How to Write a Business Case
- Pricing for Profitability
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
Nothing can be more harmful to the success of your new product or service than incorrect pricing and other financial projections! In this course, you will not only learn how to gather pertinent revenue and expense information to help you price your product, but also how to determine your objectives and policies to correctly position your product in its market niche. You'll examine three methods and four strategies used by experts to make pricing determinations. Ultimately, you will learn the company resources that can help you decide whether your project is financially feasible. |
Strategic IT Planning
- Setting the Stage for IT Success
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
How have the responsibilities of IT professionals changed over time? What can you do to bring together the diverse concerns of the IT department and top business managers? What are the best ways to convince management that your IT solutions are grounded in reality?Answers to these questions are presented in this course examining strategies that learners should know to understand the role of IT manager, to communicate successfully with management, and to bring about the best IT solutions for the company. |
- Strategic Decision Making
| | Expected Duration: | 1.5 hours | Description:
The field of IT management continues to evolve as new methodologies and technologies are made available and adopted by the marketplace at large. Deciding what kinds of work your firm should outsource, whether to lease or buy, and the kinds of projects best kept in-house are matters of crucial concern to any IT manager. At the same time, an array of resource planning and management tools--CRM, ERP, and types of portal technologies--must be closely examined for possible applications that could save money, obtain new customers, or encourage return of existing clientele. This course examines each of these issues and offers IT managers background upon which to base their own strategic decisions. |
- IT Challenges: Present and Future
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
With every improvement in information technology comes new challenge. Whether trying to upgrade systems, enhance e-commerce opportunities, or simply make projects more successful, your job as IT manager is to avoid the pitfalls inherent in each task. Meanwhile, new and demanding responsibilities are on the horizon for governance, cybersecurity, and incident response, fields that are still under development.This course examines planning procedures for each of these tasks, and offers ways to prepare for the challenges you, as an IT manager, will encounter. |
- Strategic IT Planning Simulation
| | Expected Duration: | .5 hours | Description:
For the duration of this simulation, you will assume the role of Senior IT Manager (north-east region) of Easton National Bank. As a new hire, you will face lingering legacy issues and a senior management staff that is increasingly skeptical of IT value in light of costly expenditures that have yielded little return on investment.This simulation is based on the SkillSoft series "Strategic IT Planning" and contains links to the following courses: STGY0221, STGY0222, and STGY0223. |
Strategic Management
- Planning
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
Strategic management is defined as the set of decisions and actions that result in the formulation and implementation of plans designed to achieve a company's objectives. Strategic management is future oriented and long-term focused. This course focuses on the planning phase of strategic management, which includes defining company mission, performing internal analysis, and evaluating the external environment. |
- Analysis and Choice
| | Expected Duration: | 2 hours | Description:
The implementation phase of strategic management consists of two parts: analysis and choice, which are vital links in the process. When conducting analysis and making choices, you set long-term objectives and select generic and grand strategies that best fit your company mission and changing circumstances. In this course you will learn the basic ideas of long-term objectives, generic strategies and grand strategies. Then you will learn how to analyze and choose strategies by using various techniques. By choosing the right strategy, your company will be more effective at building sustainable competitive advantages as well as maximizing shareholder value. |
- Corporate Implementation
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
This course focuses on the corporate implementation phase of strategic management. There are three steps involved in corporate implementation. The first step is to develop action plans and functional tactics. Action plans guide strategic implementation by specifying a firm's given tasks for a particular period, while functional tactics are short-term activities that a firm undertakes to implement its strategies. The second step of corporate implementation is to integrate the strategies into the organization. The third and last step is made up of strategic control and continuous improvement. Continuous improvement allows firms to respond to a rapidly changing business climate in time, and strategic control helps to: track how strategies are implemented, detect potential problems or changes, and make the necessary adjustments. The steps covered in this course help managers at all levels keep daily decisions and actions consistent with the long-term strategic process. |
Fundamentals of Globalization
- Globalization and Our Changing World
| | Expected Duration: | 1.5 hours | Description:
Globalization has become a foundation for most major corporations. This course provides you with a "big picture" view of globalization. You will be introduced to the trends that have opened the doors to a global economy and the factors that drive corporate globalization. You will also learn about the major trade agreements that pave the road to global commerce. |
- Globalization and Your Company
| | Expected Duration: | 4 hours | Description:
This course will help you decide if globalization really makes sense for your product or service. You'll learn about the challenges of taking a product or service global, and ways to determine global readiness. You'll also explore business approaches for globalization, including the development of foreign operations. |
- The Process of Globalizing a Product or Service
| | Expected Duration: | 3.5 hours | Description:
Actually going global takes both planning and doing. In this course, you'll learn about the three major steps you need to cover to globalize a product or service. First, pick the right geographic location for your corporate goals and create a good plan for globalizing the product or service you're working with. Then "globalize" your product or service and let the world know you're open for business. Finally, explore using the Internet to support and expand your reach into global markets. |
- Managing from a Global Viewpoint
| | Expected Duration: | 4.5 hours | Description:
The process of managing on a global scale requires a step up from domestic management. In this course, you'll learn what it takes to be a global manager or team leader. You'll start with establishing a global mind-set and learning about the attributes of a global manager. Then, you'll explore cross-cultural communication and ways to effectively support and work with a globally based team. |
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Systems Thinking in the 21st Century
- What is Systems Thinking?
