2024/2025 KAN-CCMVI2135U Making Better Bets: An Introduction to Management Consulting
English Title | |
Making Better Bets: An Introduction to Management Consulting |
Course information |
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Language | English |
Course ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
Type | Elective |
Level | Full Degree Master |
Duration | Summer |
Start time of the course | Summer |
Timetable | Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk |
Min. participants | 30 |
Max. participants | 50 |
Study board |
Study Board for cand.merc. and GMA (CM)
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Course coordinator | |
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For academic questions related to the course, please contact course responsible Martin Skrydstrup (msk.msc@cbs.dk). | |
Main academic disciplines | |
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Teaching methods | |
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Last updated on 13/11/2024 |
Relevant links |
Learning objectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the
following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or
errors.
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Course prerequisites | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Completed Bachelor degree or equivalent | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Examination | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Course content, structure and pedagogical approach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Making Better Bets: An Introduction to Management Consulting
This is a practical course, where you will imagine that you are a management consultant. Your client is a large European bank who is realizing that they are facing a new generation of customers, who have been raised for a very different world – one that is completely unlike the one that your client is used to navigate. They are struggling with what meaningful services they can offer in the future to attract, support, and retain this new generation of customers. Your role will be to help solve this puzzle for them.
In order to solve this puzzle, you will have to explore and uncover questions: How do kids really navigate money? What really informs parental decisions? And what really defines which novel technologies households will trust and buy into? Going beyond conventional sit-down interviews, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, quantitative methods and Big Data, the methods of ethnography often more accurately capture the answers to such questions.
When we are in the realm of values and valuations of people, we cannot assume them to be utility maximizing agents. In such spaces, human behavior often turns out to be unexpected, paradoxical and illogical. This course will teach you how to use ethnography as a human-centered approach to gain novel insights that may disrupt markets, transform companies and shape the products of tomorrow.
From plotting consumer navigation and mapping user experience (UX) to more holistic understandings of complex organizations and markets, fieldwork based ethnography is on the rise in the private sector. Currently, leading consulting agencies apply such ethnographic methods to get inside the real desires and decisions of consumers, to unravel the trust barometers of end-users subject to new technologies, to uncover the blind spots of complex organizations and to forecast the next mega trend. What this means is that corporate ethnography is currently used to make better bets in business and for business.
The purpose of this course is to learn how to plan and conduct fieldwork based ethnography and translate it into commercial opportunities and human centered innovation. In collaboration with a leading consultancy agency, you will learn how to plan and conduct fieldwork and translate your findings and insights into strategy formulation and actionable recommendations. You will develop a practical understanding of what it takes to work closely with different clients: From C-suite executives in global corporations to grassroots organizations.
You will work in teams towards a final presentation for the client, which is due in the penultimate class entitled Engaging the Client. Your final presentation will take the shape of a slide deck, which builds on three preceding exercises: (1) Framing of the Social Phenomenon; (2) Postcard from the Field; (3) Insights from the Field. Ultimately, this course will prepare you to question everything, even your own biases. Our only expection is that you enroll in the class with an open mind and a will to explore the real world and your own assumptions about it with genuine curiosity.
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Description of the teaching methods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This course features an array of different teaching methods: 3 hours lectures in class by CBS faculty and management consultants; Completion of practical hands-on field methods conducted in teams between classes; In-class student presentations of findings and insights with instructor feedback; Practical in-class exercises such as Poster Session etc; Guest lectures by leading practitioners; Class discussions; Final slide deck presentation for the client; Active teamwork participation throughout the class; Office hours can be booked for student mentoring and consulting. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Feedback during the teaching period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Students will receive feedback in class on their in-class presentations. They can also book office hours to get feedback on their exam essay, as well as their overall course performance. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Student workload | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Further Information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
6-week course.
Preliminary assignment: The course coordinator uploads information about the Preliminary Assignment on Canvas at the end of May. It is expected that students participate as it will be contributing inputs toward the final exam, but the assignment is without independent assessment and grading.
Please see a pdf with pictures from last summer's poster session and case competition under the rubric of "Courses" at the staff site of the course responsible here: www.cbs.dk/en/staff/mskmsc
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Expected literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tentative literature subject to change
1) Christian Madsbjerg (2023) Look: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World: New York: Riverhead 2) Christian Madsbjerg & Mikkel Rasmussen (2014) The Moment of Clarity. Boston, MT: Harvard Business Review Press 3) Gillian Tett (2021) Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology can Explain Business and Life. New York City, NY: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster |