Admission requirements
Required course(s):
None
Description
“The road to business success, both online and offline, is a long and bumpy one, often littered with pitfalls before success comes knocking. You need to be willing to spend long hours learning and applying new information when you’d rather be spending time having fun with family and friends. It can take several attempts and wrong turns before you hit on the right business model that not only works but also fits in with your life plan, vision and goals. The truth is, once you decide to leave the safety net of your day job to build your own business, you are stepping onto a crazy rollercoaster ride. Amongst all the fun and excitement of being your own boss, there will be days when you feel scared, alone and confused. Deals you were banking on fall through. People you thought you could trust let you down. Products you thought would be home-runs, flop embarrassingly. During tough times like these there isn’t much you can do, other than keep the faith and keep going. I’m a great believer that being in business involves mastering the inner game of self and the outer game of business. Having a success mind-set is essential, possibly even more important than business acumen alone.”
- Tehmina Zaman, entrepreneur and business mentor
This course is all about business decision-making. An online business game will be played in which you will compete as part of a team in a simulated business environment with the aim of increasing company value and becoming the market leader. During the game you will learn how to use financial statements and how business decisions impact financial and operational performance. You will practice strategic thinking, chose market segments, and carry out competitive analysis to establish how you can make your company ‘different’. In doing so, you will also be introduced to a number of key topics in business theory: strategy, competition, pricing, turnaround management. We will work with real-world (Harvard) case studies as a means to learn to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world competitive business issues, and to reflect on academic research to learn about the basic concepts, theories, and frameworks that underpin strategic, competitive, pricing, and turnaround decision-making.
Your assessments will be for individual (55%) and group (45%) work. For your individual assessment you will need to write an essay about the Black Friday sales phenomenon. For the group assignment you will need to examine real-world deceptive pricing practice using field research. For your group report you will critically evaluate your own business game performance and that of the other teams by means of an annotated PowerPoint presentation.
Course Objectives
The learning objectives are of this course are:
To improve your business acumen;
To enhance your strategic thinking;
To increase your understanding of promotional pricing;
To link tactical with operational decisions.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2021-2022 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
Each week starts with an interactive lecture about a key business decision topic. It contains an explanation of the applicable course topics covering academic insights and research. In a workshop mode of teaching the second session of the week focuses on a (Harvard) case study discussion and the business simulation game. This gives you the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world competitive business issues.
Assessment Method
Participation weekly, 15%
Group assignment, 20%
Individual assignment, 20%
Group report, 25%
Individual exam, 20%
Reading list
Materials will be provided by the course instructor.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Prof. Jean-Pierre van der Rest (Department of Business Studies, Leiden Law School)
j.i.van.der.rest@law.leidenuniv.nl
Secretary (Business Studies): Drs. Ellen van Weely (e.t.van.weely@law.leidenuniv.nl)
Mrs. Lisette van der Zalm (l.e.m.van.der.zalm@law.leidenuniv.nl)
Remarks
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