Management and Entrepreneurship MSc

• Dr Oksana Koryak

The aim of the course is to provide you with knowledge and skills relevant for the management of new ventures across the entrepreneurial life cycle. The course will also act to prepare those of you who want to undertake an internship for a new venture as part of their thesis on the MSc in Management.

Watch an introduction to the Entrepreneurship module.

• The Entrepreneurial Profile and Self-Assessment
• The Economic Environment for Entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurial Strategy & Risk Management
• Managing business Start-up & Survival
• Managing Growth and Exit
• Business Planning: approaches and methodology
• Venture Finance
• Public Policy

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Evaluate their own motivation and skills as they relate to entrepreneurship.
2. Assess the impact of the business environment on entrepreneurial opportunity and strategy.
3. Identify determinants of the performance of new ventures.
4. Understand how managerial challenges vary across the entrepreneurial life cycle.
5. Assess the extent to which different types of ventures are a good fit for their skills, personal interests and willingness to take risk.
6. Manage risk in new ventures.
7. Assess the likely financial needs of a new venture and pitch for finance.
8. Do due diligence on new ventures.
9. Develop and write a credible business plan for a new venture.

• The aim of this elective is to make you familiar with the principles of entrepreneurial finance.
• It provides you with an overview of the different sources of funding available across the entrepreneurial life cycle and equips them with clear guidelines on which type should be adopted at which stage.
• In particular, debt and equity funding will be covered during class as well as new emerging alternatives such as crowdfunding.
• Moreover, you will learn a variety of techniques for early-stage business valuation, and how to prepare a term sheet.
• This is a very practical module, enabling you to assess business plans and develop a funding strategy for an entrepreneurial venture.
• During and between classes you will be required to research information and complete application exercises.

The module covers:

• Funding across the entrepreneurial life cycle: Bank vs equity finance.
• Alternative sources of funding: Crowdfunding and other emergent channels.
• Valuing early-stage businesses: Tools and techniques.
• Term sheets: Content and structure.
• Preparing an investment pitch.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Identify, discriminate between and describe in detail the varied sources of funding available to entrepreneurs across the entrepreneurial life-cycle.
• Apply company valuation techniques.
• Grasp, evaluate and apply the essential components and structure of a term sheet for early-stage businesses seeking equity investment.
• By completion, you will be able to assess business plans and identify the appropriate sources of funding for entrepreneurial businesses.
• Demonstrate their ability to prepare an investment pitch to raise funding.

Business growth is a natural extension of the Master’s initial focus on business start-up, and provides an integrative and holistic overview of the life-cycle of the entrepreneurial venture.  It explores the transition from an informal, emergent organisational model to a sustainable, professionally-managed business which creates independent value for founder and other stakeholders.   It thus links to theory and practice in the key areas of marketing, finance and human resource management. 

The aim of this module is to familiarise you with the life-cycle of the entrepreneurial business post start-up through to exit via sale or succession.  There will be a focus on high-growth, high-potential entrepreneurial businesses.

At each stage of development a different set of challenges confront the founder[s] and the senior team leading the business.   These cover markets – customers and competitors, money, management and me [ie personal drivers and goals of the founder/s].  This module will explore these critical stages and the associated challenges which research and practical experience at Cranfield have identified must be successfully addressed and overcome if the business is to achieve its full potential.

You will emerge with a clearer idea of whether they would like to make a career in this business environment and, in particular, with high-growth businesses, or indeed aspire to found their own high-growth business.

The module covers:

• The life-cycle and key stages of the entrepreneurial business
• Identifying and overcoming barriers to growth
• Identifying and appreciating the diffusion of innovation as part of growth
• The personal journey of the entrepreneur: from artisan to strategist
• The readiness of firms as they progress towards maturity
• Learning about the three crossing points in innovation
• Building product portfolios for growth – synthesis of products and markets
• The financial challenge: what financing options are available?
• Building entrepreneurial teams and relevant cultures
• Achieving the entrepreneur’s personal goals
• Funding growth
• Preparing for and managing exit: valuation models and value crystallisation

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Analyse by business stage and cycle the personal journey which a successful entrepreneur undergoes in the development of his/her business.
• Deploy a set of analytical tools and techniques for describing and analysing key challenges for the business and how these are overcome.
• Differentiate high-potential growth businesses – the “gazelles” - from lifestyle and income-replacement self-employment.
• Define the transition points through which a growth business progresses to acquire value that is independent of the founding individual[s], and be able to quantify and articulate this through a range of valuation models.
• Evaluate the critical management decisions that need to be taken during challenging moments in the growth of a business.
• Appraise the contribution of growth businesses to the national economy.

