Achieving Enduring Success
| Module title | Achieving Enduring Success |
|---|---|
| Module code | MBAM960 |
| Academic year | 2023/4 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Michael Yearworth (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 16 days | 6 days |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 50 |
|---|
Module description
This module will cover 3 fundamental management topics: Marketing, Strategy, and Operations.
Many MBA graduates take up roles in large organisations where success can take many meanings. In our view, success is not only creation of profit but also of social value. These modules teach you about the practical marketing, operations and strategic decision-making tools that good organisers use to drive success, however this is defined. Based on classroom learning, online learning, case study and simulation exercises you will learn how to use information and analysis to make a critical assessment of an organisation’s situation and recommend action that can sustain or improve performance.
Module aims - intentions of the module
This module will equip you with the business fundamentals necessary to provide strategic leadership within organisations.
Marketing
Marketing is arguably the most strategic of business disciplines, as interactions between the organisation its customers and competitors form the basis for understanding, leading to innovation and change of the offering - what it is that the organisation does - to meet, or address, or even shape the needs of its customers. Marketers are in a unique position to explore customer perceptions and behaviours and hence how the organisation can survive and grow. How marketers communicate their insights and understanding within their organisations is almost as important as how they do it externally. This module aims to explore the ways in which analyses of customers and competitors can be structured and organised, in order to develop successful marketing strategies and plans.
Strategy
The aim of this module is to introduce strategy through an intellectually stimulating, and academically rich, yet practical study of strategic management. The module challenges and integrates theoretical ideas in strategic management. The module explores the ideas of both leading scholars to discuss what strategy comprises, and prominent practitioners to establish how strategy is implemented. The aims of the module are: to understand 21st century challenges such as globalisation, sustainability and responsible management from a strategic management perspective; to develop the ability to analyse and develop a holistic approach to strategic issues; to develop a critical understanding of strategic thinking and its implications for organisations.
Operations
Central to any organisation is its operational capability to reliably transform materials and resources into products and services for its customers with the desired quality and service levels. The aims of the module are to understand the challenges facing the organisation of operations in the context of a rapidly evolving technology landscape and need to achieve sustainability targets. The module takes an analytical approach and introduces the necessary concepts, theories, frameworks, and tools of strategic operations management so that existing operations can be analysed and improved, and new operations designed in the light of these challenges.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. identify and apply appropriate theoretical principles to analyse complex organisational problems, offering a consistently strategic perspective;
- 2. use an integrated and holistic perspective when making strategic recommendations to issues related to growth, competition, and customer offering;
- 3. critically analyse an organisations competitive environment, evaluate competitive positions, and identify core competences using various tools and models of strategy;
- 4. explain the evolution, challenges and consequences of new business models and sustainable production.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. assess whether organisations have developed successful segmentation, positioning, branding and communication strategies in order to evaluate the impact of marketing on shaping customers choices, and behaviour;
- 6. critically evaluate the role of operations within different business models and analyse organisations using standard benchmarking;
- 7. demonstrate a critical understanding of strategic management tools and concepts and evaluate firm strategies in light of global challenges;
- 8. analyse changing customer demands and customer trends to align strategy with external political, environmental, social and technological implications.
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 9. take a global outlook: apply creative intelligence and ethical imagination to complex problems to ensure that environmental and social governance is taken into account
- 10. apply critical thinking: present and defend strategic analyses in multiple forms (written, verbal, digital) based on case material, desk based and empirical research;
- 11. work with a collaborative mind-set: give and receive feedback at all levels in a confident and respectful manner. Work inclusively across multi-cultural groups to research, explore and prepare a persuasive argument against an assignment or client brief;
- 12. develop an ethical perspective: improve personal effectiveness through consciously and diligently making decisions on behalf of all stakeholders, environmental, social and financial;
- 13. demonstrate technological and digital literacy: identify and apply relevant technologies to source, process and communicate accurate information.
Syllabus plan
Marketing
- Introduction to marketing and marketing arithmetic
- External Analysis in Marketing Strategy
- Sustainable Competitive Advantage
- Developing and implementing a marketing strategy
- Market Realities versus Market Rhetoric
- Branding
- Strategic marketing case studies
- Simulation for New Product Development
Strategy
- What is strategy?
- Models theories and concepts
- External and internal analysis
- Building tomorrow’s capabilities
- Scenario planning and horizon scanning
Operations
- Key concepts, models and frameworks
- Industry dominant and emerging strategies
- Modelling, simulation and analytics for performance analysis
- Managing supply networks
- Service operations, quality and the customer experience
- Disruptive innovation
- Eliminating waste, re-use and re-manufacturing
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 84 | 216 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities | 84 | Lectures & facilitated group discussions |
| Guided independent study | 216 | Reading, research, group work, writing |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing group discussions | 30 minutes per group | 2,3,5,8-13 | Oral feedback |
| Strategy - group exercises | N/A | 1, 3, 7, 8-13 | Oral feedback |
| Operations - class discussions | 30 40 minutes in class | 3, 4, 6, 8-13 | Oral feedback |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing - written group report on simulation exercise . | 25 | 2500 words | 2,4,5,8,10,11,13 | Written feedback |
| Marketing - written individual reflection essay | 9 | 1000 words | 2,4,5,8,10,11,13 | Written feedback |
| Strategy slide pack with an accompanying narration & 10-minute assignment viva | 33 | Slide pack with narration 15 minutes in length (75%) & 10-minute viva (25%) | 1,2,3,7,9,13 | Written feedback |
| Operations - written individual assignment | 33 | 3000 words | 2,4,6, 9,11, 12 13 | Written feedback |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing - written group report on simulation exercise 2,500 words (25%) | Written individual essay 2,500 words (25%) | 1-13 | Within 6 weeks of original submission |
| Marketing - written individual reflection essay, 1,000 words (9%) | Written individual reflection essay 1,000 words (9%) | 1-13 | Within 6 weeks of original submission |
| Strategy as above (33%) | As above | 1-13 | Within 6 weeks of original submission |
| Operations 3,000 written individual assignment (33%) | 3,000 Individual Word Assignment (33%) | 1-13 | Within 6 weeks of original submission |
Re-assessment notes
An overall module mark of 50% is required from across all three components.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Basic reading Marketing:
- Doyle, P., & Stern, P. (2006). Marketing management and strategy (4th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.
- West, D., Ford, J., & Ibrahim, E. (2015). Strategic marketing: Creating competitive advantage (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Basic reading Strategy:
- Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D., & Hoskisson, R.E. (2020). Strategic management: Competitiveness and globalization (13th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
- Thompson, A.A., Peteraf, M.A., Gamble, J.E., Strickland III, A.J., Janes, A., & Sutton, C. (2017). Crafting and executing strategy: the quest for competitive advantage: concepts and cases (2nd international ed.). London: McGraw Hill Education.
Basic reading Operations:
- Brown, S., Bessant, J., & Jia, F. (2018). Strategic operations management (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
- Slack, N., & Brandon-Jones, A. (2019). Operations management (9th ed.). Harlow: Pearson Education.
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
ELE –
Operations: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=10993
Strategy: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=10994
Marketing: under construction
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 7 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 31/01/2020 |
| Last revision date | 03/02/2022 |
