Business is a powerful driver of economic growth and stability; to do well in business, you must understand consumers, products, and markets. Market Dynamics and Product Analytics is a Major Core course that provides essential foundations for business majors and is a prerequisite for all junior-level business Concentration courses. The objective of B110 is to challenge students to apply marketing methods used by businesses to create value for shareholders and selected customers and consumers. We examine the consumer behavior of individuals, learn how to run, analyze and interpret experiments, and we review business marketing strategies designed to create and capture value.

This Core course provides a foundation for all Business majors and is a prerequisite for all Business Concentration courses. Students learn about the financial and strategic tools managers use to track, evaluate, and improve their business operations for achieving business objectives. Students learn accounting terminology to read financial statements, explore tools used to develop financial models, and analyze case studies of real-world business situations. Key topics include financial and managerial accounting, present value analysis, options, capital structure, strategy, and corporate social responsibility.

This Core course provides foundations for Business majors and is a prerequisite for all junior-level Concentration courses in this major. We analyze the political, regulatory, and societal contexts in which business gets done from a global perspective.  We address how organizations can create strategies that address varying cultural biases, labor market conditions, and financial regulations. Overall the goal is to examine how businesses succeed and fail when trying to expand into new markets and new geographies. Note: B112 must be completed before B164, B165, B166, or B199 (Business Practicum).

This Core course provides foundations for all Business Majors and is a prerequisite for all junior-level Concentration Courses. Students will explore the inner workings of the business enterprise in context of its environment. The focus is on how to formulate and execute organizational strategies to achieve financial and non-financial objectives. Students learn about multiple levels and factors in organizational designs and how to manage tradeoffs in strategic decision making. The role of agents, functions, structures, processes will be analyzed, as well as design, implementation, control and improvement activities. Human behavior, incentives, emergent effects, stakeholder interests and operational efficiency will be considered. Completing B112 in the same semester (as a corequisite) is recommended but not required.

In this course, we will explore different approaches to need identification, product design and development, and market introduction. We will learn how to understand our customers and their needs and learn how to identify the new market potential of existing products. We will delve into the conception, design, planning, and forecasting phases of new product design. Finally, will explore the process of realizing a product in different business settings, and learn how to introduce new products to various markets. To do this, we build on our knowledge of market research, consumer psychology, and creative problem-solving from previous courses.

The overall goal of this course is to bolster your ability to work with scarce resources while balancing growth and profitability. Relying on skills developed in B111, you will build “muscle memory” so you can raise capital and effectively interface with stakeholders in future business creation and growth. We will analyze new ventures and projects from readings, real-world illustrations, case studies, a location-based assignment, and your own business plan. We also will discuss how entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers can move the needle in order to bring about more equal access to entrepreneurial capital and support socially and ecologically responsible investments. As potential entrepreneurs, you will discover how to raise capital and effectively interface with investors, board members, employees, and other stakeholders in order to maximize positive outcomes.

Study the entrepreneurial process from inception through early growth stages and the unique operational challenges of competing with highly constrained resources. Integrate financial planning, organizational design, product development, market penetration and operations management concepts while addressing risk-reward tradeoffs. The focus is on the utilization of business practices to transform inputs into goods and services as efficiently as possible to enable sustainable growth.

In this course, we build on your knowledge of market research, consumer psychology, and creative problem-solving to understand and explore different approaches to growth. Throughout the course, we will delve into new metrics for measuring marketing’s worth, leverage psychological principles for brand building, and analyze the power of partnerships for growth. Throughout the semester you will propose, execute, and evaluate experiments to get first-hand experience in growing a brand. We will place these activities into the larger context of the firm and will explore the strategic role that they play in business development.

Investigate how growing enterprises use their balance sheets to execute growth strategies. Apply discounted cash flow and real options to select among opportunities that create business value. Learn the role of finance in selecting and valuing appropriate M&A candidates and strategies for achieving synergy.

Learn strategic and tactical decision-making for the design and operation of product and service delivery systems. Consider strategies to increase competitiveness while managing risk. Compare approaches to business process outsourcing, quality management, partnering, and supply chain coordination and rationalization.

Powerful brands can enhance customer relationships, generate profitability, and produce shareholder value. Yet, enterprise growth often begins to slows down as brands get older and approach maturity. During this tipping point in the life cycle, firms must decide how to revitalize their brands and rekindle enterprise growth in order to prevent brand failure. To address these challenges, this course examines signs of brand maturity and explores opportunities for brand revitalization. To begin, we analyze key performance indicators to generate a brand audit and learn how to assess brand equity. Thereafter, we use creative and innovative thinking to explore different paths to enterprise growth and brand revitalization including new market entry, brand extensions, co-branding, brand reinvention, and mergers and acquisitions.

Global investing requires sophisticated tools to select among risk/return scenarios. Learn to apply these tools, which include diversification and hedging for risk reduction, appropriate capital structuring to fund growth, and dividend/share repurchase strategies to drive shareholder value. Investigate the role of private equity investing and financial engineering in modern global finance.

In this class we study ways to optimize organizational structure, processes, and systems that support key business functions in large enterprises. We learn build, buy, and partner strategies, identify the major pitfalls in systems design and management, and navigate the often conflicting requirements that drive profitability. The goal of the course is to examine how large enterprises use their operational systems to synchronize product or service availability with market potential.

The Business Practicum is a residential course in the summer between the third and fourth years. Students combine Learning Outcomes from two or more major core or concentration courses in the Business College.