While having a global perspective is important, it is imperative for senior leaders keen on propelling your organisation forward to learn the art of synthesising your perspective into a vision that can be clearly articulated and communicated.

SYNERGISING STRATEGY, AI & FINTECH FOR OPTIMAL BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

This course begins with a historical perspective on FinTech, exploring the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on finance. It covers the development of digital currencies, focusing on Bitcoin and its decentralized blockchain technology. The course will delve into the mechanics of blockchains, consensus mechanisms, and alternative market models, using data to assess the Bitcoin network's performance and applications like Ethereum. In the final session, we will examine FinTech applications in consumer credit, particularly peer-to-peer lending and credit scoring, highlighting innovative risk assessment models.

Second part of the course explores the rapid advancements and increasing investments in AI, highlighting applications like strategy games, chatbots, cashier-less stores, and automated HR functions. It emphasizes the need for firms to invest in complementary physical, digital, and human capital to derive value from AI. Participants will gain a framework for identifying these crucial complements.

Finally, the session on Corporate Strategy focuses on developing business unit strategies and creating value in competitive environments, using Steinway Piano as a case study. Participants will discuss evaluating a company's market position and industry standing.

FINANCING ENTREPRENEURIAL BUSINESSES

This course provides participants with an overview of the various sources of capital companies tap into in the various stages of their lifecycle. It starts with the establishment of a framework that links a company’s financing choices and capital structure to the intrinsic value of its shareholders’ equity. The bulk of the course covers the entire gambit of financing options across the lifestyle of a firm including startup funding, private equity, IPOs, and debt financing.

For organisations to continue their growth stories, it is imperative that they extend their reach beyond familiar shores to cultivate markets that may not be apparent today.

LUXURY GOODS & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT IN ITALY

This course aims at exploring the luxury marketspace and the industries for which Italy is famous for and the underlying processes that represent the most critical ones to succeed in those businesses. 

This course aims at illustrating how to design and manage the operating system of a company. At the end of the course participants will be able to analyse the production system of an enterprise, to assess its overall fit with the strategic objectives and with the competitive strategy of the firm and to propose re-design options. Participants will be endowed with tools and principles suitable for focusing on business priorities and identifying possible gaps between the actual performance of the operating system and the expected one. Furthermore, the course will provide participants with an overview of the main levers that managers can use to shape (or re-shape) the structural and organizational aspects of the operating system to leverage it as a competitive tool. The course also introduces an overview of the Lean Manufacturing principles.

BUSINESS TRENDS & STRATEGIES IN CHINA

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamic landscape of Chinese business, focusing on key contemporary issues and trends shaping the region's economic and corporate environments. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students will delve into various facets of Chinese business, including economics, culture, marketing, and e-commerce, gaining valuable insights into navigating this complex market. 

Course topics include Business Model Innovation in China, Doing Business in China – A View from a Foreign National Perspectives, China Macro Economy, New Retail in China, Business Strategy and Leadership in China.

SUSTAINABILITY AND BUSINESS OPS IN SEA

"Business Sustainability in SEA – Focus on Thailand," offers global business leaders an opportunity to understand the business sustainability in Southeast Asia's rapidly evolving market, particularly Thailand. This region, experiencing significant economic growth and a shift in global supply chains from China, faces challenges like urbanization, a growing middle class with persistent poverty, and the need for adequate infrastructure and services.

Moreover, climate change is affecting natural resources and ecosystems. This course explores how businesses, communities, and individuals in Thailand are addressing these challenges to balance economic growth with sustainability.

Course topics include a Thai focus on the economy, sustainability issues, the investment environment, marketing, human capital, and cases in how to do business in Thailand. The three-day credit course is co-designed by SMU and Sasin. It will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Sasin School of Management. Learning will consist of a mixture of classroom lectures and discussions, as well as site visits or activities. 

Successful firms are those that recognise the need to evolve with the changing tides and times. The challenge for leaders in the global economy’s state of flux would be to dynamically bring about meaningful and useful change that would sustain an organisation’s growth through time. As Asia’s growth story begins to take centre stage, change management has become more important than ever.

LEADING BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

Digital technologies have virtually disrupted every industry and caused permanent changes to how we work and live. Although many businesses have benefited from the new technology, more of them are being threatened or have been displaced by it. Digital technology will only proliferate at an exponential rate. Businesses that cannot harness digital capabilities will experience an accelerated erosion of their competitive advantages in productivity, product and service offerings, staff quality, consumer loyalty, and many other areas. Despite the urgent need for digital transformation, many businesses have slid into what Gartner documented as the "Trough of Disillusionment." Many explanatory factors were offered and mostly centered around the confusion of what digital transformation entails.

