Executive MBA (International)

The course covers the strategic framework within which managers take decisions and turn their knowledge and capabilities into actions. We explore the essential concepts and tools of strategy and explain the positioning of companies in a variety of settings. You develop the skills needed to perform competitor analysis and understand how strategy formulation, deployment and effective execution relate to competitive advantage.

Elements of accounting, budgeting and cost analysis. The measurement and interpretation of economic and financial performance of the company. The economic and financial analysis forecasting and budgeting. The calculation and analysis of costs in decision-making and management control. Management control as an operational mechanism. The systems of strategic control and strategic cost management.

An effective marketing strategy requires a deep understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the perception of value for the customer. The course explores the processes related to the articulation of marketing plans in different contexts and environmental sectors. Market orientation; segmentation and positioning; product development; pricing and management of distribution policies. Integrated communication.

This course provides the relevant knowledge for comprehending and managing a business financial performance. Specifically, it focuses on the measuring and understanding of financial and value creation ratio, on cost analysis for business decision making on performance measurement systems for supporting implementation and monitoring of business strategy. The course finally provides an analytical perspective of business analysis.

The course provides a framework for understanding and analysing investment and financial decisions of corporations. Lectures and readings provide an introduction to present value techniques, capital budgeting, capital structure decisions, corporate cost of capital, initial and seasoned equity offerings and an introduction to corporate risk management.

COURSE – The course focuses on the process of value creation in the operative system, clarifying the definition of the structural characteristics: the expanded production system and fixing the boundaries of the company; vertical integration policy and production decentralization; managing the material flow, stocks and warehouses; process of planning production activities; procurement policies and management of the supply system. The course also encompasses current issues such as lean production, the use of RFID technologies and mass customization.

Detailed explanation of Digital Platforms and underlying reasons for adopting them in a business environment. Strategic and innovative technical details as microservices and API management will be exposed to provide a full picture of which are the key features that make a digital platform really valuable and effective for an organization. The key capabilities of an omnichannel platform will be illustrated. The course will provide to participants the standard tools used to select software and solutions that best fit a specific application. Participants will play with a high-level general-purpose solution (IFTTT) to better understand how much easy is to create new services on top of open platforms. The platform business model fundamentals will be provided to give a full understanding of what make a digital platform a digital business ecosystem.

Enterprises are designing new paths to deploy digital trasformation.

The course – guided by GELLIFY – will offer a journey to discover the key mechanisms of emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, IoT, advanced robotics, blockchain, cybersecurity…

Distinctive elements of the program are the dialogue with sector experts – from startups and big techs – and the interactive workshops – through GELLIFY proprietary method and tools.

The on-campus weekend of the course may take place at GELLIFY HUB, where advanced technologies are applied on innovative use cases, to make participants touch their potential.

The course presents the world of Business Intelligence and its most recent variations. The course aims to illustrate on one hand the opportunities and competitive advantages that Data Driven decisions entail in the company, on the other it introduces the problems and risks that a Business Intelligence project entails presenting basic elements related to methodologies and techniques. Organizational and technical issues (architectures, methodologies, techniques) will be complemented by the analysis of case studies and lab activities.

In this module, students will be exposed to the principles and tools of design thinking applied to business models, using these tools in a guided path, with the following target:

Understand the meaning of “Customer Centricity” and the approach to designing digital services and business models

Analyze the needs of consumers and define new services that best satisfy them

Know and apply tools for the design of all the elements of the business model

Evaluate the business potential of an innovative idea

Create a “pitch deck” of the new business idea

Understanding the difficulties related to the implementation of innovative business models (“The Innovator’s dilemma”) within a ‘traditional’ company, and strategies that have proved useful in overcoming them.

The challenge of innovation passes through people. To create business innovation we need conscious leaders, able to facilitate the work of heterogeneous teams and get the most out of people both in terms of problem finding and change making. In the course, starting from what the neurosciences have taught us about how people “work”, we are going to decline an innovative way of people management that can help us, even at cross-cultural level, to improve the drivers of performance.

The digital age has brought with it the proliferation of channels and technologies which in turn have radically changed the context in which marketers find themselves operating. It is therefore necessary to update the way in which marketing is understood and thought up to the digital age.

The course illustrates the new skills and marketing skills to be introduced: data and analytics, customer experience, content, omni-channels and personalization.

The course is designed in order to give the participants the tools to carry out their final project work. Participants will be divided into groups.

With a data driven approach, at the end of this module, participants should be able to identify a business idea, to turn it into a business opportunity, presenting a value proposition, eventually creating the adequate business model to meet both business and organizational needs.

Specifically, starting from the definition of success, the course aims at providing the knowledge for enabling the appropriate management strategy to define deliverables and planning activities, foreseeing the resources needed to achieve project objectives.

The International Week is a deep dive into Big Data & Analytics, Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship organised in cooperation with our EMBA Consortium for Global Business Innovation partner Lucas College and Graduate School of Business of the San José State University. The week is specifically designed with lectures, company visits and focus sessions.

Due to the fast evolution of digital technologies, every year some topics of the International Week may vary.

During the last edition, the courses organised thanks to the guidance of Professors Mahesh Rajan, were:

• Data Mining & Big Data Analytics, held by Dr. David Czerwinski and Dr. Shaonan Tian
• Culture and History of Silicon Valley and Entrepreneurship, held by Dr. Anu Basu
• New Product Development and Innovation, held by Dr. Michael Merz
• Business Model Innovation, held by Professor Sudhir Kadam
• Industry 4.0, held by Professor Sudhir Kadam
• IoT and Blockchain Technologies, held by Professor Ahmed Banafa

Company visits were carried out in the Ford Greenfield Labs, AKQA, Amazon Fulfillment Center and Plug and Play Tech Center.