This module aims to enable students to:

Understand and have a practical appreciation of contemporary management challenges within a view of: supply chain management, project management, enterprise management and big data;

Understand the means by which benchmarking and comparative performance assessment can be undertaken;

Have a practical understanding of the importance of teamwork and communication;

Appreciate the need for competence in operations management and be aware of its impact on business performance;

Be more accomplished autonomous learners and be able to better manage their own learning experiences.

(LO1) Students will be able to demonstrate research skills and an appreciation of both strategic and functional management practices, as well as appropriate models and frameworks or tools to provide critical analysis of a business case, and present convincing and reasoned arguments to formulate solutions for strategic action and operational decisions.

(LO2) Students will be able to demonstrate critical awareness of contemporary research in appropriate areas, i.e. operations and supply chain management; e-Business and technology management; project management, through extraction of knowledge from the literature in an analytic manner, and use them to develop ideas for research.

(LO3) Students will be able to collect secondary data from various sources including financial statements, analyse the data in qualitative and/or quantitative forms, and use the outcome to interpret and compare business health and performance using a range of financial and non-financial measures.

(LO4) Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to work within teams, and make an active contribution to work teams.

(LO5) Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to plan and undertake work at postgraduate level within a management discipline.

(LO6) Students will be able to critically evaluate and reflect on management theory and practice.

(LO7) Students will be able to use relevant theory, concepts and tools (qualitative or quantitative; soft systems; manual or IT) to analyse situations and support decisions.

(LO8) Students will be able to manage data effectively; use appropriate methods to acquire and process data; analyse data competently; evaluate and interpret data soundly; synthesise data to enhance conclusions.

(S1) Core academic skills of understanding and mastery of research techniques, ability to assemble and analyse data, capability to plan improvements and assess outcomes.
Developed via introduction to research in semester 1, lectures, playing business game, undertaking independent research for benchmarking, tutorial for development of the works and tasks, supervision, encouraging and guiding for preparing group presentations.

(S2) Problem solving skills
Developed by engaging in a live and active business game, with an induced competitive context to design, develop and manage a business in which problem solving plays a key role.

(S3) Commercial awareness
Developed by playing the business game.

(S4) Organisation skills
Students need to plan and organise a business, manage people and assets, and measure performance. Organise teamwork and group presentations.

(S5) Communication skills
Developed through class exercises and discussions, teamwork and group communication, preparation of reports and presentations.

(S6) Lifelong learning skills
Students will develop research skills through benchmarking exercise, theoretical and conceptual thinking about business strategic issues, teamwork and coping under pressure.

Lectures x 20 hours
Seminars x 5 hours
Self directed learning x 575 hours

Introduction to research and literature review.
Seminars will be used to deliver the teaching and support the development of the content during the semester.
As part of this exercise the students produce a piece of research from the literature on the principles of strategic approach to business analysis and benchmarking.

Teaching syllabus will cover:

The Business Game:

The Sustainability Business Simulation is a team-based approach, which offers insights into the management of global corporations using sustainable business practices. Students will deal with a realistic global automobile manufacturer (or similar) environment, where the main objective is to build sales, improve profitability and to maximise shareholder value. At the same time students will be tasked to control total carbon emissions from the main business operations in a tightening regulatory environment. Hence, number of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will allow students to track impro vements in CO2 efficiency, energy efficiency and corporate reputation, in addition to the more usual business indicators linked to profitability or cash flow. Therefore, the simulation will provide a realistic environment to students in order to manage efficiently financial, marketing, operations and social requirements in industries. Within this context, and from a multi-disciplinary point of view, teams will be responsible for:

Management decision-making;

Key operations management decisions: operations and process design;

Measurement of operational efficiency and values of key performance indicators;

Managerial competencies and functional management strategies and roles;

Contemporary management challenges and responses;

Teamwork and communication;

Fundamental accounting concepts: profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, accounting ratios;

Operations and marketing functions key roles and decisions;

Establish the efficient project management directions;

Enhance supply chain management within a sustainable view.

Strategic Benchmarking Exercise:

The Business developed in the Business Simulation will be examined in a Benchmarking study using standard generic models or frameworks such as BSC. Lectures and seminars will be delivered to cover the theoretical and practice aspects of Benchmarking and how the analysis shall be developed and reported. The Groups/students will be then required to analyse their business both on an internal level and in relation to other businesses developed within the module by other groups (guided by the module delivery team for pairing and allocations) and other similar/comparable external businesses in the same business sector.

Key aspects covered in the exercise include:

Competitive strategy and the nature of competitive advantage;

Annual reports;

Analysis of key operations and supply chain management initiatives;

Financial and non-financi al analysis;

Generic and strategic performance measurements (investment, growth, employees).

The exercise shall support the team to translate strategy into action for the business.