Presentation

Economic, technological and global environment is crucial for business. Expansion or recession bring a number of implications, either directly or through policies that governments implement. Technological changes affect business operations, its competitors or their markets. In this context, it is very important that employers not only understand the economic/technological logic but also to be able to predict which exogenous variables will impact into your business and depending on the evolution of these variables, adjust their management and even modify its strategy.

In addition to the macroeconomic variables, this subject is incident on the advanced analysis of world situation, globalization and the impact of technological change in the company.

Competences

General Competences

• GC1. To control and to integrate the techniques, instruments and methods of management needed in the development of the professional activity.
• GC2. To delve into the business management and into the different administration areas.
• GC3. To know and to value the effects of the different variables in the business administration and in the organized target attainment.
• GC4. That the students can communicate their conclusions, present their projects, results, plans, the knowledge and the reasons that support them before a specialized or an ordinary public in a clear and in an ambiguity free manner.
• GC5. That the students are able to integrate their knowledge in the different working areas of the business with information, usually incomplete or limited, in the business environment in order to manage the decision making and troubleshooting processes through complex and multidisciplinary situations.

Specífic Competences

• SC1. Learning to distinguish within Strategical Planning, General Managing and Functional Managing areas.
• SC2. Learning the system and working of some of the analysis tools in order to adopt the necessary strategies to obtain competitive advantages.
• SC3. Understanding the relation between the business targets and the business strategy as well as to learn the follow up strategies and target deviation.
• SC4. To know the existence, the application, limits and the use of the Information Systems in the decision-making management.
• SC5. Learning to manage the managing indicator in the business decision-making depending on the same.
• SC7. To know and to use innovation management techniques. To create temporal competitive advantages by innovation.
• SC12. To understand the functional organization of the business. Areas interrelation. To identify and to understand the factors and dimensions that belongs to the functional part of the business, and the features of its administration system.
• SC14. Learning the existence, the applications and the boundaries of the Information Systems and the impact of they have in decision-making, competitiveness and response promptness.
• SC17. To be able to make a sectorial market research.
• SC18. To be able to search and structure the information from different sources, to interpret the results obtained and to elaborate commercial reports and marketing plans.
• SC22. To be able to relate the business management decision-making with the macroeconomic changes.
• SC23. To know how to use negotiation and leadership techniques to manage teams to achieve specific business targets that had been devolved.
• SC29. To provide reasonableness and ethical commitment as well as social responsibility in the business management. To know the concept of Social Corporative Responsibility.
  

Transversal Competences

• TC1. Interpret, with the necessary means, relevant information, trustful and structured for the decision making and troubleshooting.
• TC6. To communicate efficiently, in a structured and organised manner, the most relevant aspects of a project.
• TC8. To ease the process of transition to the business professional career.
• TC9. To provide the students with learning skills that will allow them to continue their studies in an autonomous manner.

Program

Unit 1. Situation Analysis
Introduction
The analysis of the business environment
The role of the environment’s analysis in the business management process
Internal and external factors to the firm
How does the environment affect us?
Where is the environment? - Boundaries
How do we evaluate the environment?
Why do we analyse the environment?
Environment and uncertainties
The environment as a source of threats and opportunities
Environment and business strategy
Specific and general business environment
The internal analysis of a business
Master Class

Unit 2. The General Environment
Introduction
Political Environment
Economic Environment
Socio-cultural Environment
Ecological Environment
Legal Environment
Master Class

Unit 3. Basic techniques of the environment analysis
Introduction
Key techniques and processes
Sources of information
Exogenous variables
Bibliographical References
Master Class

Unit 4. The specific environment of the company
Introduction
Definition of the economic sector
Analysis of the structure of the sector
Segmentation of a sector
Business models
Analysis of business models
Bibliographical References
Master Class

Unit 5. Analysis of the company’s internal situation
Introduction
Analysis of the value chain
Resources and capabilities
The strategic analysis matrixes
The SWOT analysis
Master Class

Unit 6.The situation analysis: current paradigms
Introduction
Economic and financial crisis
Globalization
Analysis of tendencies
Technological evolution
Competitive intelligence
Bibliographical References
Master Class

Methodology

The different tasks and activities programmed during the semester have been developed with the goal of adapting the learning process to the different capabilities, necessities and interests of the students.

