Master of Business Administration

Increases in product variety and customization in the past few years have posed challenges to firms in terms of delivering products to customers faster and more efficiently. With the prevalence of the usage of the Internet for business, electronic business transformations are occurring in every business. One of the fundamental enablers of electronic commerce is effective supply chain management. Thus, supply chain management has become the focus of attention of senior management in the industry today.

This module considers management of a supply chain in a global environment from a managerial perspective. The focus is on analysis, management, and improvement of supply chain processes and their adaptation to the electronic business environment. The module focuses on six topics: Inventory and Information Management; Distribution and Transportation; Global Operations; Supplier Management; Management of Product Variety; and Electronic Supply Chains. Several new concepts including Prognostic Supply Chains, Build-to-Order, Collaborative Forecasting, Delayed Differentiation, Cross Docking, Global Outsourcing, and Efficient Consumer Response will also be discussed. At the end of the module, a student will have the necessary tools and metrics to evaluate a current supply chain and recommend design changes to supply chain processes

This module examines how leaders can most effectively use the resources

of their team members to achieve business outcomes. The module

develops managerial and leadership competences, focussing on how key

improvements in the general strategy and techniques of managing people

can produce outcomes more significant than isolated improvements to

employee performance.

The module provides students with concepts to support them across their

careers as they continue to develop effective delegation, management

strategy, and engagement with people inside of an organisation.

This module enables students to develop the skills and concepts needed to ensure the ongoing contribution of a firm's operations to its competitive position. It helps them to understand the complex processes underlying the development and manufacture of products as well as the creation and delivery of services. Throughout the module, students will receive a comprehensive overview of technology utilisation to drive a competitive advantage for company operations. Students explore various technology solutions for business process automation, including value proposition analysis across organisation functions.

Specific topics addressed include process analysis; cross-functional and cross-firm integration; product development; information technology; and technology and operations strategy.

Additionally, students will analyse how technology can be leveraged to improve product development during the four lifecycle phases. The module provides a detailed overview of the impact of technology on various operating models such as manufacturing, supply chain management, customer-facing, product development, and support functions.

This module is designed to achieve an understanding of fundamental notions of data presentation and analysis and to use statistical thinking in the context of business problems.

The module addresses modern methods of data exploration (designed to reveal unusual or problematic aspects of databases), the uses and abuses of the basic techniques of inference, and the use of regression as a tool for management and for financial analysis. The potential ethical issues related to each topic will be reviewed. Socially and environmentally relevant data will be utilised throughout the module.

The goal of the module is not to turn students into statisticians but to enable them to appreciate the use of probability in assessing evidence and making decisions, and to be statistically literate consumers of quantitative information generated by economists, biomedical researchers, psychologists, statisticians, survey researchers, and other experts.

The role of marketing management in organisations is to identify and measure the needs and wants of consumers, to determine which targets the business can serve, to decide on the appropriate offerings to serve these markets, and to determine the optimal methods of pricing, promoting, and distributing the firm’s offerings. Successful organisations are those that integrate the objectives and resources of the organisation with the needs and opportunities of the marketplace. The goal of this module is to facilitate student achievement of these goals regardless of career path.

This module addresses how to design and implement the best combination of marketing efforts to carry out a firm's strategy in its target markets. Specifically, this module helps to develop the student's understanding of how the firm can benefit by creating and delivering value to its customers, and stakeholders, and develop skills in applying the analytical concepts and tools of marketing to such decisions as segmentation and targeting, branding, pricing, distribution, and promotion.

In this module students will gain the capacity to understand how firms work in a global context, incorporating a broad, future-oriented, systems-based approach that incorporates data, information and insights from diverse perspectives and sources. This module is designed to convey the key concepts of strategic thinking and how they fit into the larger context of management strategy and decisions. Students will be presented with both the practical “how” and the fundamental “why” in the light of contributions from behavioural science, economics, and statistics.

This module explores basic economic principles (theories and applications) that are relevant to a variety of businesses. The module emphasises an economist's mindset and amassing the tools necessary to do so, including the study of microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Throughout the module, students will examine the underlying economics of successful business strategy: the strategic imperatives of competitive markets, the sources and dynamics of competitive advantage, managing competitive interactions, and the organisational implementation of business strategy.

