Business Policies and Strategies - Rakesh Pangasa Webster University

Course Description:
The "Business Policies and Strategies' course integrates concepts from the entire business curriculum including management, marketing, accounting, finance, operations, information systems, strategic planning, and project management, to help the student develop a unified understanding of conceptualizing, developing, implementing, and monitoring strategies in organizations.

In the past, senior managers could plan strategies and implement them without being overly concerned about having to formally review their strategic management process and to explicitly articulate and change their implicit strategies. Since mid-1980s a number of factors such as, continuously changing technologies, more rigorous customer expectations, shifting governmental policies, and influences of globalization on practically every organization, have made the task of strategic management more challenging as well as more rewarding.

The course helps students to examine the role of senior management in formulating strategy and the roles of all the managers in implementing strategy. Some of the specific issues to be examined include: (a) How different industry conditions support different types of strategies; (b) How industry conditions change and the implication of those changes for strategic management; and (c) How organizations develop and maintain capabilities that lead to sustained competitive advantage.

The student examines the conceptual and practical aspects of business policies and policy decision making by utilizing all the concepts, theories, and tools that were presented in the previous courses. The student should be able to analyze and recommend a comprehensive and workable approach to the situation. The course covers current business issues and developments. Prerequisites: completion of all other required courses in the M.B.A. The course stresses the development of an overall framework for analyzing the use of information by organizations. Examples are developed to demonstrate the integrative nature of the information systems through the use of case studies and projects.

Incoming Competency of Students expected by Instructor:
The student must have an understanding of a manufacturing, service, or a distribution enterprise and should have working familiarity with accessing and searching on the World Wide Web and with software program for word-processing, spreadsheets, database, and PowerPoint presentations. The student is expected to perform effectively in the context of all learning experiences typical of the graduate level. This ability must include the capability of communicating effectively in writing, discussions, and presentations.

1. Course Objectives:
2. To help the student in developing a general perspective on Strategic Management, and to apply the concepts, theories, tools and skills developed in analyzing and evaluating strategic management processes.
3. To help the student in understanding the need for and the process of developing, implementing, and evaluating organizational aims and strategies.
4. To help the student in understanding the outcome of priorities and relationships of business variables, to identify major issues in complex situations, to propose alternative solutions, and to defend the chosen alternatives.
5. To help the student in developing management interpersonal skills as a participating member of a sustained executive staff.

Schedule of required readings, class preparations and assignments, lectures, discussions, student presentations, and exams:

Keeping in view the specific objectives listed above, study any standard textbook on Strategic Management; the recommended text, an earlier edition of which was used during an earlier offering of this course, is indicated below.
* Do review the course website frequently to access course materials.
* Sign-up and establish an account with Capstone^®; Business Simulation.
* There are essentially three main assignments to complete.
* Assignment 1:
Case Analysis: 
Please analyze and critique any 1 of the Cases given in the text. Your response - appropriately typed - should cover:

(a) The Context explaining 
* why was the Case analyzed,
* what will be accomplished when Case Analysis is completed, and
* how does this case Analysis fit into the overall objective of taking this course.

(b) The Analysis describing
* An informative abstract of the Case,
* Identifying a few (at least five) relevant and important questions and responses to those questions, 
* How does the Case Analysis help accomplish Course Objectives.

(c) The Conclusion explaining 
* what was learned from the Case Analysis, and
* the implications of what was learned in the student's career (or profession).

The completed Case analysis should be submitted in MS word format. In addition, the slides in your presentation should also be submitted in the form of handout for presentation audience; the handout should include six slides to a page format for printing. The case needs to be presented, using MS PowerPoint, in class as scheduled.

