MBA Online

Supply Chain Management
Many enterprises have been working toward streamlining their external operations with SCM (Supply Chain Management) solutions. SCM is an approach to coordinating information flows as well as material flows from raw material/component suppliers to consumers through manufacturers, wholesalers/distributors, and retailers. This course will examine SCM practices in different industries, and discuss their benefits and challenges. General managers as well as supply chain managers will benefit greatly from the course, as it helps them develop supply chain strategy to achieve competitive advantage. The course will also cover e-procurement and buyer-supplier relationships (arm’s length vs. collaboration).

Project Management
Faced with emerging challenges and opportunities, organizations launch projects to formulate and implement responses. Such responses often occur as product innovation, process innovation, or other forms of acquiring new organizational capabilities. More generally, projects are a means of managing transition, particularly of a discontinuous nature. This course will examine concepts, techniques and perspectives of project management, with focus on product innovation and IT-driven, large-scale process innovation. The course will also give an overview of the Project Management Framework developed by the Project Management Institute.

Operations Management

This course will introduce basic concepts and practices of operations management in service industries as well as manufacturing sectors. Topics include business processes, inventory management, and quality control. In the course, we will discuss questions such as: Why is BPR (Business Process Reengineering) so important? How can we manage inventory in an efficient way? What are the applications of statistical process control? The course is not only for operations managers but also for general managers who need to revamp business processes to establish competitive advantage.

Networking and Secure Data Transmission

Networking skills are becoming a common competence for successful career as well as language skills and financial skills. How various computers, which individually hold data, are connected so that an organization can use the full resources available for conducting business is a critical part of creating value using technology. This course, starting from the key technologies of the internet and other network services, expands to include new businesses and applications using network services. What impact the recent progress of network services is having on our business and life and what challenges companies offering network services are facing are discussed in this course.

Mobile Business Strategies
The Internet and the World Wide Web are changing rapidly in terms of intelligence, interactivity, and the mobility of the applications. Developments in the mobility dimension allow many users to connect to the internet through mobile phones, PDAs and other mobile devices. Starting from mobile commerce technologies, services and business models, the course moves into developing strategies for enterprise-wide businesses. It presents developments on the web in terms of mobility, covering topics such as mobile Internet technologies and businesses, m-business value chain and business models, privacy, security and mobile payment issues and how these can be used for mobile-Internet enabled businesses. At the end of this course, students will be equipped with knowledge of mobile internet technologies and how strategies can be developed for successful mobile businesses.

IT Strategy and Policy Planning
Though in many people’s mind, IT means Internet, IT is just a business tool. A careful examination of the elements of IT such as software, hardware, networks, databases, and the Internet itself, reveals that each one of them can be strategically used as a tool to gain competitive advantage and create value. Often it happens that IT policies, be they imposed by a government or by a company itself, play a key role in creating the right kind of environment for organizations to plan and realize the full benefits of IT. In this course, students will learn the basic strategy framework for IT and policy planning while practicing these strategies to analyze real-world cases.

Entrepreneurship and New Business Development
How to develop a successful business by taking into account the vast resources of technology is the focus of this course. But technology alone cannot create a successful business; it requires good ideas, business plans, human resources, an execution strategy, and marketing, just to name a few key components. After understanding how one should approach developing a new business, the students will be exposed to entrepreneurs who have developed businesses, from start-ups to spin-offs. This class offers a great opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience from real CEOs and key executives. At the end of the course, students will be asked to produce business plans that they can potentially convert into real businesses.

Electronic Media Governance and Policy Issues
Over the past decade the Internet has gone from being a medium used mainly by the research and academic communities to what governments in the United Nations World Summit on the Information society called “a central element of the infrastructure of the nformation Society” and described as “global facility available to the public”. The Internet is both platform and engine for economic and social development.

The objective of the course is to introduce and raise understanding of major Internet policy issues, particularly emphasizing the concept of openness as an architectural and operating principle that has enabled the development and success of the Internet. Discussion of shifts in regulatory policy and the international political dialogue about the Internet will provide students with an insight into possible future directions of the medium. Internet policy and Internet governance are firmly on the International political agenda, and are being vigorously discussed in new global, multi-stakeholder forums. This course will provide students with grounding in these essential issues.

Database Design and Management Strategies
With the rapid advancement in computer usage, use of databases for strategic purposes has progressed dramatically. Knowledge of database fundamentals is a must for any manager, from top executive level to operational level. Words such as Database Marketing, Data Mining, and Data Warehousing have become buzz words among business people recently. In this course, students learn the fundamentals of database theory. They also explore existing databases and then design, create, and build a user interface in a database project of their choice while learning a popular database software tool. Samples of recent student projects have been in databases developed for e-commerce, finance management, human resources management, and property management.

Customer Relationship Management
Many corporations aim to create and sustain profitable customer-centric businesses. Internet technologies enable businesses to acquire and manage useful customer related information. After introducing the fundamentals and strategic importance of CRM, this course extends to how companies evolve to establish eCRM. It also introduces a conceptual framework and the techniques for Business Intelligence such as data mining. The students will be able understand how to turn customer information into effective and efficient communication and decision making processes creating value via Business Intelligence.