This course introduces students to the essential elements of accounting principles and their usage in financial reporting. Students will learn how to read, assess and interpret financial statements. They will also learn where and how to access publicly available financial information. The course will also demonstrate how to use core accounting information for various financial benchmarking and modeling outcomes.

This course introduces students to the foundational knowledge that is essential for any person who is involved in the field of corporate finance. Core concepts that are explored include, but are not limited to, understanding time value of money principles, designing cash flow projections, calculating and applying weighted average cost of capital, assessing capital investment expenditures, and balance sheet management.

The focus of this course is on the behaviors of effective leaders. Specifically, the course will address the ideas of leadership versus management, transitions into leadership roles, power and influence and contemporary practices in management and leadership that affect individual behavior in order to improve organizational performance. Additionally, several challenges of managing the corporation are also addressed, including change management, ethical decision making, and managing conflict in the workplace.

This course is designed to raise the critical thinking skills of the student. Emphasis is placed on developing the skills to identify problems, evaluate alternative actions, and to justify and defend decisions. The goal is for each student to develop the ability to apply thinking and reasoning skills to business decisions and to develop the skills to influence others.

This course exposes the student to problem-solving philosophies including Lean Thinking, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints. The module includes several team-based, business simulations and exercises where students are given the opportunity to implement their problem-solving and critical thinking learnings in a dynamic and complex business environment.

This course develops the student’s ability to anticipate, evaluate, and respond to shareholder expectations using strategy and measurement concepts. This requires the student to develop the ability to simultaneously evaluate and manage the organization’s internal and external environment. Skills to satisfy shareholders include: articulating vision, choosing boundaries and lines-of-business, and identifying and managing capabilities/resources across multiple lines-of-business. The integration of the concepts of free cash flow projection and company valuation explores how strategy drives these measures, which in turn drive value back to the shareholder.

This course focuses on the development of the student’s ability to synthesize, integrate, and implement concepts and skills across the spectrum of managerial and leadership roles and responsibilities, incorporating learning from all prior MBA courses. The course content is centered upon the in-depth preparation of cases for cohort-based discussion and written submission, with emphasis on developing plans for the implementation and control of decisions in an ambiguous context. Ultimately, the course engages the student to reflect on their DeVos experience, learnings, and personal transformation and envision how this integration results in the wisdom to acknowledge and change the way he or she sees and deals with the complex business world and opportunities presented by it.

This Capstone course provides the opportunity for students to integrate and apply the knowledge and skills acquired throughout their MBA program. Students will be able to put their learning to use in a fast-paced, quick-changing business environment where they make true-to-life business decisions and quickly see the results. A comprehensive balanced-scorecard measurement system is used to allow students to see and understand the strong intended and unintended interplay of their decisions among the various functional areas of their businesses. Students are assigned to business teams from multiple DeVos MBA cohorts for an opportunity to work and learn from one another in this complex and dynamic business simulation.

The first part of this course focuses on achieving sustainable differentiation at the line-of-business level. This requires the simultaneous evaluation and management of the organization’s internal (processes, structures, resources) and external (competitors, suppliers, other stakeholders) environment in an effort to satisfy the selected primary customer needs that guide the business strategy. A methodology that systematically aligns the customer needs, internal measurable outcomes, and operational activities are employed. The second part of the course focuses on achieving sustainable marketing differentiation by managing the marketing function within the organization. Areas to be investigated include: internal/external assessment (customers, competitors, collaborators, company, context), creating value (market segmentation, target market, positioning), and managing the marketing mix (product, place, and price, promotion) to capture and sustain value for the firm.

Building on Competitive Strategy and Marketing, this semester-long practicum focuses on applying line-of-business strategy and marketing knowledge to the real world. This project-based class will include applied readings, discussion boards, formal meetings with faculty and weekly deliverables that are project specific. This course ends with the submission of a line-of-business strategy and marketing plan for a real-world business.

This course is designed to help the student develop the capabilities to observe and affect individual and group behavior within an organizational setting. Specifically, the course will address motivation and commitment, gender and generational differences, interpersonal communication, managing expectations, and emotional intelligence. The student will learn to understand self as well as others toward the goal of effectively managing relationships with a wide range of people in an organizational setting.