ME30197
Business for Engineers (Moodle Link)
I’ve taught this unit since 2018 and it’s always a joy and an honour to teach. The syllabus is varied and unlike most units in the department is very free. If there is something you want to understand more deeply let us know and we’ll try our best to either help you ourselves or to find an expert for you. The principle aim is to give you business knowledge and skills that will serve you a lifetime, no matter where your career takes you.
The style is relaxed and interactive but we expect your attendance and enthusiastic participation. Since it’s the most popular elective unit in the department (over 200 students now from Mech Eng and other departments, up from 86 when I took over), that’s never usually a problem. We try our best to keep the material up to date and relevant whilst also always looking to improve our teaching style. So we’re immensely proud of our teaching scores (especially given the constraints of COVID last year) and the response from students to the course. It’s a labour of love but we’d love to know if you think we can do anything something better.
Praise for the unit:
“Fantastic lecturers. I really enjoyed the lectures and was able to learn a lot on business plans as well as on more general business and financial news. Would recommend this unit to every engineer willing to focus more on the business side of things.”
“The lectures are well thought out and well delivered. I like the large variety of content covered. The group activities are fun and well varied.”
“Great lectures, good speaking, and engaging powerpoint slides, really allows thinking and helps with the business essay. Lecturers are approachable for questions and general talking. Engaging activities with teams, relaxed atmosphere.”
“I really enjoyed taking this unit, and found its content varied and interesting. I feel taking this module as a final year option has widened my skillset, and made me a better engineer.”
“I like the fact that it is a very free unit and puts a lot of trust on us to take away what we want from it. This is very useful, because as engineers we are all taking this class for different reasons and we can choose which parts of it are useful to our career afterwards.”
“The structure of this unit is great. Everything is clear from the beginning, including how the coursework works as well as what topics will be covered. I also enjoyed the almost laidback nature of the unit. All lecturers are great speakers and delivered very interesting content.”
“Very good teaching. Very good ties to everyday life. Very good topics. Very approachable staff. The pre-learning used was particularly helpful in understanding the concepts.”
“Genuinely enjoyable course, very different from any of my other units but that's such a benefit to it and I genuinely enjoy having this course to round off the week on Friday afternoons!”
“Loved Ed’s energy and enthusiasm in his teaching, this made the lecturers a pleasure to attend each week.”
“The lecturers were really good and the weekly activities were all fun. Ed is one of the best lecturers I have had and runs a really good, refreshing and unique module.”
Is there anything I could do before the course starts?
The aims of this course are to teach you about how business works, the reality as well as the theory. How finance, money and purpose play a part and skills you can apply to your future careers and life outside of university.
One of the most important skills to learn is that of curiosity and the ability to make yourself interested in a topic. It sounds like a slightly odd thing to be able to do, but if you can be find some aspect of a subject that makes you want to read more, hear more or do more, everything becomes easier.
So what can you do to get a head start? I think a fun place is by listening to episodes of How I Built This (available on all podcast platforms). It gives such a rich and honest insight into how business really works. But unless you’re already a business super nerd, start with an episode from someone you know or a company you’ve heard of. That way you can start to form a curiosity for something new, by learning about someone or something you already care about. Enjoy.
At the start of term we’ll be wanting to know if there is anything you really want to know about. So please bring any business questions you might have so we can try and weave them into the course material.
A work in progress for 2023/2024
Course:
Oh my goodness… over 200 students this year. Crazy. So we’ve been given the biggest rooms they have:
Wednesday’s @ 12:15-13:10 - 4E 3.40/3.44
(Due to timetabling issues, Manufacturing & management students I’ll see you at 13:15)
Thursday’s @ 9:15-11:10 - 4E 3.40/3.44
Look through the contents here, if there is something you’d like to better understand and don’t think we cover it, send us an email or come and speak to us. We’ll try to help explain it to you or find someone who can.
This course is a wonderful team effort, my deepest thanks to all those who have been involved over the years. The team of fabulous teachers who join me for 2023 / 2024 is as follows:
Dr. Ed Elias
Jamie Croggon (Director of Advanced Development @ SharkNinja)
Debbie Jansen
Prof. Steve Cayzer
Prof. Peter Mott
Why do we teach as a team? It’s more fun, you get a variety of opinions (usually no right answer) and no one can ever be an expert on all things business, the topic is just too big.
We look forward to seeing you all soon!
Week 1
Course Introductions & Business Basics
Wednesday - Meet and great your team, some of the teaching team, a Q&A on how the course will run, an introduction to the assignments and also I’m really keen to know why you’re doing the course and what areas you want to know about. The course content is very free. We think these things are important to know but if you want to know about anything specific let us know!
Thursday - A fun business game to break the ice and introduce a few concepts and ideas.
Some themes for the week:
History & Purpose of Business : The idea of businesses have been around since ancient times, they are an important part of society and not just a vehicle for making money.
Dealing with Failure : We all fail, but failing (the verb) can be a positive force and is not the same as failure (the noun)
Week 2
Personal & Corporate Finance
80% of adults in the UK have had no financial education and a third have less than £1000 in savings. The state of money education in this country is pretty poor but by no means exceptional. Getting a basic understanding of money and how it works is (we think) essential to being able to understand how business’ work too. A business needs money to be able to do what it hopes to do, to survive difficult changes in circumstance, just like us. The goal of a business should not be to make money, money is just the fuel to move the business closer to a more meaningful goal. Just like people, our reason to live is not to make money, but having it and knowing how to utilise it effectively helps us live the life we want to live.
Some themes for the week:
Personal Finance, Compound Interest & Tax : You can reach financial freedom if your monthly income is greater than your monthly outgoings. Assets produce an income, liabilities an expense. Maximise your assets and use the income to get more.
Financial Markets, Stock Exchanges & Traders : Investing is gambling. 92% of active stock pickers fail to beat the market. You’ll always hear the story of your mate who made money in the stock market because everyone keeps their failures quiet.
Week 3 - Debbie
Costing & Costs
Your task is to create a cost estimate for a fictional assembly and build up your price. You will be competing to win the business with other groups but it's not necessarily the cheapest price that wins.
Please take a look at the slides below - all the information is contained within there. If you think something is missing, you can estimate. Your nominated contact can also email Debbie to ask questions but you may or may not received an answer. Debbie will explain all on moodle.
Some extra thoughts on the issue from me:
Pricing : The dark art of.
Week 4
Innovation - A Better Way of Doing It.
Being an inventor is quite easy, all you need to do is make something. But being an innovator, making something people want and being able to deliver it to them for a price they are willing to pay and being able to do this over and over again in such a way that it enables you to keep doing more, is hard. So we’ve worked for a couple years on a framework that helps you make sure you’ve considered all the important points to whether an idea is a success or not. Conquer the 8 towers of the Innovation Castle and you’ll have a winner.
Some themes for the week:
Starting a Business & the Business of Starting : Open and receptive of the facts in front of you, nimble and quick to change course, humble of the reality that luck is often the most critical element. But most of the time you can skew the game in your favour by keeping things as a side project until it can stand on it’s own.
The 2 Reasons Why Projects Fail and What That Means for Yours : There are countless ways to fail, but they can all be grouped together into two categories, HOW to do something problems or WHY you’re doing it problems.
A Process Map for any Project - The ‘Fuzzy to Finished’ Development Model : Established design processes usually always start with a “define the problem” step and then a series of “solve the problem” steps. For Novel WHY problems this isn’t helpful. Both the defining and the solving need to be done in parallel.
The Innovation Castle : The innovators quest for a winning solution lies at the centre of a great castle. That castle must be unlocked fully before an idea can become a winner. Leading with purpose and seeking evidence, the Innovation Castle is a helpful visual framework for things you have to consider if your innovation efforts are going to rely on more than just luck.