Additionally, the module focuses on case discussion and analysis and provides a foundation for consultants, managers, and corporate finance generalists.

This course covers core concepts in accounting, finance, and microeconomics relevant to running a business.

The course begins with finance for business, including the time value of money, the trade-off between risk and return, and arbitrage. It gives managers a strengthened knowledge in finance that can be applied in their professional careers. The topics covered include how to move cash flows in time, the methods and principles of capital budgeting, valuation of bonds and stocks, how to characterize risk and return, and options pricing with applications to managerial decisions.

The course then builds on the student’s knowledge of finance to introduce accounting and examines the subject from the viewpoint of users external to the organization. Topics include transaction analysis; the accounting cycle; financial-statement preparation, use, and analysis; revenue recognition and cost measurement; present value; and problems in financial-accounting disclosure.

This course concludes with microeconomic theory and its application to problems faced by managers. Topics include supply and demand, consumer behaviour, pricing when a firm has market power, and contracts.

In general terms, financial accounting is the measurement of economic activity for decision-making. Financial statements are a key product of this measurement process and an important component of firms’ financial reporting activities.

The objective of this module is to help students become intelligent readers of the financial reports of most publicly traded companies. Students will learn the development, analysis, and use of these reports by focusing on what these reports contain, what assumptions and concepts accountants use to prepare them, and why they use those assumptions and concepts. A solid understanding of the fundamentals covered in this module should enable students to do well in more advanced finance and accounting courses and to interview intelligently for jobs in finance, consulting, and general management.

The module begins with the basic concepts of accounting. Students will analyse the main financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and statement of stockholders’ equity. Particular attention is paid to how these four statements relate to each other and how they provide information about the operating performance and financial health of a company. The module also covers specific items from the financial statements and applies tools of analysis whenever possible.

Ethical dilemmas are frequently encountered in the workplace, in every

function of the organisation, and at every level. Knowing how to deal with

ethical issues is critical in being able to be an effective leader.

Additionally, the range and complexity of ethical issues have increased in

recent years, as well as expectations of responsible corporate conduct;

knowing how to deal with such concerns is an important part of

management today.

In this module, students examine how organisations, and individuals

within them, can deal with ethical issues and dilemmas at the collective

and personal levels. Throughout the module, students will gain skills

related to elements of ethical decision-making, the psychological aspects related to business ethics, and ethics in the global marketplace. The

module will focus on how business leaders can make ethical decisions,

skilfully manage ethical issues in the workplace, and help encourage

ethics in a variety of organisation

The role of marketing management in organisations is to identify and measure the needs and wants of consumers, to determine which targets the business can serve, to decide on the appropriate offerings to serve these markets, and to determine the optimal methods of pricing, promoting, and distributing the firm’s offerings. Successful organisations are those that integrate the objectives and resources of the organisation with the needs and opportunities of the marketplace. The goal of this module is to facilitate student achievement of these goals regardless of career path.

Throughout the module, students will study various tools for generating marketing insights from data in such areas as segmentation, targeting and positioning, satisfaction management, customer lifetime analysis, customer choice, product and price decisions using conjoint analysis, and text analysis, and search analytics.

This module examines specific issues involved in building and managing global brands in such a way that they contribute to shareholder value. A global brand uses the same name and logo and has awareness, availability, and acceptance in multiple regions of the world. It shares the same strategic principles, values, positioning, and marketing throughout the world. Although the marketing mix can vary, it is managed in an internationally coordinated manner.

Throughout this module, students will develop skills related to building strong global brands; developing marketing mix strategies that are an effective combination of global standardisation, local adaptation, and worldwide learning; and managing global brands.

Service organisations (e.g., hospitals, hotels, banks, insurance companies, professional services, educational institutions) require a different approach from that of goods and high-tech businesses. Additionally, many goods and high-tech businesses also use a strong service component as a source of competitive advantage.