The aim of this module is to familiarise you with the concepts of social enterprise and intrapreneurism, and enable them to compare and contrast these phenomena with “non-traditional” entrepreneurship.  Both business models overlap extensively with what is regarded as traditional entrepreneurship, but have distinctively different features: while being profit-or surplus-making, their aims typically embrace social outcomes and purposes, and their distribution or sharing of value created is frequently closely linked to these declared values.

You will be introduced to the history and evolution of non-mainstream modes of entrepreneurship and will develop their understanding of how social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapreneurs create and operate enterprises/intrapreneurial activities in different environments.  They will see how such enterprises fit within the spectrum of profit and not for profit entities, and how these are regarded by policy-makers and other stakeholders. 

You will emerge with a clearer idea of whether they would like to make a career in this business environment or, indeed, aspire to found their own social enterprise or pursue a corporate intrapreneurial initiative. 

This module covers:

• What social enterprise is: the history and evolution of social enterprise/entrepreneurship
• How social entrepreneurs compare with “mainstream” entrepreneurs.
• Legal, commercial and financial structures of social enterprises.
• Enabling environment for social intrapreneurism.
• Intrapreneurism: what it is and how it is practised effectively.
• Compare and contrast: social vs non-social intrapreneurism.
• Measuring the impact of social enterprise and intrapraneurism of all types.
• Social enterprise and social intrapreneurism: how they are viewed by policy-makers and other key stakeholders.
• Social enterprise, sustainable business and sustainable value creation.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Describe, analyse and categorise the drivers and motives of social entrepreneurs/social intrapreneurs and intrapeneurs.
• Differentiate and delineate the salient features which distinguish these modes of entrepreneurial behaviour from other “mainstream” forms.
• Define the factors, both environmental and intrinsic, which promote or hinder the development of both a free-standing social enterprise and [social] intrapreneurism within the corporation, comparing and contrasting social intrapreneurism and intrapreneurism.
• Construct and present a clear case for which models of these modes of activity are effective and sustainable.
• Apply the measures of impact used to define the effectiveness of such enterprises.
• Explain and appraise the agenda of policy-makers regarding the role, purpose and economic value of social enterprise/social intrapreneurism and intrapreneurism.

• Dr Abdelkader Aoufi

To provide the participant with an understanding of the Operations Management task and its contribution to organisational competitiveness.

An introduction to Managing Operations

The module covers:

• Strategic role of operations
• Process design and layout
• Managing the process experience
• Tools and techniques of process improvement
• Capacity management
• Inventory management, lean and agile operations
• Quality management and improvement
• People in operations

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Examine the different types of operations employed by organisations and their distinctive characteristics.
2. Analyse the capabilities of different types of operation including the trade-offs involved.
3. Show how to select the priorities for operational performance improvement and how to implement them.

• Dr Simon Templar
• Dr Matthias Nnadi

The aim of the Managing Profitability, Liquidity and Asset Utilisation module is to introduce the role of finance within an organisation and then introduce a number of traditional and contemporary costing approaches that will increase the visibility of cost and aid management decision-making.  The module begins with a session which explores the role of accounting and finance within an organisation. You are then introduced to the key financial statements contained in the Report and Accounts of a business. Highlights the role of management accounting and needs of users of financial information. Later lectures then introduce the participants to the fundamental concepts of cost accounting and its principles, before moving on to evaluate the different costing tools and their impact on the management of the organisation. The final theme explores the role of the accounting in the budgeting and control processes within the organisation.

This module will require you to demonstrate their ability to master and apply the knowledge and skills that they have gained from this module to the application of a variety of practical management problems, and case studies will be used to deliver the learning objectives.

The module has five main themes which are delivered in ten sessions:

• Role of accounting and finance within an organisation.
• Interpretation of Company Financial Statements .
• Introduction to traditional and contemporary accounting tools andtechniques, which can be applied to management decisions.
• The application of accounting tools and techniques to support decision-making.
• Exploring the relationship between accounting information and the management of an organisation.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Identify how management decisions can have an impact on the financial performance of an organisation.
2. The academic content of this course will provide you with an appreciation of the theoretical concepts that underpin traditional and contemporary cost accounting approaches used to cost processes.
3. You will be able compare the strengths and weaknesses of traditional and contemporary costing approaches.
4. Interpret a set of Company Report and Accounts.
5. Demonstrate their knowledge of a number of costing approaches, through direct practical application to a relevant management issue.
6. Apply a number of financial tools and techniques to appraise projects, product and customers profitability.