Week 5
Having Ideas & Learning from Mistakes
Week 6 - Peter
Management & Leadership
Some extra thoughts on the subject from me:
Leadership vs Management : With additional material from Peter (Moodle Link coming soon)
Impact Players : We usually can’t start on day one as the leader, we have to climb to the top. But research shows some character traits in some performers greatly accelerate their rise to the top.
Strategy : A good strategy defines the problem, creates guiding policies and clear actions or instructions as to what to do.
Week 7
Business Competitors & Rivals
In summary, competition is often more good than bad. As the saying goes, no business was ever murdered by their competition, instead they committed suicide in front of them. What your competition does is very rarely the reason for your problems. Instead it’s your decisions, actions, lack of awareness, lack of foresight, lack of strategy that causes you issues, and that’s not their fault, you just stopped paying attention.
Some themes for the week:
Business Models : The key to any successful business is a successful business model. Without it you have hype and maybe even fraud. A successful model needs to be desirable, feasible, viable and adaptable.
Competition : Businesses are not murdered, they commit suicide. Business fail not because of the competition but because of poor decision making and a lack of imagination. If you want to stay in business you need to climb the competitive mountain and escape the competition and learn from your worthy rivals.
Business Model Innovation : There are ten ways to innovate, a new better product is just one of them.
Radical & Incremental Innovation : Radical innovation is when you don’t know who the customer is and what they want (typically a novel problem) whereas incremental is a more routine and lower risk activity, although that doesn’t mean it’s boring or unimportant. It’s critical.
Pioneers & Conquerors : Should you always try and be the first to market? If you’re a large company researchers don’t think so. They believe you have a better chance of making a long term success by swooping in quickly to conqueror a new market once you can see which design will be dominant.
Disruptive Innovation : Christensen’s identification of a dilemma between creating something new that none of your customers want or doing what you know will be more profitable? If you don’t do both you risk being disrupted by someone who will.
Week 8 - Steve
Sustainability & Business
Week 9
Value
Some themes for the week:
Value : How do you define what something is worth and why does that value go up or down?
Marketing & Market Research : Market research is about finding the lock that opens the best chest, then making a key to fit. Not the other way around. Study your market so you know what they want and need.
Voice of the Customer - The Traditional Way of Understanding Customers : The usual method any organisation or inventor uses to work out what they should do is to ask their customers or target users. The problem is… people don’t know what they want!
User Observations and Testing - A more expert driven rather than data driven method : For any new project to succeed you need to understand the customer’s needs, intentions and actions, even if they don’t fully understand them themselves. A good way to do that is not to ask them, but to observe them and work out what they really want and need.
Jobs to be Done - Outcome Driven rather than Solution Driven : An alternative view on working out what people really want is to approach the problem in terms of Jobs, what job is the user trying to achieve. Awkwardly there are two methods with the same name, both approach it slightly differently and both are good at different things.
Minimum Viable Products - Testing the Most Important Element : The best way to test a market is through a series of quick experiments. MVPs are those experiments to test your assumptions and find product market fit, it is not about launching a bugger product quickly.
Week 10 - Debbie
Business Operations & Culture
Making changes, to anything, requires some form of leadership and whilst we’re going to go into that in more detail later with Peter, it’s important to note that most people don’t like change. People like things to stay the same and since business is a study of people, knowing how pig-headed people can be sometimes to not changing is good to investigate. When people do the same thing for long enough, cultures start to form and that makes it even harder to change.
Week 11
?
Work:
We change the assignments around each year in response to feedback, keeping it fresh and maintaining a point of difference to other units the students will experience. As the course evolves and improves we must also change things to better align them with the teaching aims and learning objectives. Hope you enjoy these ones!
