MBA — 2025 entry Master of Business Administration

This module explores the use of financial information in strategic decision-making.  Appropriate use of financial information is critical to successful decision-making by managers, investors and other stakeholders.   In this module, students will explore the 'language' of business by focusing on the dimension that is common to all operations in an organisation, their contribution to adding strategic value.  Students will also learn how to analyse the current situation and performance of an organisation and understand, evaluate, select and apply financial based models to support managerial decision-making in the context of strategic corporate aims, including sustainability. 

To be competitive in today’s increasingly difficult and digital markets it is vital for companies to identify markets opportunities and challenges and react accordingly. Companies that aim to remain or enhance their competitiveness need to find ways to offer superior value to customers. This is where Marketing plays a vital role. The module contains following main areas within Marketing: Marketing is a function within the company and one session is aimed to define and locate Marketing within the organisation and discuss the common misconceptions about Marketing from other actors within the organisation. Further Marketing and the Marketing Strategy needs to align with the Corporate Strategy, therefore part of a session is devoted to Marketing strategy. To develop and implement a Marketing strategy companies need knowledge about the market. This will be covered by first explaining its roots in microeconomics and then explaining and discussing ways to gather and analyse data. To support decision making in Marketing and deliver superior value knowledge about the two main actors is vital: customers and competitors. (understanding markets, market research, data-driven Marketing and consumer behaviour) Based on this market knowledge companies can design and implemented offerings that have the potential to create superior customer value. Decisions on the Marketing instruments are the second core are within Marketing. The decision that have to be made are: 1) create a value proposition for a product or service and the brand around it, 2) determine an appropriate price or pricing model, 3) manage the communication to shape the brand, 4) select the sales channels and manage the sales process, 5) create a suitable environment at the customer contact points, 6) manage customer contact employees and 6) the processes and customer experience so that they add to creating superior value. (Marketing instruments) The third core area of Marketing adds a time dimension to the above Marketing instruments, which is to create, maintain and enhance profitable relationships to customers. (Relationship Marketing) Marketing is more and more under scrutiny to prove that above activities are effective and generate a return on investment. Therefore, one session within the module is devoted to presenting instruments to monitor and assess the success of Marketing activities. (Marketing Metrics) Some contexts require the adaptation of Marketing activities. Many Marketing activities need adaptation if the target is not a consumer, but an organisation, e.g. a business or the government. The adaptation of Marketing towards B2B and non-profit settings will be blended into the other sessions

Strategic thinking, and ability to do effective strategy formulation and execution are key to businesses across industries. The need for and benefit of these skills is no longer limited to elite staff groups or top executives. Increasingly, companies expect their product managers, senior business analysts and mid-level executives in diverse functions to possess the ability to understand strategic contexts, and think and act strategically. Therefore, this course will focus on the craft, the opportunities and the challenges of developing strategies in these roles. As we do so, the most basic strategic question is: How do we best position and compete among significant uncertainty and ambiguity to maximize value created and profits made in a sustainable way? This is a particular relevant question in Africa and other emerging economies. This course provides students a combination of analytical and engagement tools for strategy projects for internal or external executive clients. Among the analytical skills are methodologies and frameworks for product, firm, industry and market analysis. Among the softer engagement skills are diagnostic skills. Seminal cases and contemporary contexts are used to apply tools and concepts in strategic management. Participants will acquire a critical understanding of strategy formulation, how the field of strategy is scoped, and its implications for managerial practice. Frameworks for analyses will help participants formulate successful business unit or corporate strategy aimed at establishing sustainable competitive positions.

This module provides the human resource management (HRM), organizational behaviour (OB) and leadership elements of the MBA programme.  The module will cover the fundamentals of HRM theory and practice and leadership theory and practice, hence the module supports the MBA programme’s aim of changing the way managers and leaders think ‘through the interplay of theory and practice'.  The inputs from guest speakers the module will enable students to engage with industry practitioners.  The module will forge interdisciplinary connections to areas such as business strategy through its emphasis on strategic human resource management (SHRM) and leadership by top management teams (TMTs).  The module will offer a behavioral science perspective on key organizational issues such as vision, ethics, responsibility and sustainability.  The focus will be on cultivating an adaptable and agile mindset that will support students in leading and managing people and organizations in a dynamic and rapidly changing business world in ways that create value for stakeholders. 

This module builds on Sustainable Strategies for International Business (MANM428), complementing contextualised learning about organisations with an inward, micro perspective of organisational management. This module completes that process of integrative understanding by further reflecting on the fundamental questions: How do organisations work at the micro level? What internal processes promote the development of a successful and viable business? The module will also focus externally and discuss the impacts that process decisions have more broadly on the social, industrial and natural environment. In this module we will integrate theory and practice across a range of disciplines including, operations management, ethical decision making and sustainable supply chain management. This module has an applied focus as we consider the various ways in which organisational practices are informed by scientific knowledge and of how retail, service and industrial organisations' objectives are met. This module considers real examples of the management of operations, ethical decision making and sustainable supply chain to create a responsible, responsive and agile business.

This module looks at manager decision-making and the creation of organisational value using concepts from the area of Business Intelligence and Analytics. Data science and big data technologies using a decision-making perspective give MBA's an overview of how disruptive technologies are changing industries. We focus on how digital technologies are changing business, government and society. A main objective of the module is to help MBA's to understand how to use these technologies to help their own firms and their own careers. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence promises to become a fundamental source for competitive advantage and a driver for the creation of value in the business organisation, through the support to manager decision-making, automation of multiple business functions and the promise for emergent products, services and markets.This module looks at how managers can use new digital data technologies in their firms - such as Business Intelligence tools and data science. The emphasis of the module is to present the benefits and pitfalls of Business Intelligence and Business Analytics related  technologies to managers as they strive to create competitive advantage and value for their organisations. 

In this module you will learn to formulate and implement business strategy in hi-tech industries featuring platforms and related ecosystems. Such hi-tech industries present specific challenges and opportunities to managers and strategists across a range of sectors. The module should be of particular interest to participants interested in managing a business in hi-tech, or a business in which technology matters, and to those interested in consulting or venture capital. 

What does it mean to be creative and, more importantly, how can creativity be translated into something tangible that offers both uniqueness and value? Creativity is a key driver of innovation, and business success is increasingly tied to the organisation’s ability to solve problems creatively, and also find unoccupied space for new products and services. With problem solving and ideation at its core, this module will introduce students to the value of creativity for organisations and its leaders. Students will be immersed in a team based simulated entrepreneurial environment, where theory from the module can be effectively put to practise. During this intense entrepreneurial journey, students will work from problem to solution, developing a sense of their own creativity along the way.  Students will learn to work effectively in diverse teams; define problems effectively; generate a large number of creative ideas to solve their chosen problem; identify opportunities for genuine value creation; synthesise and select the ideal solution to their chosen problem; develop this solution into a viable business opportunity; pitch this business opportunity to a panel of investors. At the conclusion of this experience, students will have developed and refined a key set of transferable entrepreneurial skills, which will enhance performance, decision making and leadership in any type of organisation.