2012 Open Courses

This course will inspire and inform women looking for insights, and tools to develop their own leadership skills.

Recommended for women keen to build their leadership potential and move towards senior leadership roles.

Participants will discover how to use their strengths to build on their own leadership effectiveness. This course will inspire new leadership insights that transition you from today’s ideas to tomorrows reality.

The five-day course builds on the extensive knowledge of participants and introduces some of the latest concepts and practices in the different general management areas. It focuses on five General Management Concepts including marketing management, finance for non-financial managers, communication skills, leadership and strategic management. The course is of benefit to middle to senior managers who want to develop a cross-section of general management skills to complement their existing functional skills. Participants learn new concepts and participate in group-learning activities during the programme.

On completion of this course, participants are able to understand the basis of measurement and valuation used in preparing conventional, general-purpose financial statements, analyse and interpret general-purpose financial statements, understand published consolidated financial statements at an elementary level, be aware of some of the contentious issues relating to financial accounting, and critically evaluate financial accounting and reporting practices. The valuation of financial assets, capital budgeting, corporate financing, risk analysis, portfolio theory and capital markets are examined in depth. International financial management, mergers and acquisitions are also examined.

The main objectives of this course are to give participants the knowledge and skills to help make their organisations more competitive, and to provide a planning format that can guide the formulation and implementation of competitive business strategies. Modules discuss various aspects of developing a strategic vision, future focus, competitive strategies, responsive and innovative organisations, and a strategic business-planning format to guide strategy formulation and implementation. The plan forms the “backbone” of the course and participants are encouraged to analyse aspects of their own organisation during the various modules.

The five-day course provides an overview of the best practices in project management. Course participants will learn to understand the concepts and the language of project management. It will benefit middle to senior managers who are potentially not managing projects themselves but who need to understand the concepts and benefits of PM. It will allow them to ask the right questions and to challenge their project managers. This course also targets project managers who want to qualify and prepare for a project management certification who could use this course to fulfil the requirements.

The course will begin by covering the concepts of project management and will extend to the key concepts using expert guest speakers and case studies. The main objective of the course is to be very practical by analysing real life examples from various industries. (guest speakers and cases to be selected based on the participants background).

Every organisation needs leadership, which is the art of getting things done through others. This course explores leadership by taking participants through careful individual assessment that reveals leadership strengths. This assessment will be done through the eyes of the people who work with the participant because leadership is largely about how others perceive the leader. Participants will build on their strengths in the areas of managing change, setting the tone and strategy, and motivating people. Leadership is treated as part science and part artful endeavour throughout the programme, drawing on the scientific approaches to leadership as well as the techniques of art and drama that are useful to successful leaders.

This course investigates how the effective management of human resources relates to effective management behaviour, the development of good relationships and effective systems, and processes of human resource management. The course includes strategic human resource management, rewards systems, performance management, training and development, employment law and human rights. The course has both a theoretical and practical focus.

This course guides participants through a series of marketing examples and experiences, to give an increased awareness of how effective marketing strategies can improve a firm’s performance. The programme covers contemporary issues related to specific topic areas pertinent to marketing within firms, such as marketing research techniques, customer demand and behaviour, segmentation and positioning, the impact of the internet, services marketing, and branding concepts. Through these and other topic areas, the course introduces the skills, tools and techniques required to function effectively and contribute positively to the long-term success of an organisation. One of the main aims of the course is to facilitate discussion of the issues presented amongst course participants, so that ideas and experiences are shared and evaluated amongst the group.

In a world where the impacts of climate change are discussed with increasing frequency, carbon emissions are being traded and businesses are expected to be “part of the solution”, there is ever more reason to understand and be able to implement successful sustainable business initiatives. This course introduces executives to the notion of corporate sustainability and explores key issues including stakeholder management, TBL reporting, carbon footprints and other strategic sustainability initiatives.