Individual (70%)
‘Hard’ Business Skills:
An individual piece of work, you are required to illustrate the application of a business topic, it may or may not be one looked at during this course. This is not an assignment where you write about a particular topic. The task is not to write an essay on something… the task is to do something and then tell us about it. Apply some business theory.
Your work should be brief and succinct, within 3 pages and 1200 words (a hard limit). References and any title page are not included in this limit. Do not provide an abstract, summary or contents page, it is already short enough to not need a summary.
You must include a word count at the start of the report. PDF format is preferred, but all document formats will be accepted.
Extra notes and advice:
The idea is to take a piece of business theory and explore it / critique it, come to a position that could help inform others. So just talking about something isn’t enough, we need to learn actionable points from it…
The assignment is testing two things:
That you can conduct thorough and insightful research
That you can convert that research into wisdom and apply it
To that end, it is important not to just talk about a subject, but to try and distil what you’ve learnt into something actionable or strategic that you can then apply.
For example I might research how IKEA’s retail store business model operates and how they are able to stay so competitive and then apply these learnings to something less obvious, a clothing retailer perhaps? Picking White Stuff as an example I could use their local store in Bath as a setting for my changes and suggestions demonstrating my application in a real setting and talking through the implications of this approach.
If your submission reads like a book report or a Wikipedia article on any given subject, it might do alright but it won’t be great.
Final Submission Date: January 13th (ish) TBC
If you have an idea for what you want to write about, please don’t keep it a secret! Come and tell us because I’m sure we’ll have ways in which we can help you make it even better!
Group (30%)
‘Soft’ Business Skills:
Whereas the individual assignment looks to examine your ‘hard’ analytical ability, the group element will focus on three soft skills that are essential to business success; Professionalism, Teamwork and Service.
1. Professionalism
Respectful and curious. This will be assessed through a number of elements all associated with general contribution to class:
Attending class on time and prepared (or sending apologies ahead of time if absent)
Completing the short class assignments to a reasonable standard
Being respectful and considerate in any communications
Being an engaged participant
2. Teamwork
No one was ever successful alone. Teamwork and working with others is an essential life skill that is not challenged enough during university. We’ll be looking for good teamwork in a number of different areas:
Completing the short class assignments to a reasonable standard
Helping and supporting each other with the individual assignment throughout the semester (start thinking about it early to give you a chance for the best marks)
Helping and supporting each other with any course materials that they may be struggling with
3. Service
The final soft skill we’d like to encourage on this course is a more general drive to be more empathetic, more understanding and considerate of each other. Leadership is a privilege that is built on the service of others. If you are to be good managers and leaders of people you must think in terms of service.
Towards the end of term you will have the chance to submit a formative draft of your individual assignment. This will be peer-reviewed by 3 other students, taking part in this process is a good way to demonstrate your service of others (as well as picking up good tips for your own assignment).
More guidance on how to give constructive feedback will be provided.
Do not be alarmed by the format of this assessment. It’s been designed to catch any ‘bad apples’ who intend to be passengers on your hard work. We expect most of you to receive 100% for this element just by being your normal engaged selves. But 100% does not mean free marks, it just means your individual assignment mark won’t move.
Some Past Coursework Examples:
Some examples I loved because they all showed great application of business theory:
Use these as inspiration, so you can figure out how it works, how you can squash a lot of information and insight into a short 3 page submission. Remember to think about the knowledge pyramid, we’re looking for insightful thoughts and wisdom rather than just the raw data.
The Seven Circles of Corporate Inferno - [Download PDF] - Loved this work… the student looked at some sustainable business frameworks and didn’t think they made sense, how can bad companies do well in them? So she made her own framework that scored companies negatively instead. It’s brilliant, super well researched and a lovely original idea.
Level 5 Leadership, Japanese Edition - [Download PDF] - Another great piece of original work, this Japanese student investigated if the American idea of Level 5 Leadership translated into a Japanese society as many of the traits required are commonplace in Japan.