Services marketing is often viewed in terms of outcomes, but services marketing is also an ongoing analytic process. In this module, students will learn how to properly analyse frameworks, tools, channels, data sets, customer behavioural data, decision-making factors, and strategies that support broader marketing decisions. Throughout the module, students will build on basic marketing concepts and apply them to service industry settings.

The focus of this module is to introduce concepts, skills, and strategies for performing competitively in the business market where organisations rather than households are the customers.

This module provides a managerial introduction to the strategic and tactical aspects of business marketing decisions and marketing channel strategy. Students examine the strategic concepts and tools that guide market selection, successful differentiation in business markets, and supply chain management. Students will examine how product and service decisions are designed to deliver the B2B value proposition, how pricing captures customer value, how value is communicated to and among customers, and how marketing channels are used to make this value accessible to target customers. Additionally, students will compare and contrast how the strategic and tactical processes of developing and managing value-generating relationships differ between B2B and B2C markets. Moreover, students will also gain an understanding of how to manage channel power, conflict, and relationships.

This module is designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge to influence and lead social impact in business and impact contexts. By the conclusion of this module, students should have a strong foundation in social impact and social change, including approaches to funding impact, scaling programmes, and interventions, public-private partnerships, corporate engagement, impact investment decision-making, blended capital, and approaches to intentional impact.

The module will pivot around multiple case studies addressing social issues through which students learn and test social impact frameworks and concepts. Once students have gained a mastery of perspectives and methodologies necessary to consider and address a social issue from the ground up, they will next learn to identify and utilise effective measures of outputs and progress and explore the core levers and potentials to change outcomes for people, communities and market systems.

This module focuses on multiple aspects of team dynamics and structure, with a focus on the organisational intelligence needed to lead and manage diverse organisations in a varied marketplace. Theories of organisational behaviour, social psychology, and anthropology are critically discussed in relation to real-world scenarios.

Additionally, this module introduces students to the challenges and opportunities faced in multifaceted workplaces and provides evidence-based insights and practical strategies for how to accelerate team engagement and belonging as a pathway to sustainability and competitive advantage. Ultimately, this module enables students to successfully build and lead organisations that are multifaceted, equitable, and engaging.

Social Entrepreneurship is a dynamic business field that examines the practice of identifying, starting, and growing successful mission-driven for-profit and non-profit ventures. This module provides students with the skills to develop in-depth insights into economic and social value creation across several areas, including poverty alleviation, energy, health, and sustainability. Through case studies, lectures, and discussions, students will learn to think strategically and act opportunistically with a socially-conscious business mindset.

Topics addressed throughout this module include problem/opportunity assessment, resource acquisition, and social and financial returns on investments. Students will critically assess various social and organisational models that directly affect diverse populations throughout the world.

In this module, students learn about the complex responsibilities facing business leaders today. Through cases about difficult managerial decisions, the course examines the legal, ethical, and economic responsibilities of corporate leaders. It also teaches students about management and governance systems leaders can use to promote responsible conduct by companies and their employees, and shows how personal values can play a critical role in effective leadership.

Additionally, this module is designed to deepen and extend students' conceptual and practical understanding of leadership in organisations, extending beyond the application of knowledge in practical judgements that achieve business outcomes, to embrace wider social and ethical considerations. The course is experiential and multidisciplinary, requiring participants to reflect on the social and ethical responsibilities of leaders in relation to their own experiences. It is designed to help students discover insights about themselves as leaders, fostering the development of self-awareness, including strengths and opportunities for personal growth.

This module encompasses statistics, decision analysis, and simulation modelling.

Throughout the module, students will strengthen their capacity to lead individuals, teams, and organisations in processes that generate data-driven solutions to problems, data-driven insights into customer behaviour, and data-driven decision-making. This module provides the foundations of probability and statistics required for a manager to interpret large quantities of data and to make informed decisions under conditions of uncertainty, with incomplete information, and in both structured and unstructured settings. Theoretical topics include decision trees, hypothesis testing, multiple regression, Monte Carlo simulation, and sampling and estimation.