The activities included in the subject are:

• Practical cases: will provide the student with actual business situations that will need to analyse and, after that, make decisions, evaluate the consequences and alternatives. They will allow acquiring intellectual skills to face sudden situations or to plan action programs adapted to a changing environment where there is no math logic.
• Participation in events. During the course you will be participating in different events. Some of those events are attendance to online classes, forums, self-evaluation tests.

In the weekly program you can find the specific tasks you need to complete in this subject.

These activities are combined with the following aspects:

• Personal Study
• Tutoring. The tutoring class can be implemented through different tools and means. During the course of the subject, the teacher-tutor plans the individual tutoring on specific days for the resolution of academic-oriented doubts through “Consultation sessions”. Supplementing these sessions, students have also available the “Ask your teacher” forum through which they can formulate questions and check the corresponding answers on general aspects of the subject.  Due to the very nature of the media used, there are no fixed schedules for the students.
• Mandatory on-site final exam

The hours dedicated to each activity are detailed as follows:

Bibliography

Basic bibliography

The necessary texts for the study of this subject have been elaborated by UNIR and are available in a digital format to consult, download or print inthe virtual classroom.

Evaluation and Assessment

The evaluation system is based on the following numerical chart:

The grade is made up of two components:

On-site final exam (60%). At the end of the semester, you need to assist a mandatory on-site final exam. You need to pass the final exam so the grade obtained from the assignments (continuous assessment) is summed up to the final grade of the subject. 

Continuous assessment (40%): this type of assessment will be measured through the different assignments you need to complete during the course:

• Active participation and involvement in forums, online classes.
• Tasks. The completion of the different activities the students need to send through our virtual classroom such as research, critical thinking, practice cases.
• Self-evaluation tests. At the end of each unit, students will find a short quiz which will help the students to check the knowledge acquired during the course.

Remember that you can check the points (value) of each assignment in the weekly program.

Professor

Trinidad Cortés Puya

Education: She holds an Executive-MBA from IESE, a Masters in Cultural Management and a Doctorate in Geography from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. Since 2002, she has been involved in Higher Education. In 2014, she graduated from the International Faculty Program at IESE.

Professional experience: She has taught in a variety of institutions (Escola Superior de Educação de Coimbra- Portugal; Karlshochschule International University - Germany; UNIBE- Dominican Republic; Anahuac Puebla- Mexico; Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad de Castilla- La Mancha, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain); Moreover, she has devoted time to academic management (Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Universidad Nebrija, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja – Spain). At this moment, serves as a Lecturer of the MBA at UNIR. She is an active consultant in strategy and marketing linked to tourism development.

Lines of research:She has researched under an international scope (Universidad de Guadalajara - Mexico, Universidad Anahuac DF - Mexico, Universidad Complutense, Universidad Nebrija – Spain, within the Tourism, Strategy and Marketing.

Tips

Studying online means you can organize your study as you wish, as long as you meet the due dates of the different assignments (activities, tasks and tests). In order to help you, we propose the following steps:

1. From our online platform you will have access to each of the subjects you are enrolled. Apart from this, t you can access to the virtual classroom of the master. In this section, you have available all the documents on how to use the different tools included in the virtual classroom, how a subject is organized and you will also have the possibility to organize your study plan with the tutor.
2. Do not forget to check the weekly program. You will see which part of the content of the course you have to work on every week.
3. After knowing your work for the week, go to Units in your virtual classroom. There, you will have access to the study material (theory and practice) from the unit you need to study throughout the week.
4. Start by reading thethe Basic Knowledge of the unit, this section is the basic study material of the unit. Always read the first part of the same, Introduction, as we will show you here all the material you need to study. Visit, as well, the Resources section, you will find here the complementary readings, videos, experiences, etc.
5. Devote some time when doing the Practical Cases and Test. In the subject Program we will detail which are the corresponding activities for each week and the max. grade you can achieve in each one.
6. We strongly recommend to take part in the events of the course (On-site virtual classes, debate forums, etc.). To know the exact date for each one of these events you must visit the communication media on the Virtual Classroom. Your teacher and your tutor will inform of the subjects news.

Remember that in the virtual classroom of the master you can check how the different tools of the virtual classroom work: email, forum, online classes, sending the tasks, etc.