Mascots, why do businesses need them? - [Download PDF] - Starts as a review of the role of mascots in business but applies this knowledge by creating mascots and updating old ones for some companies. Great application of theory.
Diversify to Dominate - [Download PDF] - A look at the big tech players and what Alphabet needs to do in order to be unstoppable.
Manipulating the Startup Hype Engine - [Download PDF] - I’m obviously familiar with the subject matter, but you've done a great job tuning the work to a much more concise and better flowing piece. A fresh take on a frequently discussed but rarely investigated topic. Well done
Really good examples with feedback:
Is Starbucks undergoing a transition into the FinTech industry? - [Download PDF] - A very interesting take on Starbucks inspired, I guess, largely by a Motley Fool article. The assignment is well researched and makes a good case, I might have liked to see a little more of the potential risks and challenges of the approach. I would also have been interested in the consumer side of things (consumer psychology and behaviour) although there is of course only so much you can put into 1000 words. Figure sources should be included in the captions, and some terms (eg breakage) defined.
Business Model Stickiness - [Download PDF] - A really fascinating piece of work, some of it took me many reads to try and make sense of and I think a few leaps of faith have been taken, but it's a very interesting avenue of thought with a very promising approach. The conclusions are probably your strongest element, insightful and easy to follow.
Utilising Strategic Leadership to Remain Competitive - [Download PDF] - Super work, although I'm curious by the optimal leader-styles and where they came from. It took me a few reads to appreciate that I think you mean the front runner should be both hands on and hands off, depending on the situation. Also curious how this optimal approach doesn't seem to match your key case study of Toto-Wolff
Implementing a Subscription Model for Under Armour athletic footwear - [Download PDF] - An excellent analysis of a subscription model for Under Armour. You clearly show a why Under Armour should consider entering this market. Your analysis is really thorough with strong support from your research. I was expecting to see more criticality – are there any shortcoming or limitations to their subscription model?
Is the US oligopoly for insulin manufacture and distribution sustainable? - [Download PDF] - Very good, carefully researched and articulated. Excellent work
Pretty good examples with feedback:
Unilever’s Sustainability Program - [Download PDF] - Listing the commitments is alright, but it's a low value contribution to this work without comparisons to other companies or without critique, for instance operation emissions are easy to achieve, but do not reflect embedded energy or waste in the products they produce. This is a far harder objective but the more meaningful one. Are the 20,000 patents and 5,000 experts relevant to sustainability? Because this looks like a distraction otherwise, The last paragraph on page 2 is poorly explained, procter and gamble don’t do deforestation but you don't tell me what deforestation plans unilever have so these are empty statements. Your section the untold story had exciting promise but is hard to follow and you include lots of statements like "numerous controversies" without explaining what they are. This reads like a good first draft but needed much more focus and a narrowing of the scope to have been effective.
How should Starbucks respond to the Pret A Manger “YourPret Barista” monthly subscription service? - [Download PDF] - Starbucks have had a subscription service since 2015 in the US which worries me that the research here is very shallow. Lack of any real depth in the exploration of the service or it's business implications. I'd have liked to have seen a discussion about if the pret model is working. Lots of the material is lifted from reference 8 although then attributed to other references which is simply boosting your reference list artificially.
How does the integration of information systems enable companies to deal with competitive forces? - [Download PDF] - Interesting assignment on Zara. IS's role and Zara are introduced well. However, other than the title, the aim of assignment is never mentioned and explained. There are many figures in the assignment. However, none of them are prepared by you (I guess except figure 3). There was no need to spend such space and word limit to describe the tool or approach you used as stated in the marking criteria. Assignment mentions very interesting points such as big data, cloud computing etc. You could have used that space to provide further discussion and examples on those to enrich your application. Because all the information found from the sources are put together well. However, there isn't sufficient critique from your own perspective in the application. Only figure 3 and the suggestions at the end seem like they were built by your own ideas. However, they are very brief to be considered as a successful application. It would be much better if you directly focused on the Zara case and summarised the first page in a paragraph. There isn't a clear reference to Porter after the first page. Without the proper examples and links, it does not have a good fit in the assignment.