This module explores the international business environment in which organisations operate. Throughout the module, students will examine the structure and features of international markets, how organisations engage with these markets, and how they respond to their complexities. Students are introduced to useful theoretical and analytical frameworks that are crucial to understanding the opportunities and risks derived from the political, economic, social, technological, and institutional environment of countries.

The module also addresses aspects of global institutions, such as the World Trade organisation (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which set global rules that affect business strategy and human welfare.

Throughout this module, students will develop the analytical tools necessary to understand crisis prevention and management, and risk management. The properties and characteristics of risk management techniques will be analysed and related to corporate and sovereign default risk, hedging and trading strategies, regulation, and assessing financial stability and systemic risk. Emphasis will be put on applying these techniques to problems emerging in the marketplace.

Additionally, this module addresses the ability of different risk management approaches to account for large market shocks. Students will study the effect of leverage, through borrowing or through the structuring of assets, in amplifying shocks and increasing risk, and the role of capital in mitigating them. The information learned in this module will help business leaders understand their role in regulatory compliance and participate constructively in these interactions.

This module develops the foundations for financial decisions in a global economic environment. It concentrates on four areas: markets, tools, investments, and corporations. Students will become familiar with the benefits of international diversification in investment strategies. Additional topics include the valuation of international investments and analysis of the functioning of international financial markets and institutions.

Throughout the modules, students will also develop skills related to the management of foreign exchange exposure in international corporations within the specific context of emerging markets.

Throughout this module, students will learn the basic concepts of needs analysis, investment policy, asset allocation, product selection, portfolio monitoring and rebalancing. Students will assess the various types of institutional investors, including pension funds and insurance companies and develop skills related to the client management life cycle and portfolio management as a process. The module will address the basic concepts, principles, and the major styles of investing in alternative assets. Additionally, students will learn about the impact of digitization on investment strategies and the issues related to performance measurement, transaction costs and liquidity risk, margin requirements, risk management, and portfolio construction. Other topics addressed in the module include quantitative investment strategies used by active traders and methodologies to analyse them. Through the use of case studies, students will learn to use real data to back-test or evaluate several of the most successful trading strategies used by active investment managers. As a result, students will learn to read and analyse academic research articles in search of profitable and implementable trading ideas.

Financial reports contain important information about a company's past, present, and future. The ability to read these reports provides valuable insights into an organisation's strengths and shortcomings.

This module is designed to prepare students to interpret and analyse financial statements for tasks such as credit and security analyses, lending and investment decisions, and other decisions that rely on financial data. Throughout the module, students will explore in greater depth financial reporting from the perspective of financial statement users. Students will develop a sufficient understanding of the concepts and recording procedures and therefore will be able to interpret various disclosures in an informed manner. Additionally, students will learn how to compare companies financially, understand cash flow, and grasp basic profitability issues and risk analysis concepts.

The Digital Action Programme for Business Administration provides a capstone course in which students deepen and apply their learning through a 'Digital Action Programme' (DAP). In the DAP, students are grouped into cohorts (typically five students) and must work both individually and together on a specific, real, contemporary business consultancy problem related to their specialisation (Data Analytics; Marketing; Finance; International Business; DEI), normally proposed by a cooperating organisation (corporation or non-profit), which results in a comprehensive solution proposal.

This provides students with a real-world business consultancy engagement, and the opportunity to produce, both individually and as a team, a substantial piece of relevant, scholarly, and actionable research, to be presented directly to stakeholders in the cooperating organisation.

Over the course of the DAP, students fulfil the learning objectives: each student demonstrates their comprehensive knowledge and understanding of key business processes; each student uses multidisciplinary approaches to perform critical analyses of real business issues in situations of uncertainty and incomplete information in order to develop an actionable solution; each student practises teamwork, exercises their leadership skills, and reflects on their own performance and the performance of their cohort; and each student communicates to members of their cohort, the cooperating organisation, and faculty members from Woolf. Students are required to demonstrate autonomy, individual scholarly acumen, self-reflection in their engagement with peers, role adaptability within their cohort, and teamwork while engaged in the DAP. The goal of the DAP is (1) to fulfil the learning objectives and (2) to produce a project portfolio containing an analysis of the business problem and the proposed solution.