Core courses

London Business School's MBA is about developing people with the knowledge, skills and attributes to become global business leaders. This course helps you bridge the gap which most people have between your understanding of new countries and cultures and your ability to lead others in culturally sensitive ways. It will help you make a positive impact wherever you go.

Objectives:

• To identify key interpersonal and teamwork skills needed in successful global business management (for example finding your own way to be assertive in a culturally sensitive way)
• To share feedback on your own and others' interpersonal and teamwork skills
• To observe and practise selected interpersonal skills necessary for cross-cultural leadership and teamwork
• To understand the skills that underlie management and leadership effectiveness in the global business environment
• To consider the need to adapt skills for different contexts
• To develop personal and team action plans for the next year
• To assess learning using a follow-up survey for cross-cultural team and interpersonal skills
  

The Leadership Launch programme is designed to increase the competitive advantage of London Business School MBA graduates in the marketplace. The emphasis is on 'doing' rather than simply 'knowing', and the format of the sessions aims to help you to improve your performance and individual impact through practical exercises. Training is delivered by professional external training companies who are specialists in their field and whose clients include blue-chip and international organisations as well as many of our graduate recruiters.

As part of the course you are able to choose which particular skill areas you need to focus on and choose relevant courses accordingly. Throughout core courses and interaction with your classmates and study group, you will be able to identify specific skill sets which you feel you could develop further.

You have free choice from the portfolio on offer and can choose which courses you would like to do. Courses will be offered in the following areas:

• Accent and Voice Coaching (half day course)
• Advanced Business Writing
• Advanced Information Management Skills
• Dealing with Stress
• Influencing and Persuading
• Listening and Observing
• Managing Meetings
• Mind Mapping and Memory
• Personal Impact (half day course)
• Public Speaking
• Speed Reading (half day course)
• Successful Negotiation
• The Art of Communication
• The Spoken English Company (online programme)
• Winning Competitive Presentations

Business has arguably replaced government, religion, and in many cases family as the social institution with the greatest influence on people's lives.

Business managers and leaders therefore, play a pivotal role in promoting economic and social progress.

This course highlights the professional challenges and responsibilities that you will face, and creates a road map to help you to navigate the twists and turns of the MBA Programme content. For those whose future calling is to advise general managers as consultants or corporate financiers, or who may seek to shape their behaviour as regulators, this course will illuminate the nature of the challenges and pressures placed on the top business managers with whom you will be working.

Topics include:

• Introduction to general management
• Committing to the future
• Framing the world
• Managing through processes
• Managerial values

The objective of the Corporate Finance core course is to develop a framework for corporate financial decision-making and provide a solid grounding in the principles and practice of financial management.

The course breaks down into three main sections:

• Project Appraisal: This concerns the way in which investment projects are analysed, the impact of risk, tax and inflation, the term structure of interest rates, the cost of capital and target rates of return.
• Capital Markets: This covers the operation of the capital markets, its efficiency, the role of intermediaries, sources of finance, the borrowing decision, company valuation and optimal portfolio allocation.
• Capital Structure: This addresses the issue of the optimal capital structure of firms, mergers and acquisitions and the market for corporate control, market efficiency, the principle of capital structure, gearing and the basics of hedging and international finance.
  

This course will focus on understanding the decision making in business based on data and other quantitative information. The full course syllabus is currently being developed.

The purpose of the financial accounting course is to furnish students with a basic understanding of the financial reporting process, and in particular how financial statements are put together. Although the course principally concentrates on the production of financial statements, the aim is not to turn participants into practising accountants; the philosophy is rather to provide an appreciation of the production process that is sufficiently detailed to give students the ability to successfully analyse a relatively complex set of financial statements. This ability is essential for elective courses that deal with the analysis and interpretation of company financial statements in various contexts. Additionally, the ability to extract relevant information from accounting data for the purpose of decision making is an important skill that will be used in a number of other courses.

This course teaches you how to apply economic reasoning, with a primary focus on the needs of managers.

The course is divided into two parts. In the first part we cover traditional topics in microeconomics. We start by explaining how markets work and how the price mechanism allocates resources. We then review the profit drivers of the firm distinguishing revenue and cost drivers.

The second part of the course studies the interactions among market players with an emphasis on firms' strategies. Here, strategy is defined as being involved in decisions which affect your firm's performance not only directly but also by influencing the behaviour of others. We will cover applications to pricing rivalry, barriers to entry, auctions and vertical integration.

Course outline:

• Understanding market forces
• The meaning of competition
• Pricing and profits
• Market power - good or evil?
• Playing games I - competition versus cooperation
• Playing games II - entry and exit
• Firms versus markets - make or buy?
• Auctions and market design
• Economics of information
  

This core course deals with the craft of strategy; that is, how to identify and choose a superior competitive position, how to analyse a strategic situation, and finally how to create the organisational context to make the chosen strategy work.

Objectives:

• To explore conceptual frameworks and models which will assist you in analysing competitive situations and strategic dilemmas, and will provide you with an insight into strategic management
• To help you acquire practical experience in dealing with strategic issue.

To achieve this we start with an analysis of the external competitive environment, looking at industry structure and value chain dynamics and assess how a firm can select the best position within this environment. 

The course will then move to focus on an analysis of firm resources and capabilities, look at the firm's resource system, and examine the challenge of coordinating the pieces of the puzzle that underpin corporate success.

Tying these insights together, a two-session simulation gives you a hands-on feel of what strategy making is about, and helps you think through the implications of your decisions.