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
What exactly is a system? Why is it important to understand systems? How can you use systems thinking to manage your organizations more effectively? Systems thinking enables you to delve into the inner workings of your organization to get to the core of what drives your company forward--or backward. Not only will you solve problems, but you will also be able to change the thinking that leads to the problems in the first place. Systems thinking is a way of seeing more and farther, enabling you to manage yourself and your people with the best information possible. |
- Building a Healthy System
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
Is it possible to make an organizational system healthier? What does a healthy system consist of? Every person in an organization is part of a system. By examining the beliefs and assumptions of all team members, as well as their personal visions, you'll discover the most profound leverage of the entire system. Change a belief, and you change an entire system. Combine that with a common vision, and you have the makings of a healthy system. This course will take you through four areas of focus that will encourage you to take a closer look at your systems and redesign them to create the healthiest system possible. |
- Systems-thinking Models and Thinking Skills
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
How is "systems" thinking different from everyday thinking? Learning to apply systems thinking involves more than just knowing what it is. There are many ways to look at a problem, and how you approach it can drastically change the outcome. This course looks at the four-step systems-thinking method for addressing issues. It covers four different styles of thinking: dynamic thinking, big-picture thinking, operational thinking, and quantitative thinking. Each style will bring you closer to the core of your problems or concerns and enable you to make changes that will benefit your organization in the long run. No more quick fixes that only cause more problems and don't really treat the problem at hand. No more shrugging your shoulders when asked why a problem has come up once again. No more explaining away certain aspects of a situation only to have them come back to haunt you at a later date. Learning the "thinking" of systems thinking will quickly put you in the driver's seat of problem solving within your organization. |
- System Archetypes
| | Expected Duration: | 3 hours | Description:
Systems repeatedly fall into common patterns. In this course, you will learn five system archetypes, patterns that appear in every organization. By becoming aware of an archetype and learning how to identify it in your work situations, you gain a strong tool for assessing the structure and forces at work in your organization. Archetypes are used to clarify and test models as well as compile the many details involved in systems thinking that can so easily overwhelm the beginning systems thinker. Using archetypes simplifies the process of looking at your systems and gives structure to the steps needed to work within those systems. |
- Redesigning Your Organization: Part I
| | Expected Duration: | 3 hours | Description:
How do you implement systems thinking? How do you take what you've learned in theory and apply it to your organization? This course will walk you step by step through a planning process of designing an organizational system. You'll learn how to design your ideal organization, how to implement the design, and how to incorporate the learning of the new system so the entire team involved becomes a part of it. |
- Redesigning Your Organization: Part II
| | Expected Duration: | 3 hours | Description:
What do you do after you've created an idealized design for your organization? This course will provide you with the skills you'll need to successfully implement an idealized design in your organization. You'll study the groundwork for learning, including how to use adaptive learning and how to be an advocate for adaptive learning. You'll learn about democratic hierarchies, decision-making processes, and the skills necessary for being a leader in your redesigned organization. In the final section of the course, you'll explore the roles that development, ethics, and aesthetics play in the redesign of your organization. |
- Taking Systems Thinking into Your Personal Life
| | Expected Duration: | 3 hours | Description:
Have you tried to change a habit over and over only to face defeat again? Do you look at your relationships and see the same problems coming up and feel incapable of changing them? Does it feel like you're butting your head up against the same wall with no relief in sight? Using systems thinking in your personal life can be a new and effective way to tackle and change issues at their core. It is possible to change old habits. You can learn to communicate in more effective ways. Change is not only possible, it is part of life. In this course, you will explore the personal nature of systems. You'll learn about different types of personal patterns and you'll learn how to change personal patterns that aren't benefiting you. You'll also explore how systems thinking can connect you to the world at large. You'll learn how relationships operate as systems and the process you can go through to change relationship patterns that aren't working. This course will introduce you to the wealth of potential available to you when you bring systems thinking into your life on a daily basis. |
