General Management
Financial Accounting
Brief overview
The purpose of this course is to furnish students with a basic understanding of the financial reporting process with a focus on how financial statements are put together and how they are used. Although the course principally concentrates on the production of financial statements, the aim is not to turn participants into practicing accountants. The philosophy is rather to provide an appreciation of the process of how accounting information is produced to give students the ability to successfully analyse a relatively complex set of financial statements. The ability to extract relevant information from accounting data for the purpose of decision-making is an important skill in various contexts, such as investment, evaluation, and performance-based compensation.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Explain the accounting and the financial reporting process;
- Describe how financial statements are prepared and how they are used by different target groups;
- Analyse complex sets of financial statements;
- Extract relevant information from accounting data for the purpose of decision-making and decision-influencing.
Accounting & Control
Brief overview
Using authentic case studies, this course endeavours to integrate the most recent Management Control Systems, such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) and Balanced Scorecards (BSC), into the new realities surrounding Competition, Strategy and Organisation. In this respect, the course places a special emphasis on those control systems used either for managing strategic uncertainties, or when implementing Specific Strategic Plans. Throughout the course, attention is drawn to showing the importance of aligning strategies with those control systems. The main themes of the course are: Levers of control, Cost systems for control, Cost systems for decision making, Financial planning systems, Variance analysis and Balanced Scorecard.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Exploit accounting information for decision making and control;
- Apply accounting information to analyse alternatives from an economic perspective that improves business performance;
- Design accounting systems to get reliable information to evaluate the long term prospects of products, customers, or divisions;
- Use accounting and control systems to align the interests of the different organizational participants.
Marketing Management
Brief overview
Marketing deals with the management of value creating and claiming processes at the customer interface. This course will familiarize students with fundamental concepts of marketing, such as market analysis, customer behaviour, marketing instruments and marketing strategies. It will provide an overview of current topics, such as customer and brand value, satisfaction and loyalty, or price management. We will discuss the role of the marketing department, marketing’s contribution to the overall business strategy, and the scope of the marketing concept.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Analyse current discussions in the field of marketing;
- Apply relevant marketing concepts and tools in practice;
- Explain the advantages and limitations of the marketing concepts and tools;
- Take decisions based on marketing management analyses.
Brief overview
Executive MBA candidates are familiarized with the basics of the Swiss (and, where applicable, international) legal environment they will encounter in their future business practice. The course sets the ground with an introduction to the origins of obligations (including contract, tort, unjust enrichment, and obligations based on trust). Then, company law is presented with a focus on the rights and duties of the different actors (notably, partners, shareholders, auditors, and board members) involved in partnerships and/or corporations. Subsequently, the law of some important contracts is explained, notably domestic and international sales, as well as mandate and work contracts. Specific coverage of loans, orders, documentary credits, pledges, mortgages and bank guarantees is also included. Finally, the mechanisms of private international law are dissected, and the boundaries of admissible evidence, as well as the functioning of the most common alternative dispute resolution scheme (arbitration) are explored.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Explain the important characteristics of the Swiss legal environment for businesses;
- Draft and make sense of essential business agreements (notably sale, mandate, work, and partnership contracts);
- Identify the rights and obligations of the main business stakeholders (particularly company officers, auditors, employees, and lenders);
- Minimize the major legal risks associated with criminal law, money laundering, antitrust practices, unfair competition, and product liability.
Brief overview
The module starts with a quick revision of data presentation: how can we summarise and present data so as to communicate the key ideas in a clear and compact way? The second topic will be decision analysis: how can we structure problems as a sequence of decisions (under our control) and events (beyond our control) to determine an optimal strategy? In this context we will also consider the impact of different attitudes to risk and discuss the value of information. The third main topic will be "statistics" in its narrow sense: sampling, establishing confidence intervals for various parameters, hypothesis testing and an introduction to causal forecasting, using regression analysis. Finally we will consider basic regression analysis, very useful to assess impact analysis.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Use statistics to improve business decisions;
- Approach a large range of problems in a more structured way;
- Act as a critical user of quantitative tools;
- Look behind the numbers at the underlying assumptions and challenge these where appropriate;
Brief overview
This course provides a broad review of microeconomic and macroeconomic principles. Topics include the supply-and-demand analysis of movements in competitive markets, the study of firm behaviour in a competitive or monopolistic framework, an introduction to the interpretation of macroeconomic data, the analysis of long-run and short-run determinants of macroeconomic output and price level, and basic game theory.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Use economic tools to interpret economic indicators;
- Assess the major economic factors explaining the behaviour of consumers or producers in specific markets;
- Identify the determinants of businesses' macroeconomic environment;
- Analyse what determines the government's role in fostering competition.
Brief overview
This course will discuss the value of time and understand the workings of the term structure. Then we move on to understand what determines the value of a stock. This brings us to discuss the required return on a stock. With these building blocks we can value risky projects and decide if they should be undertaken or not. We will investigate how interest rates evolve over time and understand the determinants of expected returns on assets. Time permitting we will explore the realm of options and their applications to valuation of risky debt and stock.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Explain what a bond, a stock and an option are;
- Explain how to transfer cash flow from the present to the future by compounding and to know the present value of future cash flows by discounting;
- Explain techniques used by financiers such as selling short, doing arbitrage or hedging risks;
- Explain how to construct an optimal portfolio and what this implies for the expected return on assets.
Brief overview
Operations management concerns value creation through the efficient organizing and controlling of the fundamental business activities of any company providing goods and services to customers. The course introduces to the students the key concepts of operations management, discusses through examples the vital relationship between operational speed and productivity and presents the dynamics related to supply chain management. The course also tackles latest trends in global supply chain management that are related to security and cross-border trade by revealing the myriad players of supply chains that may make them vulnerable but also resilient.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Explain the importance of value creation through speeding all business processes of the company;
- Analyse basic techniques of operations management;
- Detect the operating model of a company;
- Pin-point the weak spots and tools to initiate the organisational change process towards more efficient processes.
Brief overview
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Optimize your virtual identity and better understand your organization's virtual identity
- Exploit emerging technologies to connect with consumers
- Leverage knowledge using the digital universe
- Harness social media and networking tools within and across organizations
Brief overview
The course provides an introduction into leading organizational culture and change. Initially, we will work on the topics of organizational culture and design. A basic thrust of these early classes is that an organization’s culture is largely driven by its design. For example, an organization’s structure or the kinds of people who work in an organization shape the organization’s culture. In the back-end of the course, we will use frameworks and tools to develop a systematic approach towards leading organizational change. Organizational change can be defined as a change in an organization’s strategy and design that requires a change in employee behaviors.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Develop a systematic approach towards leading organisational change;
- Explain principles of organisational culture and design;
- Outline how effective organisations with strong cultures are designed;
- Contribute to effective organisational change and produce frameworks for organisational design and change.
Brief overview
The course gives an introduction into the ethical dimension of management. It will deal with two main questions: a) the role of ethics within an organizational context and b) the role of the corporation within society. Since both questions become more important for corporate success in the current business environment, the course helps students to broaden their filter of world perception and increases their set of alternatives in decision-making.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this module, participants should be able to:
- Recognise the importance of integrity within an organisational context and understanding the mechanisms of deviant behavior;
- Explain the impact of globalization on corporate responsibility;
- Analyse ethical issues along supply chains;
- Design and implement strategic corporate responsibility programmes.
Legal disclaimer: The above programme description is for information purposes only and is not legally binding. It may be changed without prior notice.
