The aims of this course are to increase and refine the strategic management skills of the students (most of who are already in management posts). Superior management is the product of certain attitudes, knowledge, and skills that combine in unique persons to secure an organisation’s survival, growth financial returns, and continuous adaptation to changing circumstances. Identifying and helping produce such attitudes is what this course is about.

 

We pursue this aim through the experience, intelligence, and wisdom of our carefully selected Members of Staff, all of who are in high managerial positions in Industry, Banking and Business. Lecturers and Tutors are encouraged to be venturesome, authoritative and contentious so as to keep challenging all students involved. The aim of the course is to help turn managers into generalists, a requirement for any successful manager operating in global competition.

More specifically, our Institute has designed the Advanced Diploma on Business Administration and the Bachelor in Business Administration with the following goals in mind:

·         To develop Strategic thinking and planning so as to defend market share locally and seek competitive advantages in world markets;

·         To define clear approaches to strategic management with regard to specific overseas markets’ environmental conditions i.e. social, cultural, political, technological and economic trends;

·         To understand the importance of the “old world” role in the world markets;

·         To enhance the effectiveness of managers from different organisations and nations (already a number of international students study at the CIM) through cross-fertilization, achieved by the sharing of experience and viewpoints.
 

Companies of today are facing new economic, political and social challenges. The collapse of the Eastern Socialist economies and growing stiff competition from China and India has made the developed countries of Europe reconsider their marketing strategies. The dramatic political changes in the Middle East, former Soviet Union, Easter European countries, and African zones, combined with an escalating inflation, coupled with rising unemployment in Europe and U.S., paint a pessimistic picture for the world’s Business Manager. Yet, ‘life goes on’ and new business potential exists. To keep ahead of continuing shifts in environmental trends and maintain company policies and priorities appropriate to the Cypriot and world market places, Managers must be able to formulate and implement successful competitive strategies.

The Program emphasizes strategy formulation and implementation as it occurs in each of the functional areas and in the organisation as a whole. Strategy formulation is concerned with an analysis of the interaction of external (outside the firm) environmental factors; with internal (inter-firm) strengths and weaknesses; and with the goals and values of the organisation’s key managers. It focuses on: (a) economic, social, political and technological trends; (b) the state of the industry; and (c) the determination of strategic areas that offer an opportunity for aggressive competition. Strategy formulation is examined on two levels:
 

(1)     Corporate strategy examines the strategy of a Corporation or a portfolio of business or strategic business units.

(2)     Business strategy investigates the strategy of a Business area or a strategic business unit.

 

While strategy formulation focuses on questions of direction, implementation investigates the most effective means of working in those directions. It examines

(i)                 Organisational structure;

(ii)                 Managerial process, including planning, decision making, control, rewards and punishments; and

(iii)                Human recourses, including leadership motivation, inter and intra group dynamics.