After this, the course turns to implementation, and the way in which the organisation enables you to put strategy into action. The course concludes with a session on the challenges of strategic management in a time of rapid technological change.

Businesses have to deliver if they are to survive. This course aims to: 

• Develop an awareness of the main operational issues that arise in all business
• Show how effective management of operations is a major factor in business success
• Introduce you to key operations management approaches, including:
      - Operations strategy
      - Process analysis
      - Use of data and managerial opinion

This is a practical subject and involves cases, exercises and a plant visit.

We all know what marketing involves. Or do we? This course looks at the main principles and constructs that create sound marketing strategies, and looks at the different challenges associated with implementing a marketing strategy.

The course covers:

• What marketing is - and more importantly, what it is not
• Consumer research and consumer behaviour
• Market segmentation and targeting
• B2B marketing
• Positioning strategy
• The demand chain
• Value pricing
• Market space
• Marketing planning
• Global marketing

The course climaxes with the 'Marketing Strategy' simulation where you become members of a fully functioning organisation and compete against each other in an extremely tough and highly realistic marketing

Leading individuals and groups effectively is the key to managerial excellence. Yet, it could be your most difficult challenge as a manager.

This course is designed to help you meet this challenge and does so in three ways:

• First it provides you with a framework for managing individual and group performance
• Second, it helps you understand and acquire critical leadership skills required to shape and manage the behaviour of people in organisations
• Third, through an intensive field project (the Organisation Audit) it will give you the opportunity to explore first hand the relevance and usefulness of the concepts and management practices discussed in class.

The course is designed to:

• Help you understand and manage individual and interpersonal behaviour in organisations
• Help you manage groups for high performance, by providing you with conceptual knowledge experiential exercises on group dynamics and team building (along with practical insights into your skills as a team player and your impact on others)
• Help you understand the challenges of leading and changing organisations

To accomplish these objectives, the course will include the following elements:

• Exposure to essential theories and concepts for analysing managerial problems
• Individual and group analysis of cases and experiential exercises
• Exchange of ideas and experiences in the classroom
• Intensive field-based project work in groups
  

Building on the technical foundations of Financial Analysis, this course concentrates on the use of accounting for decision and control in the firm.
 
The first part of the course seeks to develop the foundation of management accounting, namely understanding costs and costing and becoming proficient in cost analysis for decision-making.

The second part tackles accounting for control. It is intended to deepen your understanding of the processes, possibilities and limitations of management accounting, including budgetary control, divisional performance measurement and management planning and control systems.

The purpose of this course is to examine these challenges and complexities faced by businesses and their leaders as they endeavour to maximize returns - both corporate and as individuals - while responsibly managing their duties to the stakeholders whom they affect and the societies in which they operate. We also examine the rationale for government interventions in market systems, investigate the scope and nature of such interventions, and assess how businesses might adapt to changes in the regulatory framework within which they operate.

Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunities (DEO) is a ground breaking core course that equips you with the skills, tools, and mindsets to enable you to discover opportunities upon which entrepreneurial ventures may be built, whether as start-ups or in established firms.

The course builds your real-world business sense, and develops your presentation skills and your ability to persuasively articulate a point of view about a business problem that needs to be resolved. It will give you an opportunity to prepare and deliver a short presentation to the class, drawing on what has been discovered in your team's project work to date. Additionally, you will gain numerous opportunities to challenge and debate the merits and limitations of different points of view held by fellow students and the instructor about what decisions should be made - and why - in the cases being discussed.

It will become clear as the course unfolds that discovery and decision making skills are fundamental capabilities for any manager who seeks to 'do things differently' in his or her organisation. Indeed, most new consultants and most MBA graduates find themselves, in their first position post-MBA, dropped into a setting where there are performance problems they are asked to resolve. Resolving them inevitably requires discovering customer, user, and/or business needs and discovering a suitable way forward to satisfy those needs. Thus, the discovery focus of this course should serve students having career interests of all kinds, not just those who plan to start new ventures. It should be noted, however, that recent data indicate that 80+ percent of graduates from top-tier MBA programmes find themselves involved in one way or another with entrepreneurial ventures within ten years of graduation. This course provides preparation for your eventual entry into the entrepreneurial world - and perhaps increase your tolerance for ambiguity, a helpful personal attribute for every entrepreneur.

This course will familiarise you with the workings of the global economy, including growth, trade, business cycles and monetary and fiscal policy. The full course syllabus is currently being developed.

During year one you will have the opportunity to engage in 'real world' perspectives while participating in the London Business Experiences.  Choosing a company visit from a portfolio of London-based companies, you learn from key internal stakeholders and work within groups to develop networks and increase your practical business outlook.

MBA2013 students will visit organisations that include: Chelsea Football Club, Fight for Peace, Saatchi and Saatchi, Bank of England, Citibank and London Metals Exchange. 

Capstone is the finale of your MBA.  Celebrate the programme with an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned both inside and outside the classroom.  Capstone brings the whole class back together for a series of key events featuring headline speakers and alumni panels.

Integrating your learning with practical, global experience is a powerful and enjoyable part of the London Business School MBA.

Global Business Experiences (GBEs) form a key part of your second year on the programme. Accompanied by members of faculty, you travel to a destination such as China, India, South Africa, North America or the Middle East and work in small teams to complete projects relevant to each trips theme and region. The GBEs are designed to offer you insights from alumni, industry officials and thought-leaders in these specific key regions through company visits, guest speakers, panels, workshops, and faculty lectures.

Find out more about the Global Business Experiences