• Dr Richard Kwiatkowski

Introduction: success in management, particularly at senior levels in organisations, depends on understanding organisations, the people in them and the relationship between the internal and external environments within which they exist; and in ensuring that they work effectively.  

Organisations are run by and for people, and the success or failure of an organisation depends on the people in that organisation.  It is rarely an absence of planning that causes organisational difficulties; rather it is the failure of management in understanding and managing complex personal and interpersonal systems that can lead to significant problems. Similarly an acute and critical understanding of these dynamic relationships can lead to profound and enduring success and benefit for the individual, the organisation and wider society. 

In this module you will be introduced to various aspects of people and organisations.  This module combines models, theories and ideas from organisational behaviour, psychology, sociology, and human resource management in order to provide you with a basic understanding in recognising, understanding and utilising what has been termed the "human factor" in organisations; including ways of conceptualising organisations and how people behave within them.  We shall further consider the impact of the external environment on organisations; and address notions of organisational change. 

This module is necessarily an introduction; further suggestions of reading and of consequent activities will be provided.  

It may also be that you will wish to undertake a project in this area; several of the faculty involved will be pleased to discuss this with you.

The module covers:

• Introduction to People and Organisations
• Individual differences
• Personality
• Learning
• The Team
• Human Resource Management
• Performance
• Politics
• Culture
• The Changing World of Work
• Change
• Change in Organisations
• Application

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Understand a number of different ways of conceptualising people and individuals in organisations, including performance and change.
2. Understand the importance of relationships at work, group dynamics, effective teams and leadership in achieving effectiveness.
3. Critically engage with various relevant models, theories and ideas in order to enhance personal capability, including identification of gaps in knowledge and skills, linking to insights regarding one’s personal and professional development agenda.

• Professor Emma Macdonald

A crucial competence for marketers is marketing strategy: in simple terms, analysing how the target market divides into segments, which of these segments are key targets for the firm, what the firm’s value proposition to each segment is, and what financial results can be expected over a planning period of typically 1-3 years. This module teaches Cranfield’s world-leading step-by-step process for developing such a marketing strategy and documenting it in a marketing plan. This process has been developed with hundreds of blue-chip companies worldwide over the last 30 years, informed by several Cranfield PhDs on the topic which have studied what works in practice. It is documented in the world’s leading textbook on the topic, McDonald & Wilson’s Marketing Plans, which has sold over half a million copies. This book is used as the course text and you are strongly advised to buy their own copy, to help bridge from the course to planning for real in their subsequent management roles.

Being able to define or refine a marketing strategy underpins all other aspects of marketing which help to make this strategy happen. For example, the firm’s brand or brands need to be aligned with the value proposition, as do marketing communications. To help you integrate learning across these different marketing disciplines, this module is assessed through an integrated assignment alongside branding and marketing communications modules.

An introduction to the Marketing Strategy and Planning module



 

The module covers:

• Strategic marketing in context
• 10 steps of the strategic marketing planning process
• Mission statements and organisational objectives
• The Marketing Audit and analytical tools
• Market maps and market segmentation
• SWOT analysis
• The Directional Policy Matrix
• Marketing objectives and strategies
• Product and pricing strategy.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Understand the evolution and role of marketing and be able to describe the characteristics of a customer-centric organization.
2. Appreciate a series of marketing strategy tools and techniques and their application in practice.
3. Recognise a successful marketing planning process and understand the construction and evaluation of a strategic marketing plan.
4. Structure and prepare a comprehensive strategic marketing plan.
5. Evaluate marketing plans prepared by others.

• Dr Richard Schoenberg

Strategic Management is concerned with the direction and scope of the organisation.  This involves determining the purpose of the organisation, establishing objectives and formulating strategies to achieve the objectives. It predominantly explores how an organisation positions itself with regard to its changing environment, and in particular its competitors, in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage. This means that strategic management considers how an organisation’s internal resources and capabilities can be developed to meet the changing demands of customers, in such a way as to achieve the expectations and objectives of its stakeholders. 