Will Arrival Ltd revolutionise the automotive industry? - [Download PDF] - A fascinating look at Arrival, an EV startup. Your account is well supported by a variety of sources, but it is also somewhat uncritical. For example, the assembly line model that it is ‘breaking from’ was actually disrupted by Lean production in the 1970s and 1980s. I am not sure exactly how it gets the production costs down so much – what exactly is it doing differently (and why can’t it be copied?). Vertical integration is a strategic choice that is not self evidently a superior choice, otherwise all companies would do it – what are the limitations and challenges? Can it scale up enough (and quickly enough)? You state in passing about ‘delays and higher costs’ – why is this? “They must minimise risk” – that could be true about any company, you need to be more specific. Finally you say you concept is ‘brilliant’ – this is a simple value judgement – you should present the evidence and leave judgement to the reader. ‘it might change the world’ sounds like marketing hyperbole. Overall, well researched and presented, needs more critique.
Not so great examples with feedback:
The Cold War: Game Theory and Mutually Assured Destruction - [Download PDF] - An interesting look at the cold war through the lens of game theory. Fig 1 is interesting, not least the sharp drop in nuclear warhead count as treaties come into effect. I am not sure about your payoff values in table 1 – surely being ’bombed into the stone age’ is no better (and perhaps worse?) than mutual destruction. In any case, the matrix is NOT a prisoner’s dilemma and is better represented by ‘chicken’. You are correct that MAD was at least partially informed by the game theoreticians of the time, however your analysis seems a little confused. Your final sentence seems to admit this.
Crocs: Sustainability Strategy Review - [Download PDF] - Great opening context, but you really lost momentum in your story with a page of environmental facts and targets with no further depth of thought or exploration. The future strategies section is then also very shallow and many obvious points (like recruiting competent people as if hiring incompetent people was a viable option).
Coca-Cola’s innovation to become a total beverage company - [Download PDF] - There is no citation in the assignment and only three references mainly from company website. An interesting assignment on Coca-Cola. All figures/images must have a number, title, and source. The purpose of images used in the assignment is not clear as they are not referred in the assignment. Assertations in the assignment must be well supported with authoritative sources and proper citation formats must be used. The aim of the assignment is not clear; what is the question the assignment is trying to answer? In the application assignment asks for not to spend time on describing a tool or approach. This assignment only defines marketing mix and provides the definitions of its elements without providing a proper application.
Second Assessors thoughts: Straight away it would be helpful to know what they mean by a total beverage company, I don't know why you start talking about the marketing mix, and then I don't know why you stop talking about it. Lots of superficial mention of initiatives on sugar and innovation. The review is detached from what's preceded it. First bus is an odd afterthought. The idea of them becoming a total transport company could have been fine, but needs considerably more explanation that what you have here. Very superficial piece without a logical structure or flow.
How Has Nike Flipped the Kick Game? - [Download PDF] - Marked by two assessors with the combined comments being: A tricky assignment to score with one assessor saying: "An interesting assignment on Nike. Assignment directly starts explaining difficulty of find a Nike shoe in the market. Context and the question the assignment is trying to answer are not clear. At the end it suddenly jumps on a pizza company and there is no transition from Nike to the pizza company. No clear conclusion." My thoughts are that it could definitely have been clearer. The style is perhaps overly casual and thus lacks explanation (the airbnb cereal comment is not well known for example and slightly misrepresented here) or contains unnecessary details (mention of blue ribbon sports or the whole inception story) which is distracting from your topic. The inclusion of the red pizza company is completely unexplained and without conclusion. This feels like an early draft that could have been good with some revisions and a clearer focus.