Strategy
Overview
The Strategy program develops students who study the factors that drive firms’ fundamental strategic choices, and the way such choices influence firm performance, including risk-taking, management of strategic innovation processes, strategy formation and implementation, behavioral understandings of competition, global strategy, and entrepreneurial strategy. The program embraces a wide variety of methodological approaches but shares an emphasis on rigorous scholarship directed at understanding the processes that cause important strategic outcomes.
Course Descriptions
MBA Core Class
Business Strategy
MBA Electives
New Venture Management
Entrepreneurship
Global Competitive Strategy
Business Dynamics [ITM Course]
Business Growth Strategies
Competitive Intelligence
Mergers & Acquisitions Growth Strategies
Topics in Strategic Innovation
Practice of General Management
Sustainability and Competitive Advantage
Faculty
Visiting & Affiliated Faculty and Researchers
210 Business Strategy
Firm performance depends heavily on a set of inter-connected strategic choices involving where and how the firm will compete. Strategic management goes to the heart of how managers add value to the firm by focusing on how managers should.make such major choices regarding overall firm direction. This course provides conceptual frameworks and techniques to analyze, develop, and implement firm strategies. The course begins with providing frameworks for understanding the dynamics of industry structure, the evolution of this structure, and the pattern of interaction among the competitors in the industry. The course then focuses on assessment of the organizational resources and routines that form the basis for firm-specific capabilities. The course emphasizes the development of competitive strategy based on leveraging firm-specific capabilities in the marketplace. The course is practical and problem-oriented. A major part of the course involves applying concepts, frameworks, analytical techniques, and managerial insights to the strategic issues which real world companies face. In applying strategic analyses to real-world situations, students take the role of key decision makers and address questions regarding their evaluation of the marketplace and organization. Through case analysis and discussion, the course helps students improve their strategic thinking by developing frameworks by which to assess, evaluate, and respond different business situations. PREREQUISITES: 200, 202, 205, 209A.
213 New Venture Management
This course focuses on survival and growth of new ventures—the challenges facing a manager who wants to transform a young small firm into.a much larger successful firm. However new firms fail at a high rate, a phenomenon called the “liabilities of newness.” Building from contemporary research, the course identifies key issues that contribute to new venture failure and articulates managerial actions to increase the likelihood of new venture survival and financial success. Methods include analysis of live cases, guest speakers, discussion, and field projects with contemporary entrepreneurs to learn about successful new venture management and surviving the liabilities of newness. PREREQUISITES: 200, 202, 205.
214 Entrepreneurship
Instead of a single transaction, entrepreneurship is a social process where a group seeks to found a new organization to create financial or social value. Over the course of this project course, student teams develop a business plan to launch a new venture. The content of the course addresses the frameworks and issues essential to producing various portions of the plan. The content covers an array of related issues ranging from idea development and creation to going public or harvesting the venture. In parallel with this content, students submit drafts of sections of the plan throughout the course. Students present their final business plans to a panel of private investors, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, experienced executives, and faculty.
215 Global Competitive Strategy
The overseas activities of multinational enterprises generate annually about $19 trillion in revenue from about 850,000 “foreign” subsidiaries. The value of the world’s international trade is only about half that amount. Consequently, the international activities of corporations – both large and small – are a significant component of the world’s total economic activity. As such, most MBA graduates, sooner rather than later, become involved in operating in a global arena. This course gives students an understanding of the complexities of international operations as well as how to take advantage of these opportunities. Global Competitive Strategy examines the opportunities, challenges, and strategies of operating firms with an international presence. Among other topics, we examine: • the potential for companies to be competitive in the global arena, • the industry structure on a global basis, • achieving global strength, • international risk, • various functional areas such as operations, marketing, and human resources, • design and implementation of a global organization, and • development of global strategy. To address these topics and others, the course uses seven or eight Harvard cases featuring such firms as Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Philips, and several non-US firms. The cases deal with international operations in the U.S., the U.K., Spain, China, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia in general. The cases are tied into the short text, George Yip’s Total Global Strategy II, which will provide a helpful conceptual underpinning for our discussions on the strategic as well as managerial aspects of international business. In addition, we will be using a course pack of readings from various sources. PREREQUISITES: 202, 205, 210.
