Business Technology Management Specialization

Information Technology (IT) is fast changing the world around us. This course will provide you an understanding of IT-enabled changes in the business environment, and how insightful executives leverage IT to create value and win competitive battles. The course is divided into three parts – the first part of the course focuses on the industry impacts of technological innovation. Here, we will explore competition and business models in the high-tech industry, using examples of companies like Google, Apple and Facebook. We will also explore competitive dynamics of industries that consume significant technology with emphasis on how technology has disrupted industries such as music, media and education. The second part of the course focuses on how IT transforms cost structures of firms by helping them build information capabilities that significantly increase value chain efficiency. The final part of the course will focus on the impact of IT on innovation and decision-making within firms that, ultimately impacts revenue growth.

The explosion in digital media - web, social and now mobile - represents a departure from how things were like in the last century. This proliferation of digital media is both a threat and an opportunity for many businesses. Business Analytics can be leveraged to process data, sentiment, buzz, contacts, context and other aspects of business interest in real time, for business performance and impact. The course picks and uses use-cases from a variety of industries and geographies, to showcase the potential and impact that business analytics done properly (or not) can have on business performance.

This course presents an introduction to the basics of financial accounting and finance for IT professionals. The first part of the course will focus on understanding the most important financial statements, namely, the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows. We will then focus on how we can understand the financial health and performance of the company by examining a number of important financial ratios that are derived from the financial statements of the company. The second part of the course will focus on the basics of finance. This includes the concept of time value of money, discounting cash flows, and capital budgeting. The course will also introduce the idea of real options, how they affect a project’s NPV, and their impact of the decision to accept/reject a project. Lectures on concepts will be supplemented with numerical examples.

The concepts and use of project management tools, techniques and methodologies are becoming all pervasive. This course addresses project management in the context of IT projects, including software projects. Using the framework of project life cycle, the course covers various aspects pertaining to (i) project initiation, (ii) project planning and scheduling, (iii) project monitoring and control, and (iv) project termination. For planning and scheduling of projects, the use of project network and estimation of time and cost are covered in detail. Scheduling of projects with resource limitations is covered next.

Risk assessment methods including simulation and risk reduction approaches are also be covered. The students will be required to use the software @risk to simulate project completion times. The use of Earned Value Analysis for Project Monitoring and Control is emphasized. For Software Project Management, the Waterfall Model and Agile Project Management are covered in detail.