MIS 44285 Fall 2010 Smas

SYLLABUS

INTEGRATED BUSINESS POLICY AND STRATEGY

M&IS 44285

FALL 2010

HOURS:   T&R / 8:15 – 9:00 AM

OFFICE: BSA A415

PHONE: 330-672-1155

EMAIL: mjsmas@kent.edu

NOTE: The material in this syllabus should be considered nominal and is subject to change by the instructor at any given time due to various constraints on the class, such as weather, illness of the instructor, or other such issues. Final exam times are listed in the college catalogue and it is the student’s responsibility to know when these exams are scheduled.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Unlike other business courses that concentrate narrowly on a particular function or piece of the business—accounting, finance, marketing, production, human resources, or information systems, strategic management is a big picture course. It cuts across the whole spectrum of business and management. The center of attention is the total enterprise–-the industry and competitive environment in which it operates its long-term direction and strategy, its resources and competitive capabilities, and its prospects for success.

Throughout the course, the spotlight will be trained on the foremost issue in running a business enterprise: “What must managers do, and do well, to make the company a winner in the game of business?”  The answer that emerges, and which becomes the theme of the course, is that good strategy-making and good strategy-execution are the key ingredients of company success and the most reliable signs of good management. The mission of the course is to explore why good strategic management leads to good business performance, to present the basic concepts and tools of strategic analysis, and to drill you in the methods of crafting a well-conceived strategy and executing it competently.

You’ll be called on to probe, question, and evaluate all aspects of a company’s external and internal situation. You’ll grapple with sizing up a company’s standing in the marketplace and its ability to go head-to-head with rivals, learn to tell the difference between winning strategies and mediocre strategies, and become more skilled in spotting ways to improve a company’s strategy or its execution.

In the midst of all this, another purpose is accomplished: to help you synthesize what you have learned in prior business courses. Dealing with the grand sweep of how to manage all the pieces of a business makes strategic management an integrative, capstone course in which you reach back to use concepts and techniques covered in previous courses. For perhaps the first time you’ll see how the various pieces of the business puzzle fit together and why the different parts of a business need to be managed in strategic harmony for the organization to operate in winning fashion.

The next few weeks will be exciting, fun, challenging, and filled with learning op­por­tunities. No matter what your major is, the content of this course has all the ingredients to be the best course you’ve taken—best in the sense of learning a lot about business, holding your interest from beginning to end, and enhancing your powers of business judgment. As you tackle the subject matter, ponder Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation, “Commerce is a game of skill which many people play, but which few play well.” The overriding intent of the course is to help you become a savvier player and better prepare you for a successful business career. We sincerely hope this course will prove to be instrumental in making you “competitively superior”, successful in your career, and much wiser about the secrets of first-rate management.

REQUIRED TEXTS AND MATERIALS

Note: the custom  text has been created for you to save money.  It is about half the cost of the original text. If you can rent the original or find a chep online version of the book, then it will suffice. International editions may not have the same case content, and will be a risky purchase for you. The Abraham book is a jewel for business people, it has a CD that makes life very easy on case analysis and company analysis.  You may want to have your  team purchase a copy and share it throughout the semester. It will be a blessing to have for the final project.

Required Text

Business Policy and Strategy, MIS 44285, Kent State University, 1e, custom book, McGraw-Hill, 2010.

ISBN-13:  978-1-121-010888-8

ISBN-10: 1-121-01088-1

Or

Strategic Management, Text and Cases, 5e, Dess,Lumpkin, and Eisner, McGraw-Hill, 2010.

ISBN: 978-0-07-35304-7

Recommended Text

Strategic Planning, a Practical Guide fo Competitive Success, Stanley C. Abraham, Southwestern, 2006.

ISBN Book + CD:    0-324-23255-1

COURSE OBJECTIVES

·         To develop your capacity to think strategically about a company, its present business position, its long-term direction, its resources and competitive capabilities, the caliber of its strategy, and its opportunities for gaining sustainable competitive advantage..

·         To build your skills in conducting strategic analysis in a variety of industries and competitive situations and, especially, to provide you with a stronger understanding of the competitive challenges of a global market environment.

·         To give you hands-on experience in crafting business strategy, reasoning carefully about strategic options, using what-if analysis to evaluate action alternatives, and making sound strategic decisions.

·         To acquaint you with the managerial tasks associated with implementing and executing company strategies, drill you in the range of actions managers can take to promote competent strategy execution, and give you some confidence in being able to function effectively as part of a company’s strategy-implementing team.

·         To integrate the knowledge gained in earlier core courses in the business school curriculum, show you how the various pieces of the business puzzle fit together, and demonstrate why the different parts of a business need to be managed in strategic harmony for the organization to operate in winning fashion.

·         To develop your powers of managerial judgment, help you learn how to assess business risk, and improve your ability to make sound decisions and achieve effective outcomes.

·         To make you more conscious about the importance of exemplary ethical principles, sound personal and company values, and socially responsible management practices.

