Corporate Strategy is concerned with the formulation and implementation of strategy within large, complex companies—multi-business companies in particular. The objectives of the course are:

• To acquire competence in applying concepts, frameworks and tools required for analyzing corporate strategy.
• To recognize and understand the relationships between strategy, competitive context, organizational structure, management systems, and leadership style within the large corporation and appreciate the tasks involved in implementing strategy.
• To be more aware of the broader forces currently impacting large corporations and the ways in which companies are responding to these challenges.
• To gain familiarity with the strategic management issues that concern executives.
• To develop your skills in strategic analysis as well as oral and written communication.

The course is divided in two parts – we will first learn about corporate strategy, and then put the learning in practice.

To accomplish the former objective, we will go through a series of regular sessions. Most of these sessions will be devoted to case discussion where the task of analyzing the issues in the case will be undertaken by the class as a whole. In other sessions we will be expecting students to contribute their ideas on the issues being discussed and examples drawn from their personal experiences and from reading the business press. These classes might involve a discussion of academic articles or other in-class activities. As is recommended with the case teaching method, all discussions, and presentations will occur in the first part of class, with a debrief in the second half. We lead most in-class discussions in this course using the Socratic Method. Consistently, we will mostly act as moderators, and you should feel comfortable responding to in-class questions (aka “cold calls”). Such an interactive, hands-on approach is used to reveal the complexity and ambiguity of real-world situations.

Once we have discussed about the main concepts associated to corporate strategy, we will have the chance to put our learning in practice by mean of a business game that will take place over two full days. The aim of this business game is to allow you to experience first-hand the concepts learned in class in a simulated business environment, where each of you will be part of the board of directors of a company operating within a tech industry. In this role, you will be crafting and implementing your company’s corporate strategy by analyzing data and taking decisions pertaining to scope and growth modes, while interacting with other board members and negotiating with other companies.