This course will introduce digital transformation as a "batteries-included" framework centered around digital-first thinking. In contrast, most digital transformation subjects in the market are based on either misconceived technology-first or piecemeal digital improvement approaches. Our digital-first approach starts with a thorough understanding of the new paradigms of business strategy made possible by digital technologies. Next, we equip you with a working knowledge of the technologies involved, and most importantly, the innovative workflows, organizational structures, teamwork, and attitude necessary to support such endeavors. Digital transformation is not a patchwork of modular improvements designed to plug and play. It is a top-down, holistic, enlightened, determined, and dynamic (agile) movement aimed at persisting business performance in the new Industrial Revolution 4.0. 

In this course, students can master digital-first thinking via a three-prong approach. We start with the awareness of five new digital drivers of disruptive businesses. We then introduce the essential building blocks of digital-first strategies using frameworks, toolkits, and case discussions. Students will learn how to transform business value from user value propositions and create disruptive business models with network effects in mind. Students will also learn how to augment decision-making with data and AI, repeat innovations with rapid experimentations, and create a working environment necessary for a digital-first organization. In the third part, we will attempt to synergize what we have learned and collectively develop strategies and roadmaps for existing and new industries of the future.

INNOVATION & GROWTH MANAGEMENT

The focus of this module is to provide you in-depth exposure to the process of starting and scaling an enterprise from ideation and development into the establishment of a company. You will develop a start-up idea by formulating and executing a research project, assess and validate market opportunities, develop an actionable business plan and pitch to investors. In addition, you will learn how to establish the right management team for the new enterprise. This class will also expose you to utilising integrative entrepreneurial execution in a variety of career and work contexts.

NEGOTIATING IN BUSINESS

Professional success is largely dependent on one’s success in managing differences and fostering collaboration among people and organizations. However, in today’s highly dynamic and complex managerial and business environments, it can be extremely challenging to bring relevant “players” – internal and external stakeholders who have different interests, perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, or values – together to forge efficient, profitable, and lasting agreements. Professionals who understand the science and practice of negotiation will be much better equipped to navigate these differences and create agreements that advance their own interests, and also the interests of the other parties involved.

An organisation's culture, strategy and processes come together synergistically to ensure its success in the long term. It is, therefore, critical that you build sustainable, viable, trackable and repeatable processes, policies and procedures to implement your vision.

STRATEGIC INITIATIVE PROJECT (SIP)

This project will challenge you to learn through immersion in a real problem. You will play an active role as a problem-solver confronted with an ill-structured authentic situation that simulates the problems that you are likely to face as a manager in a complex organisational environment. Through this module, you will learn how to develop problem-solving strategies and sector-knowledge bases and skills. SIP represents an educational paradigm shift, where the focus lies in learning rather than teaching. Learning in this module takes place within the context of currently occurring tasks, issues and problems, and authentically represents real-world concerns.

SUSTAINABILITY & ETHICS WORKSHOP 

The UN has defined its UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG), and has identified the three pillars of economic, social and environmental dimensions as the backbone of its sustainability initiatives. The principles of sustainability are simple enough – use public and private resources carefully with regard to the rights of other contemporaries and future generations. Hence, various resources like land, water and air should be used sustainably; if not, we have implications like climate change and water scarcity to face up to. Sustainable organizations lives within the continuing capacity of the available resources of natural and social systems, and deplete and replenish at similar rates. All resources should be used to maintain similar levels for the future: maintaining scarce shared resources. The concept of ethical actions is similar to the concept of sustainability – act to enhance the well-being of others, and avoid morally and legally wrong actions that are harmful to others. 

CORPORATE REPUTATION

No organization can afford to ignore the importance of corporate reputation in a hyper-connected digital space where companies are under attack 24/7. A favorable reputation is an intangible prized asset and its contribution to a company’s value is indisputable in today’s crisis-prone business environment. This course will equip participants with key related constructs of reputation management with an emphasis on building reputation from within the organization. It will examine the importance of leadership, trust, and employee communication in the workplace environment. Additionally, it seeks to comprehend the influence of media engagement, corporate narratives, and the role of corporate social responsibility/sustainability in enhancing employer branding and reputational story. The course will further discuss damages inflicted in times of crises and delve into recovery efforts to restore reputation after crises. Through lectures, case studies, guest speakers, and discussions, participants will become familiar with stakeholder management, communication strategies, and media tools critical to building, enhancing, and protecting corporate reputation in the new tribal age.