Credits: 5
Schedule: 17.02.2020 - 14.04.2020
Teaching Period (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
Online course. For more information please visit www.lito.fi.
Learning Outcomes (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
After completing the course, the student will:
- understand how different areas in business studies are connected in the entity of enterprise functions and in making a profit
- understand the role of ERP and its meaning in managing a company
- apply different business analysis tools in planning and managing a business and understand the essential role of strategy in the process
A central part of the course is to see the business as a whole: the student will understand why it’s not practical to optimize single functions separately and why the management needs to have a holistic perspective of the company.
Content (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
- The foundation for this course is a business simulation game, which engages the students in real-time decision-making and provides them with various tasks related to various business topics.
- The participation takes place in small virtual groups, where the team members (3-4 students) may all come from different universities.
- The thematic core for the simulation is supply chain management and the entity formed by different functions of a company. The relevant themes include several areas of cross-company logistics: purchase, inventory management, delivery, customer relations, and the reporting related to these topics. The course emphasizes effective management of the supply chain and the impact it has on the company’s profit and cash flow.
- During the course, the students are also introduced to the dynamics of supply chains in company networks, where the students’ company is a part of a network of suppliers, competitors, and customers.
- In addition, the course gives an overall picture of the role of a company’s information systems in steering the business as a whole: how the different functions utilize common enterprise resource-planning and how the ERP works as an essential tool in decision-making.
- The theoretic material and the exercises distributed in the course are related to the abovementioned supply chain management and other LITO learning themes.
Assessment Methods and Criteria (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
The assignments of the course are mainly related to the planning of the simulation company operations and to the analysis of materialized operations. These include:
- developing a business plan
- analyzing the profitability in light of various parameters and reporting these to the different stakeholders
- various strategic analyses on the company operations and on the competitive situation (SWOT, Pester, bench-marking)
- calculations related to the company’s basic supply chain and ERP parameters
- income statement and profitability, gross margin, and cash flow analysis (the essential parameters covered in INTRODUCTION TO FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION course)
- market analysis
Furthermore, a written assignment on team dynamics and a team functionality analysis and reflections.
Workload (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
Getting acquainted with the theoretical supplementary material 50h
Planning and analysis tasks 60h
Business simulation game 4 x 6h = 24h
Total 134h
Study Material (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
Simulation game instructions, description on the simulation environment, self-learning videos, course hand-out, and selection of other articles (announced later).
Course Homepage (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
www.lito.fi
Prerequisites (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
The course serves as a capstone, bridging together the other modules in the entity. The course provides an overall picture of business dynamics and explains how the different fields in business studies are related to it.
It is recommended that before taking this course, the student has taken at least the following LITO courses: Introduction to accounting and financial management and Basics of management and organisation.
Grading Scale (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
0-5
Registration for Courses (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
via WebOodi. Registration opens one month before the beginning of the course and closes two weeks prior to the start of the course.
Further Information (valid 01.08.2018-31.07.2020):
Apply for courses or the minor: http://into.aalto.fi/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4854501
The latest information about the course is updated and published on the course platform at www.lito.fi.
The LITO courses are organised in co-operation with multiple universities. To enable registering credits when the course is completed, it is necessary to transfer data about the student from their home university to the university that is responsible organizing the course. The data to be transferred consists of: name, gender, nationality, e-mail address, personal identification number and the home university. Data that is classified as secret is not transferred. Without data transfer it is not possible to have the course credits registered.