overview
What is strategy? How does it relate to firm success? What role does industry play in impacting a company’s success (performance)? What role do a company’s internal resources play in improving firm success?
These are just some of the questions discussed and debated in STMT-500. This course covers fundamental concepts and principles in strategy. It reflects current academic thinking and management practices. The course is organized around the theme of analyzing competitive advantage in terms of the external environment and a company’s internal resources. Strategic management is an important topic for middle and senior executives involved in formulating and implementing strategy for their company. Strategy has to do with thinking, planning, and acting on decisions that will have important implications for the company and relate to competitive advantage.
Outline
This course is divided into eight lessons.
- Lesson 1 - The Concepts of Strategy, Goals, Values, and Performance
- Lesson 2 - Industry Analysis: The Fundamentals
- Lesson 3 - Industry and Competitive Analysis
- Lesson 4 - Analyzing and Developing Resources and Capabilities
- Lesson 5 - The Nature and Sources of Competitive Advantage
- Lesson 6 - Cost Advantage
- Lesson 7 - Differentiation Advantage
- Lesson 8 - Organization Structure and Management Systems
Objectives
Strategy analysis assists us to identify and understand issues and manage complexity. By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Appraise organizational resources and conduct an industry analysis using strategy frameworks
- Evaluate the concepts and techniques critical to identifying and exploiting sources of profit
- Discuss and debate ideas on strategy formulation and implementation
- Apply concepts and techniques to case analysis and group discussions
- Relate course learnings (concepts, tools, and techniques) on strategy analysis to work settings
- Develop respect for and an understanding of the value of a Code of Conduct towards effective group work and communication
- Develop MBA core competencies
Evaluation
Grades are based on an individual assignment, a group case study, a group debate, and participation in the discussion application. The individual assignment will also assess academic writing and referencing.