218 Business Dynamics [ITM Course]
While it is well accepted that the goal of strategic management is the attainment and preservation of sustainable competitive advantage, increasingly agile and dynamic competitors can quickly turn a manager’s strategy for advantage into an inflexible path for demise. Today’s innovative and fast-paced competitive environment demands a new level of managerial thinking that can pursue competitive advantage while simultaneously developing the ability to respond to challenges to organizational survival. It is this ability to ensure organizational survival as one pursues competitive advantage that is the focus of Business Dynamics.Business Dynamics aims to improve both your ability to analyze sudden challenges to organizational survival and to quickly implement a winning response. We will enhance your competitive analytical skill by dissecting some of the more complex challenges to organizational adaptation including changing diversification, acquisitions and alliances, turnarounds of struggling companies, sustainability, strategic innovation management, and managing strategic change. The course emphasizes student participation including both in class participation and the writing of memos arguing for specific strategies. Business Dynamics is specifically designed as a strategy elective that builds upon the core course in Business Strategy (210). Individuals eager to enhance their skills in strategic analysis and formulation and in written communication will find the course particularly valuable.
290 Business Growth Strategies
This course focuses on management of growth opportunities in industries where applied innovation, usually in the form of technology, people, or processes creates distinct competitive advantages. The rapid pace of change from applied innovation can create growth opportunities from disintermediation of status quo market share leaders and making historical economic models obsolete. Disruptive technologies can alter industry models including but not limited to new products, manufacturing processes, service delivery processes, information systems or customer interactions. Although the course will primarily use business to business concepts from technology driven organizations in course materials, the strategic lessons to be learned from these fast moving markets have value for all managers because all industries are now being redefined in one way or another by the application of technology.
290 Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence is a combination of an “art” (CI focused strategy), science (analytical techniques) and craft (learning from experience of managing and doing CI). An effective competitive intelligence program (CIP) is a core foundation upon which competitive strategies and execution tactics are developed, assessed and modified. The heart of the course is developing a CIP. The CIP is a continuous process that integrates both formal and informal intelligence gathering processes by which managers in the organization assess, disseminate and use key trends, emerging discontinuities, the evolution of industry structure and the capabilities and behaviors of current and potential competitors to assist in formulating and implementing strategy and tactics. The course focuses on how to design a CIP and produce actionable intelligence based on a framework that provides answers to three critical questions: (i) To what extent do we understand why and how strategic interactions with competitors and non-market forces impact our competitive position? (ii) To what extent is intelligence integrated (flows) to managers on a timely basis? Four elements are focused on in this process: behavioral, political, organizational systems/processes and mental models. (iii) To what extent and in what manner is competitive intelligence factored into the corporate/business unit decision making and implementation process? A CIP is an essential part of an intelligence focused strategy. The result of a deep understanding and implementation of a CIP is sustainable and profitable growth. The methods of intelligence collection, analysis, dissemination and counter intelligence are framed within a global context. The course relys heavily on cases and selected readings and will conclude with a “War Game” in which teams, utilizing insights and models developed during the course will engage in an industry battle for competitive advantage. The course is particularly relevant for students interested in the areas of strategic planning, marketing, MIS, international business and finance, although everyone is welcome. Prerequisite: 200, 202.
