This core course focuses on understanding levers for structuring, managing, and improving
a firm's recurring business processes to achieve competitive advantage in customer responsiveness, price, quality, and variety of products and services. These levers are as applicable
to banks, hospitals, and brokerage firms, for example, as to traditional manufacturing. Processes within firms, as well as between firms, i.e. supply chains, are explored. The fundamental
principles underlying state-of-the-art practices are explored so that students learn to critically
evaluate these and other operational improvement programs.
Students learn the basics of how to manage the operations of a firm, and how operational
issues affect and are affected by the many business decisions they will be called upon to make
or recommend in their careers. As such, this course is essential to students aspiring to become
consultants, entrepreneurs, or general managers. A working knowledge of operations is also
indispensable to those interested in marketing, finance, and accounting, where the interface
between these functions and operations is critical. Finally, an understanding of how firms
become market leaders through operations is important in investment careers.
Most weeks consist of in-depth case discussion, integrated with theory. As such, the course is
ideal preparation for many cases encountered during interviews for internships and full-time
positions.
