Online graduate Business Management Certificate

In this course, we enhance your statistical and mathematical modeling skills covering the following topics:

• Probabilistic decision-making
• Regression analysis
• Forecasting
• Simulation with @@RISK
• Optimization modeling with the EXCEL Solver
• Making decisions when multiple objectives are involved
• Using neural networks to improve forecasting.

Applications from all major functional areas will be discussed.

In this course, you’ll gain a user-oriented understanding of how accounting information should be managed to ensure its availability on a timely and relevant basis for decision-making. The first part of the course reviews financial accounting and reporting while the second part of the course focuses on cost-benefit analysis for evaluating the potential value-added results from planning, organizing, and controlling a firm’s accounting information. The use of cases, forum discussions, and computer support is used extensively.

Study of information systems management issues including skill and talent management; IT costs, budgets, value, and charge-back systems; priority setting and financial justification of IT investments; project management; runaway projects and underperforming vendors; security risks and crises; emerging technology policies; communications with other senior executives; vendor management; infrastructure standardization; support for innovation; and risk management.

• Economic decision making in the business firm
• The strategic interaction of business firms in industries
• The purchasing and behavior of individual consumers and consumers as a group
• The influence of public policy on market outcomes

• A fluency with the language of economics and a strong 'economic intuition'
• The skills to analyze intra-industry rivalry
• An improved understanding of public policy issues

In this course, you will:

• Develop a working knowledge of the tools and analytical conventions used in the practice of corporate finance
• Establish an understanding of the basic elements of financial theory to be used in application of analytical reasoning to business problems
• Explore the interrelationship among corporate policies and decisions.

Your coursework will include problem sets, study group preparation of executive summary memos and critiques, and the use of PC spreadsheets to develop a planning model for a case focusing on funds requirement.

The objective is to provide the student of management with a basic knowledge of the American legal system, the legal process and relevant substantive law which is necessary to making informed and effective business decisions. The law develops and evolves in response to changing social, economic, political, and technological forces, and business decisions often carry long-lasting as well as delayed effects. This course emphasizes the study of the law of torts, contracts, and product liability. It is hoped that consideration of a study of these legal principles will give prospective managers insight into the dynamics of the legal process to enable them to predict as soundly as possible the future legal environment in which their present decisions will bear fruit.

This course offers an introduction to tools for strategic management. It provides an introductory review of the complexities involved in determining long-term strategies. Rather than assessing the firm's environment in terms of broadly defined opportunities and threats, we will examine the dynamics of the competitive environment, how both the pace and direction of industry change are influenced by the resources, capabilities, and competitive interaction of rivals. The course uses discussion forums, team projects, and an interactive simulation.

Here’s your introduction to the process of creating a market-driven organization. Specific course topics will include marketing strategy, market research and analysis, and the development of products and services, pricing, distribution and promotion. The course employs lectures, classroom discussion through threaded discussion forums, case analysis, and field research projects.

In this course, you’ll survey the management of operations in manufacturing and service firms. Students will work through diverse activities, such as:

• Determining the size and type of production process
• Purchasing the appropriate raw materials
• Planning and scheduling the flow of materials and the nature and content of inventories
• Assuring product quality
• Deciding on production hardware and how it gets used

You’ll also learn that managing operations will require both strategic and tactical skills. The topics considered include:

• Process analysis
• Workforce issues
• Materials management
• Quality and productivity
• Technology
• Strategic planning

The course makes considerable use of business cases. Most classes will be spent discussing the cases assigned. For each case, students will be asked to review actual company situations and apply technical and managerial skills to recommending courses of action. Most cases will be taken from manufacturing, but some will be service-oriented. Several of the cases will focus on international companies or challenges.