An introduction to the Strategic Management module

On successful completion of this module you should be able to: 

1. Describe the key questions and associated challenges to be addressed in formulating an organisation’s competitive and corporate-level strategies.
2. Appreciate that to sustain competitive advantage an organisation must harness its internal resources and capabilities and react appropriately to changes in its external environment.
3. Appraise and differentiate between corporate, competitive (business unit) and functional strategies.
4. Critically apply a range of tools and techniques to illuminate the key questions of competitive strategy and corporate strategy.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Describe the key questions and associated challenges to be addressed in formulating an organisation’s competitive and corporate-level strategies.
• Appreciate that to sustain competitive advantage an organisation must harness its internal resources and capabilities and react appropriately to changes in its external environment.
• Appraise and differentiate between corporate, competitive (business unit) and functional strategies.
• Critically apply a range of tools and techniques to illuminate the key questions of competitive strategy and corporate strategy

This module introduces disruptive innovation and sets out why it is a distinctive form of innovation. The core theory underpinning the topic is introduced along with the rationale for adopting a contrasting approach to that used for managing incremental innovation. The module presents a range of practical tools to support organisations in building strategic competences that enable them to recognise, create or react to disruptive innovation. The module reviews how disruptive innovation applies, individually or in combination, to technology, processes, services and business models.

A core element of the module will be a simulation of an innovation project. The project’s aim will be to develop an innovative product that has potential to be disruptive to the existing market. The simulation will involve team-based activities that equip you with practical tools and hands-on experience. The assessment requires a critical reflection on the experience of using various techniques for managing disruptive innovation within the simulation.

During the module the knowledge and skills required for the simulation will be introduced through a combination of lectures, cases studies and other activities. These will introduce both theoretical elements of the module but also practical techniques that can then be applied within the simulation.

• Identifying and analysing recent, relevant literature that informs an understanding of an organisational capability in innovation, for example through the individual capabilities supporting the Pentathlon framework.
• Understand the nature of disruptive Innovation: what is it, and why is it necessary?
• Understanding how coordinated development effort across a combination of goods, technologies, services and business models can result in disruptive innovation.
• Use and reflect on specific approaches and techniques that underpin an innovation capability, for example:
  1. Understanding, classifying and prioritising customer needs using the Kano model.
  2. Planning technology and is development trajectories using techniques such as environmental analysis, technology roadmapping, and other foresight techniques.
  3. Analysis and design of services using techniques such as service blueprints.
  4. Analysis and design of business models using techniques such as the business model canvas.
  5. Prioritisation of projects within the innovation pipeline.
  6. Management of the new product development process.
  7. Evaluation of an innovation in terms of its disruptive potential.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Examine the key capabilities, and their interrelationships, that underpin an organisational capability in innovation.
2. Critically apply and review the theoretical underpinning of innovation management to the process through which innovative technologies, services and business models are developed.
3. Explain how disruptive innovation might be distinct from other forms of innovation and test whether a specific innovation has disruptive qualities.
4. Analyse how an organisation’s approach to the innovation process influences the types of innovation created.
5. Evaluate the use of a range of techniques that enable disruptive elements of an innovation to be analysed and communicated in terms of the contribution of technological, process and business model innovation.
6. Reflect on the experience of planning an innovation project and critically review the extent to which the new product has disruptive potential.

This module will also develop a potential foundation for a dissertation. A dissertation could draw on the module content to inform the development of an innovation that has been proposed or is currently in development. A dissertation could focus on various aspects of a disruptive innovation, for example, to analyse and understand the relationship between organisational environment and innovation type (disruptive vs. incremental) or to evaluate a set of potential scenarios for development of an innovation. 

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is a practice of entrepreneurship in established organisations. The module is about (re)configuring existing organisations such that they are able to (continue to) identify, explore and exploit new growth opportunities.

Corporate entrepreneurship typically refers to a processes, practices and structures whereby an individual or a group of individuals, in association with an established company, (a) create a new organisation (i.e. engage in corporate venturing) or (b) instigate renewal or innovation within the current organisation.

Engaging into corporate entrepreneurship, be it through corporate venturing or less formalised efforts of identifying new growth opportunities through innovation, strategic renewal or business model reconstruction is key to organisational survival and growth. However, entrepreneurial efforts within existing organisations pose a set of nontrivial management challenges such as:

a)    Would an existing organisation benefit from relying on bold, risk-taking individuals?

b)    Is entrepreneurial behaviour consistent with the planned and controlled strategic direction of a company? To which extend would the shareholders be willing to let the management engage heavily into entrepreneurial initiatives?

c)    How would established market presence and corporate reputation be affected by the performance of the new initiatives?

d)    How can a promising corporate entrepreneurship initiative be executed effectively in the presence:

(i)     the entrepreneurial team’s limited formal power within the organisation;

(ii)    the initiative’s needed to achieve legitimacy; and

(iii)   the need to overcome internal inertia and resistance to change.