* Assignment 2:
Strategic Alliance Paper: Conceptualize, research, develop, complete, and present a Paper (no more than 10 pages) on Strategic Alliance between _________ and ___________ (select a recent case of alliance in consultation with the instructor). The paper, no more than 10 pages, should include:
(d) The Context explaining 
* why was this Strategic Alliance Paper developed,
* what will be accomplished when this is done, and
* how does this fit into the overall objective of taking this course;
(e) The Strategic Alliance discussing
* Strategic leadership
* Executive leadership
* Products and services being offered by both organizations
* Past financial performance and future projections
* Objectives of strategic alliance
* Major terms of strategic alliance
* Organizational Strengths and Weaknesses,
* Environmental Opportunities and Threats
* Major competitors
* Strategic management challenges.
* Organizational and operational strategies
(f) The Conclusion explaining 
* what was learned, and
* the implications thereof in the student's career (or profession).

The completed Strategic Alliance paper should be submitted in MS word format. In addition, the slides in your presentation should also be submitted in the form of handout for presentation audience; the handout should include six slides to a page format for printing. The Strategic Alliance paper needs to be presented, using MS PowerPoint, in class as scheduled.

* Assignment 3:
Capstone^®; Business Simulation: This assignment requires your participation in Capstone^®; Business Simulation - a strategic management simulation - as a team. All the three students will work as a team; there will be other computer-generated teams that your team will be competing against.

The simulation provides you with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in running a business as a member of a senior management team. Management teams are required to evaluate situations and make decisions, evaluate outcomes, and compete with other management teams for resources, opportunities, and markets. Your team will have the opportunity to set corporate strategies, and apply strategic concepts and techniques within a practical decision-making framework. In this way you have the opportunity to see how a firm's production, marketing, R&D, HR, and financial operations interact and observe the impact of key decisions on business performance within a competitive market.

Capstone^®; Team Assignment 3a
Vision and Strategy Statement (Copy for the Chairman of the Board is due ________). In no more than four typed pages; summarize your company's vision and intended strategy. Your statement should include:
* The strategic objectives your company has set for itself
* A description of the product(s) you have chosen to pursue
* A summary of the concrete functional level strategies (e.g., marketing, finance, production, R&D, and HR) you intend to use in support of your company's s strategy
* A summary of your planned decision processes, including approaches/techniques for making sales forecasts, decision rules to determine investments (e.g., R&D, advertising), approaches for raising capital and justification for approaches choice of indicators to determine the success of your strategy

Don't be generic! What makes your firm unique? What is its identity? In what fundamental ways will you distinguish yourself from your competitors? Also enclose a list of your top management team members and their role (e.g., Marketing VP, Finance VP, Operations VP, Human Resources VP, CEO) in your organization.

Capstone^®; Team Assignment 3b
Final Board Report (copies for Board Members and the Chairman is due ________). Your team should maintain a record of its activities including such things as strategic postures taken, assumptions employed, decisions made, the outcomes of those decisions, and changes felt necessary. Based on this information, each team will report on its Capstone^®; experiences in the form of a report to the Company's Board of Directors and shareholders. Your team will be assigned a Board of Directors and this Board will evaluate the performance of your team over the six-year time period of the simulation. Your Board Report is not intended to be an academic paper. It should be a truthful sell-job to the Board illustrating your company's effectiveness. It should be a formal typed, ten-page maximum report, not including attachments and appendices. This final written Board Report is the basis for your presentation to the Board of Directors during the last week of class.

The Board Report should include, at a minimum:

1. Your company's initial Vision and Strategy statement.
2. A comparison of your emergent strategies with the original intended strategy
3. An evaluation of intended and emergent strategies within the context of the company's external environmental threats and opportunities and your organization's internal strengths and weaknesses over time.
4. An analysis of your market and competition
5. A description of the strategic decisions you made over time, why you made them, and how you implemented them.
6. A decision of what you learned from your experience, what worked well, and what you will do differently in future.

The completed Report for the Board should be submitted in MS word format. In addition, the slides in your presentation should also be submitted in the form of handout for presentation audience; the handout should include six slides to a page format for printing. The Board Report needs to be presented, using MS PowerPoint, by the team to the Board of Directors at the last class session on October 9.

Course Requirements:
Case Analysis... ... ... ... ... ... individual ... ... ... ... 15% + 5%
Strategic Alliance paper ... ... ... individual ... ... ... ... 30% + 10%
Capstone^®; Business Simulation... team work ... ... ... ... 25% + 15%