290 Mergers & Acquisitions Growth Strategies
Growth through mergers and acquisitions can provide an attractive means to jump start a stagnant company, leverage its core competencies or diversify into attractive adjacent markets, but it is a strategic path fraught with risks. When is it the best course versus alternative growth strategies? What is the “perfect “fit” test for evaluating target companies? What antitrust considerations must the acquirer bear in mind? Addressing those questions will provide the strategic backdrop for a more detailed review of the techniques and mechanics of growing through acquisition: merger economics, deal structure, valuation, negotiation tactics, legal considerations, due diligence, closing the deal and post-closing integration. The course will conclude with units on deal financing and leveraged buyouts, corporate restructuring and takeover defenses. Each week a different acquisition oriented case will be discussed. Two papers during the course will require developing pricing proposals and building financial models of actual target companies described in unpublished cases. For the final project, the student will prepare for a board of directors an acquisition proposal that identifies a target company, justifies the strategic rationale, analyzes different purchase prices, proposes a financing plan and calculates an internal rate of return for the acquiring company or investors. The course will thus interweave three M&A strands: strategic considerations, operational methodologies and financial modeling techniques. Upon completion of the course, the diligent student will be ready to acquire his or her first company.
290 Topics in Strategic Innovation
As global competition heats up at an ever-increasing pace, the ability to innovate becomes a vital strategy for every business. Yet it is not enough to focus on a single, breakthrough innovation or a series of small incremental changes. The business of tomorrow will only grow through a sustainable approach and practice of innovation. This course will incorporate three elements: Organizing for Innovation, Innovation in a Global Context, and Innovation at Work. Every student will take part in a team project for an existing business or organization that will incorporate the principles of innovation, help develop strategies, and deliver added value. The course will include case studies of organizations including Cirque de Soleil, Samsung and Apple; examination of new research; a panel of expert speakers; and hands-on participation in an innovative project.
290 Practice of General Management
General managers, who are responsible for the overall profitability and performance of an organization, face a formidable set of challenges. Whether charged with managing a department, plant, store, division or company, they must make the big decisions that determine the organization’s success or failure. For them, there is always more at stake. Whether a division general manager or a company CEO, they must choose an overall strategic direction for the business and then take responsibility for its product/service superiority, market share gains/losses, technological excellence/shortcomings, operational effectiveness, customer service levels, employee morale and of course profitability and ultimate survival. The prior experience of a newly promoted general manager or CEO will probably have left many of these bases uncovered. All senior managers begin their tenures with great promise, having excelled in lower level positions, yet many will fail. There is no science and little academic literature to provide the keys to success at this level. Instead, the most valuable lessons must be gleaned from the best practices being employed by executives across a variety of business settings.
This course is designed to teach the graduating MBA how the best managers actually manage. Students will develop throughout the course a toolkit of proven concepts and practices that will help them succeed as department managers, division general managers and ultimately CEOs. The toolkit will include philosophical principles, practical techniques, analytical skills and a series of memorable “management axioms.” The course is organized around modules, each reflecting a facet of the senior manager’s job. Some representative topics: Taking Command, Strategic Vision, Turnaround Management, Managing by the Numbers, Organic Growth, Operational Excellence, People Management, Growth through Acquisitions, Global Expansion, and Crisis Management. Each class session will begin with a challenging discussion question, such as, “What steps should a new manager take in assuming command of any new organization?” There will then be a lecture on the day’s topic referencing many real world business examples, followed by a case discussion of management successes and failures in different industries. During the course, several guest speakers with CEO experience will add their perspectives.
290 Sustainability and Competitive Advantage
Sustainability is a “megatrend” that is garnering ever-greater public attention and will have a major impact on how companies conduct business. While most companies comply with regulatory requirements, few managers fully understand the challenge of addressing sustainability from a strategic perspective. Companies often approach sustainability through a variety of “green initiatives”, without fully addressing it as a transformative event in the business environment within which they compete. This course will focus on how to integrate environmental efforts as a key part of a firm’s business strategy. Utilizing case studies and current thinking on the subject, this course will help develop the skills necessary to assess how a company can build a competitive advantage incorporating sustainability as a key corporate capability.
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