Strategic Management - Professor Alan Wohlman DePaul University
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Strategy may be defined as the art and science of formulating and implementing plans to achieve specific goals. As a successful manager and business leader you will be required to make intelligent decisions as you help to create and execute your organization's strategic plans.
In this course we will examine the impact of your business decisions as they affect your organization's qualitative and quantitative performance. We will study the criteria for making intelligent choices from the many options available to your company and your competitors. Can you organize a company team? Can your team understand and use relevant information and make smart decisions? Can you anticipate changes and prepare to avoid treats and exploit opportunities? Can you win?
INTERACTIVE COMPUTER SIMULATION
Your 100 million-dollar firm will be managed by entering critical business decisions into an interactive computer simulation. Over a period of six to eight rounds (equivalent to 6-8 years), you will discover the strategic implications of cross-functional coordination between Research and Development, Marketing, Production, Human Resources, and Finance. You will quickly learn the value of strategic planning and execution as your team's competitive position is determined by the set of decisions entered in each round. This is as close to the real world as you can get!
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Understand the factors that contribute to the strategic management process and learn how to integrate those elements into effective strategic and functional plans;
Appreciate the interrelationship between the various disciplines of a business and the need to translate corporate strategic plans into intelligent functional decisions;
Learn how to objectively evaluate an organization's capabilities and competitive position and thereby make smart choices to establish strategies that achieve defined objectives;
Develop teamwork skills and the ability to make and execute a set of interrelated and interdependent decisions that affect the performance of the team (company) as a whole and the participants as individuals;
Discover the value of using a simulated business model to test skills, concepts, plans, and competitive responses in an accelerated time-frame and without risk. COURSE PROCEDURE
MATERIALS
Capstone®; Student Guide and accompanying computer diskette which contains all of the programs required to successfully operate the simulation. TEAMS
The members of the class will be divided into teams of approximately six participants per team. The team will form a "company" that will manage a specific firm within the computer simulation program. Each team will compete against the other class teams in a multi-round sequence of business decisions.
In general, the probability that a team will win is dependent upon the following factors:
- The ability to organize an effective team unit
- The extent to which the team understands the "cause and effect" relationships in the specific business environment in which they are operating (dependent and independent variables)
- The team's ability to formulate a well defined and relevant strategic plan and then execute that plan within the time-frame of the business model.
ATTENDANCE, TEAM MEETINGS AND TEAM DECISIONS
The nature of this course requires individual participation in class and team meetings. Unless a good reason exists, all students are expected to attend class regularly, remain for the entire session, and participate in scheduled team meetings.
General structure and operation of the course: Teams will be expected to meet outside of class to discuss strategy and formulate business decisions. Those decisions, once finalized, will be submitted via team discs or uploaded to the Capstone®; web site and subsequently processed to yield competitive results. A debriefing session will be held to discuss the results of a "round" , the team discs will be updated to reflect the latest decisions and competitive positions, and then a new round will begin. It is anticipated that the simulation will consist of about six or seven rounds (each round is equivalent to one "business year").
Every week, each team will submit an activity report to highlight the team's most recent meeting:
date of meeting, attendance, and major strategic conclusions.
GRADING SYSTEM
Each student's grade will be determined by four factors, taken into account in equal measure:
- Team evaluations (25%): each team member will be required to evaluate the performance of his/her colleagues on the team using the following criteria:
(a) attendance and participation at team meetings:
(b) the quality of contributed suggestions, conclusions, and decisions;
(c) attitude and team-work. A form will be provided to enter and submit your evaluations. - Class attendance and participation (25%)
- Team performance (25%): While the teams competitive position is indeed very important, "team performance" is not totally reflected by its competitive position, but rather by its use of logical concepts to develop relevant strategic plans and the intelligent implementation of those plans.
- Team final reports (25%): each team will be required to offer a presentation that addresses two very specific questions:
(a) what were the factors that contributed to my team's (company's) overall performance and competitive position at the conclusion of the final round?
(b) given my team's (company's) position at the conclusion of the final round, and the competitive environment in which we are operating, what would I do over the next three to five years to significantly improve performance?
The oral reports will be presented at the end of the quarter. It would be prudent to begin jotting notes and formulating some ideas throughout the course as they may relate to the content of the final presentation.
PLAGIARISM AND CHEATING
Plagiarism, cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty are prohibited. Plagiarism refers to the use of materials from books, notes, and other sources in the student's written work without due credit to the courses used; it is the presentation of material as if these were the student's own. Cheating refers to giving help in a test, unauthorized copying of a test, assignments, reports, term papers, etc. If proven, a charge of plagiarism or cheating could result in an automatic "F" and possible expulsion.