The aim of this module is to familiarise you with the concepts of corporate entrepreneurship and the way they can be applied to develop entrepreneurial management capabilities within existing organisations. We will examine the organisational architecture – i.e. leadership, culture, structure and strategies - needed to encourage creativity, innovation and the development of sustainable competitive advantage in larger, existing organisations.

We will focus on the skills and resources needed to promote and manage corporate entrepreneurship process which includes opportunity recognition, establishing internal and external legitimacy of the business concept, managing the implementation process and more broadly, achieving organisational ambidexterity (i.e. the ability to manage existing operations and generate new business effectively).

The module covers:

• The “Entrepreneurial DNA”
• Configuring Organisational architecture for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial orientation
• Structuring the company for entrepreneurship
• Developing entrepreneurial culture
• Fostering creativity and innovation within organisations
• Leading an entrepreneurial organisation
• Corporate strategy and entrepreneurship
• Organising Corporate Entrepreneurship efforts – corporate venturing and strategic entrepreneurship
• Business Model Innovation as a vehicle for corporate entrepreneurship

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Assess the entrepreneurial orientation of an organisation and evaluate the company’s ability to deal with the opportunities and threats it faces.
• Elaborate what is required to become an entrepreneurial leader and explain how entrepreneurial leadership can be developed and leveraged in existing organisations.
• Appraise and recommend how an organisational architecture can be configured within an existing organisation to secure a sustainable competitive advantage.
• Compare and contrast different forms of corporate entrepreneurship.
• Develop a way how an existing firm can organise its corporate entrepreneurship efforts directed at fostering and sustaining innovation, initiating strategic renewal.

Family businesses make numerous, critical contributions to the economy and to family well-being both in terms of money income and such intangibles as time, flexibility, control, and personal expertise - if they work. When they don't, family businesses can be difficult to manage, painful experiences at best. The path to success for any business can follow many routes. Family businesses add the complexities of family life to business challenges, expanding the range of issues, personalities, needs and potential solutions for every decision. Knowing something about family types, communication patterns, managerial styles and the amount of support members can expect from their families may be as important to beginning entrepreneurs as knowing how to reach a market or managing cash flow.

The course addresses aspects of managing an established family business, on a day-to-day basis and planning for succession to the next generation: values, life cycles, growth strategies, succession, conflict resolution, governance and cultural change. Family business issues of new companies are a small part of the course content; because there are other modules in the MSc Entrepreneurship and Management programme that concern entrepreneurship and small business management, this module will enable you to run their family businesses in an entrepreneurial manner.

This module covers:

• Family Business: Definition, Nature, and Significance
• Life Cycle of a Family Business
• Growth Strategies of Family Businesses
• Succession Planning (Are the Kids Good Enough to Run the Business?)
• Succession (Continued) - Family Participation (Is Family Business the “Right Career”?)
• Conflict Resolution
• Corporate Governance in Family Business
• Encouraging Entrepreneurship and Innovation within a Family Business  
• Managing Culture and Change in Family Business
• Financing Planning in the Family Business / Selling a Family Business

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

• Demonstrate their understanding and effectiveness of family firms (either in their own family’s business or someone else’s).
• Identify the characteristics that differentiate family business from other businesses.
• Examine and critically analyse the life cycles of family businesses from the perspective of business, family and ownership development.
• Learn methods to enhance communication ability and conflict resolution with family business owners, managers, and family members, including relatives.
• Recognise and evaluate situations and problems in family businesses.
• Apply strategic planning skills in dealing with the issues of growth and regeneration of the family business.
• Integrate entrepreneurial and professional management concepts for strengthening their family business performance.

• Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam

Accelerating Commercial Use of Technology (ACUTE) supports the commercialisation of early stage and potentially disruptive technologies. During the module you will assess the commercial potential of already developed but not yet mobilised intellectual property of the University, and produce a commercialisation strategy that may include licensing, spin outs and other forms of venturing. In particular, they develop an understanding of the different applications of their assigned technology, undertake a market analysis for each of these technologies, and prepare a brief on potential routes to market. Moreover, this proposal to the original inventor includes a financial plan that includes appropriate funding models

• Intellectual Property protection mechanisms
• Due diligence on the science and technology
• Business model creation and commercialisation pathways
• Market and industry assessment
• Routes to market for clean technologies
• Managing ventures

On successful completion of this module a student should be able to:

• Appraise the landscape for cleantech commercialisation.
• Perform due diligence on a specific cleantech idea.
• Articulate the market opportunity including a competitor analysis and industry assessment.
• Develop and pitch a commercialisation strategy