GRADING FOR CLASS

GRADING:

I will use plus / minus grading this semester. Thus the grading for the course is as follows:

Based on Percentage Points Scored

92.5 – 100   % POINTS          A

89.1 – 92.4                              A –

86.0 – 89.0                              B+

82.5 – 85.9                              B

79.1 – 82.4                              B-

76.0 – 79.0                              C+

72.5 – 75.9      C

69.1 – 72.4      C-

<69.0               D

<59.0               F         

According to new University Guidelines the grades are converted to your grade point average by the following rules:

A          = 4.0

A-        = 3.7

B+       = 3.3

B          = 3.0

B-         = 2.7

C+       = 2.3

C          = 2.0

C-         = 1.7

D+        = 1.3

D          = 1.0.

F           = 0.0

THE APPROACH TO TEACHING/LEARNING

1.   Lectures by the instructor                                                .

2.   Practicing the task of managing via the management simulation  Out-of-class exercise. Teams of students must run their own company in a team-meetings, vigorously competitive industry environment (grade based on results achieved and degree of company success).    

3.  Exams

4.  Case Analysis

 5. Examination or real operating companies.

GRADING PLAN / PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

There are 1000 available points for the semester broken down as folows:

Exams       (3 @ 100 pts)                                                                             300 points

Performance on simulation:                                                                      300 points

1.    Actual perfomance of team in simulation (300 pts.)

a.    The winning team from each industry is awarded the

                                  Full 300 points.

b.    The winning team from each industry is awarded the full 300 points. The remaining teams will be awarded points per their placement in the simulation.

2.    Final Project                                                                               200 points

3.    Case Analysis Participation                                                     200 points    

4.    Total Points Available                                                            1000 Points

THE CAPSTONE SIMULATION

1. The focus of the first ten weeks of this course is on managing a “real “company that is competing in a “real” industry. There will be two industries in this simulation: IT, C38935;    Automotive, C38936;   you will be part of a five member management team, which will be in charge of a specific company.  Your team will be constantly analyzing the external, competitive environment, monitoring internal factors and making decisions for your company. You will compete against four other teams in your industry. The winning team in an industry receives 300 points for team standing. The teams will be drawn by lot.

2. You will do two practice rounds after mastering the Internet web site for Capstone and the relevant software. It will take some time for your team to ramp up and be comfortable with the inputting of decisions and uploading to the web site. All calculations of spreadsheets and financial ratios are done by Capstone and can be downloaded after each round for further analysis. After the practice rounds, you will then do Eight (8) rounds of decisions, which will represent one year per round. Capstone will determine which team did the best against various criteria and rank the teams accordingly. All judging will be done by Capstone, not the professor.  Your points earned will be determined by your place in your industry at the end of the simulation

3. Management teams will consist of 5 students. You should try to obtain some degree of diversity among skills, like having computer, finance, marketing, and operation management skills available to the team.

4. Each team member must log onto the website as a team member. The fee for the simulation per person is $43.99. Each team member is expected to contribute his/her fair share of work. At the end of the simulation, a peer review will be taken in complete confidence to assure that all players contribute equally.

5. Company decisions must be uploaded to the www.capsim.com web site no later than 12 Noon on each Friday of the simulation. Results should be available by that evening. The dates of the various rounds are listed below:

1. Practice round 1deadline:           SEP 10
2. Practice round 2 deadline:          SEP 17
3. First round deadline:                     OCT 1
4. Second round deadline:              OCT 8
5. Third round deadline:                   OCT 22
6. Fourth round deadline:                OCT 29
7. Fifth round deadline:                     NOV 5
8. Sixth round deadline:                   NOV 13
9. Seventh round deadline:             NOV 19
10. Eighth round deadline:                 DEC 3

6. The web site also offers the opportunity for teams to meet and discuss their pending decisions.  There are numerous tutorials and help is available from Capstone help line 877-477-8787.During normal business hours.

CASE WORK

There will be cases each week that you will be responsible for. I will post case questions as a guide, but there will be other questions that develop during the semester. This is a major part of your grade and you must be prepared during case discussion. People will be called on a random basis. Absence during a case discussion is a bad thing for your grade ! This is worth 20% of your grade.

EXAMS

There will be two semester exams, and a final, which will be of the multiple choice type with perhaps a single essay question, or two. The first exam will cover the material in Chapters 1-4 and the Capstone Materials. The second exam will cover the material from Chapters 5 – 8. The final will cover Chapter  9 – 12. All materials covered during the semester are fair game for the exams as well.  This is worth 30% of your grade.

TERM PROJECT

You will do an individual term project which will be an analysis of a company from the list below. These are real time cases, done on current situations and conditions.  I will give you a small fact sheet to help in your analysis and research. This is due the last week of class before the final. This is 20% of your grade.

Allstate

Amazon.com

American Express

Anheuser-Busch

Auto-zone

Avon

Bank of America

Bed Bath and Beyond

Black & Decker

Circuit City

Costco

Dell

Dollar Tree Stores

FedEx

Ford

Home Depot

International Paper

Jack in the Box

Kroger

Land’s End

Mattel

Nike

Papa John’s

Pfizer

Southwest Airlines

Starbucks

Walgreens

Wal-Mart

Yum Brands