Course 2017-2018 a.y.

20481 - BUSINESS GAME (for Management)


M

Department of Management and Technology

Course taught in English

Go to class group/s: 31 - 32 - 33 - 34
M (2 credits - II sem. - OBCUR  |  SECS-P/07)
Course Director:
ALBERTO GRANDO

Classes: 31 (II sem.) - 32 (II sem.) - 33 (II sem.) - 34 (II sem.)
Instructors:
Class 31: CARLO SALVATO, Class 32: LUANA CARCANO, Class 33: CARLO SALVATO, Class 34: LUANA CARCANO


Course Objectives

This highly interactive and hands-on course intends to develop students' management skills, to enhance their leadership attitudes, and to strengthen their ability to make and execute managerial decisions within a highly interdependent organizational setting. The course is based on the in-depth analysis of a real business case from a multi-functional perspective.
The Prysmian Group case describes the Italian cable producer two years after its acquisition of the Dutch competitor Draka. The case starts off by describing the reasons why Prysmian is the market leader, not just in terms of global market share, but also in terms of profitability. Prysmian managers are very pragmatic in everything they do and try to squeeze out additional profit margins by making their business processes more efficient every day.
  • Through the course sessions, several questions are addressed. Among the others, students analyze the following.
  • Stimulate corporate entrepreneurship strategies: how can we enhance and use the entrepreneurial drive in the entire group to generate new growth options without losing the grip on costs and efficiency? Do we need to change our formal strategic planning system, organizational structure, and processes to embrace innovative business ideas from our subsidiaries?
  • Project management: what are the most influential variables in a project environment? What are the tools and techniques that companies can leverage in order to plan and control complex projects?
  • Manufacturing Foot-print redesign: how can a company properly plan this complex project? Which kind of external events can be forecasted and related mitigation actions implemented? How a company can keep under control its plan?
  • Operational and financial performances: what are the possible performance implications of innovative entrepreneurial and operational projects to the company’s P&L? What KPIs, measures, and performance-measurement systems may allow us to capture the performance implications of company projects? How can we redesign measures and managerial incentive systems to increase both entrepreneurial and efficiency-oriented initiatives? How can we combine the assessment of both financial and social performance of the company’s projects?

Course Content Summary

This short course is structured into 4 parts. Please note that the sequence of the small group sessions is not the same in all sub-groups.
  • Setting corporate and business strategy.
  • Creating a project management organization.
  • Managing the redesign of a manufacturing footprint.
  • Measuring economic, financial, and social performance.





Detailed Description of Assessment Methods

Students are required to attend all classes.
For each of the four modules, students are required to deliver a short group assignment (3-4 powerpoint charts per each assignment). Instructors manage the assignment through the Blackboard platform.

Presence is required and detected through the “attendance” system. To register the credits of this course, students may only be absent once and with a valid reason (communicated by email to the instructor ahead of class).
Students that fail the course (due to absence or to insufficient performance in the exam sessions) are required to attend the course next year.
Please remember that in order to get the credits, the registration to the exam is mandatory.


Textbooks

Readings, cases and slides are made available via our web-learning platform.
  • Case package.
  • Article package.


Exam textbooks & Online Articles (check availability at the Library)
Last change 23/03/2017 10:40