Business and Management Development

Course Details

Become a future-ready business leader

A dynamic and digital world needs agile, adaptable and forward-thinking business leaders to grow their organisations. 

The Business and Management Development online programme will give you the tools and techniques needed to navigate a business in the 21st-century successfully. 

This programme will help you develop your decision-making skills within complex and turbulent environments, and improve your ability to design and communicate actionable, integrated solutions across your business.

This programme is perfect for

• Employees identified for the management pipeline
• Managers and potential managers wanting to advance in their careers, maintain their relevance or make a change
• Middle, senior managers, or potential managers in specialist positions who wish to improve their understanding of the bigger picture of business operations
• Forward-thinking managers and potential managers who are future-prepared
• Entrepreneurs and business owners who want a holistic understanding of managing a business.

What will I learn?

By the end of the programme, you will be able to

• Demonstrate an understanding of the key elements of managing a business
• Identify, understand, and explain common management challenges, both negative and positive
• Apply knowledge management practice to effectively lead people, manage work and processes, and enhance business growth and development
• Offer integrated solutions and recommendations that have a positive impact on business performance
• Use a variety of input and human interaction methods, including business reporting and presentation, to achieve objectives in a business environment

Is this right for me?

Orientation Module

The Orientation Module introduces you to the GIBS Online campus, onboards you to the programme and initiates your engagement with the GIBS expert faculty and fellow participants. You have the opportunity to familiarise yourself with the programme details, how to approach online learning and the kinds of activities you will encounter during the programme.

Module One - Leadership and Management

Hone your management and leadership skills by looking inward to understand more about yourself, and then outward to explore how you can use this understanding to be a more effective leader.

• Articulate the difference between leadership and management
• Identify business problems and apply leadership and management theory to resolve them
• Demonstrate self-awareness by analysing your strengths and areas for development 
• Clarify and practice effective leadership styles for business success

Module Two - Strategy

A considered strategic approach is essential to business success. A framework that guides decision-making can be an essential tool with increased global competition and the escalating speed at which new information becomes available. The ability to carve a clear, defensible and adaptable path to your customers provides a focal point for stakeholders to rally behind. 

• Analyse various theories to define strategy
• Reflect on the relationship between the external environment and the organisation’s ability to respond
• Analyse strategy as a set of choices
• Use Porter’s Five Forces framework as a tool to understand industry dynamics
• Explain the levels of strategy implementation

Module Three - Financial Decision Making

What drives financial decisions in business? How do you answer the question, ‘How much profit is enough?’ This financial decision-making module provides you with information about what drives financial behaviour in business - in particular, the dynamics of profitability and asset efficiency, and how these concepts drive return on investment.  

• Demonstrate an understanding of the dynamics of profitability
• Assess profitability in terms of the asset intensity of a business
• Make decisions regarding the asset intensity of a business around the idea of owning, controlling and defining assets
• Make practical use of Excel spreadsheets to complete exercises that test your application of the theory

Module Four - Digital Transformation

The rapidly evolving environment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires a better appreciation of the context we operate in. We need the ability to find innovative ways to respond, manage and lead within this context. This module on digital transformation aims to provide you with these skills.

• Demonstrate an understanding of the nature and role of digital transformation through innovation in the global business environment
• Discuss the impact of digital technologies and technology cycles in business 
• Describe different sources, types and patterns of digital innovation that achieve digital transformation
• Demonstrate an understanding of the rates of adoption of new technologies and the types of adopters
• Demonstrate an understanding of big data, artificial intelligence and the  application of these concepts in organisations

Module Five - Elective Module

Module Five Elective - Corporate innovation

In this elective, you will gain insight into the tools and approaches available to established corporations to initiate, cultivate and sustain corporate innovation.

• Describe the context and environment in which corporate innovation is required and in which it can thrive

• Identify and discuss the ways in which innovation can manifest within the setting of an established organisation

• Apply tools and models to the initiation, management and monitoring of corporate innovation initiatives

Module Five Elective - Entrepreneurship

In this elective, we introduce concepts and theories that inform effective entrepreneurship. This will provide you with insights into the entrepreneurial mind, teach you steps to identify opportunities and enable you to utilise skills and resources to maximum advantage. 

• Describe the entrepreneurial mindset and why it is needed within a corporate and startup environment 
• Identify and apply tools, methods and approaches to opportunity identification 
• Explain the concept of customer Jobs-to-be-Done and apply this to an identified opportunity
• Design a business model using the Business Model Canvas

Assignment Module

The Integrated Assignment is an opportunity to demonstrate that you can apply the concepts, theory and content covered in this programme in a work environment.  

• Apply the knowledge and skills obtained in an integrated assignment
• Offer integrated solutions and recommendations that have a positive impact on business performance 
• Identify and interrogate a workplace challenge
• Write and present a recommendation report

Assessment

Throughout the programme, you will have opportunities to test your knowledge, practise application, evaluate your understanding, reflect on your insights and track your improvement with both graded and ungraded assessments.

Module assessments include reflective discussions, multiple-choice quizzes, written assignments and case study applications. You will receive feedback and can discuss ways to improve with GIBS faculty and your peers.

The programme culminates in a final integrated assignment where you will have the opportunity to consolidate and apply what you have learned in your own work environment.