Moving From an Operational Manager to a Strategic Thinker
- Thinking Strategically
| | Expected Duration: | 2 hours | Description:
As business success becomes more difficult to achieve, companies are discovering the importance of strategic thinking. Being lean and mean and process efficient is no good if you don't have the correct business strategy. But what is strategic thinking and what does it look like in the context of your business? This course is focused on discovering and using the key elements of successful strategic thinking.Those in management who are engaged in or preparing for a more strategic role in their business. This includes senior executives, operation managers, consultants, and business people looking to add a more strategic edge to their business activities. |
- Sustaining Competitive Advantage
| | Expected Duration: | 3 hours | Description:
In today's competitive business environment, being as good as the competition is not enough. An organization must devise strategies and develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies to set it apart from the competition. In this course business strategies are examined that can help a company gain and sustain competitive advantage. Companies build their strength around three key strategic areas: competitive positioning, core competence, and talent. By focusing on these strategic approaches, this course demonstrates how competitive advantage can be created, grown, and sustained in a company. Those in management who are engaged in or preparing for a more strategic role in business. This includes senior executives, operations managers, consultants, and businesspeople looking to add a more strategic edge to their business activities. This course is also aimed at business students and professionals who want to gain knowledge of how strategy can be applied in a business context. |
- The Imperatives of Innovation and Leadership in Strategy
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
This course is designed for individuals aspiring to become strategically focused in their business operations and to innovate and lead change in their organizations. As organizations strive to keep abreast of a fast-changing business environment, the need for innovation increases. While some companies focus on incremental and continuous innovations, other companies have managed to create disruptive innovations, challenged existing incumbents, and created entirely new markets for their products or services. However, without leadership, many of these innovations go unrealized, as not all managers have the leadership qualities that ensure success. This course focuses on preparing operational managers to appreciate the relationship between innovation and leadership. This path is for those in management who are engaging in or preparing for a more strategic role within their organization. This includes senior executives, operational managers, consultants, and business people looking to add a more strategic edge to their business activities. This path is also of benefit to business students and professionals wanting to gain knowledge of strategy as it is applied in a business context. |
- Planning and Implementing a Business Strategy
| | Expected Duration: | 2.5 hours | Description:
Operations managers wishing to see their strategy successfully adopted must ensure that they have prepared the groundwork. This involves two key stages: formulation and implementation of strategy.In the first phase, the manager must plan the strategy, build a vision, and communicate it to ensure there are the needed resources and strategic alignment to succeed. The second stage is to bring the team along and create the conditions for the strategy to take hold. This involves being aware of how often strategy fails to make it out of the starting block and succumbs to failure. In addition, managers need to know that the strategy is never static; it changes with the environment it finds itself in. Therefore the strategy implementation must be evaluated and conditions put in place that will facilitate its successful adoption. Finally, any strategy must be renewed in order for it to survive. This course will help operational managers to think like senior strategists, and prepare them to better formulate and implement their strategic plans. Those in management who are engaged in or preparing for a more strategic role in the business. This includes senior executives, operations managers, consultants, and business people looking to add a more strategic edge to their business activities. Business students and professionals wanting to gain knowledge of how strategy is applied in a business context. |
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