CAS Big Data & Supply Chain

Operations & Supply Chain Management is at the core of any organization when it comes to designing, producing and delivering products and services that satisfy external and internal customer needs. Throughout the course, you will develop an understanding of the complex and crucial interactions between operations and other functions, particularly marketing and finance. You will identify effective measures to improve operational performance and show how this in turn improves the organization’s financial results.

Data has become an essential asset for companies to be able to operate and compete effectively. In fact, four of the six top companies in market valuation – Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Alibaba – base their business models exclusively on the use of data to optimize advertising. Moreover, SMEs are starting to benefit substantially from analyzing data about their operations, finances, clients, and employees. It is therefore essential that business managers understand data as a production factor and know how to extract the value it contains. Therefore, this course introduces data as a production factor, explains its unique attributes (what makes this factor of production different from others), and examines how data can transform existing organizations and give rise to new business models. Once students understand data as a production factor, this course shows them how to generate insights and gain value from it by means of various analytical and graphic tools.

This course is designed with the objective of understanding distribution channels and how organizations can leverage them to create value, differentiate themselves in their markets, and gain a competitive advantage. Product proliferation, media fragmentation, intermediary power, e-commerce, omnichannel strategy, among other things, have converged to place a premium on effective channel design and management. The success of Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, Coupang, Mercado Libre, Rakuten, Reliance, Walmart, BlaBlaCar, Uber, Grab, Airbnb, Expedia, etc., indicates that careful attention to distribution can be tremendously rewarding. The course covers channel issues that are internal (salesforce management, account management, sales-marketing-organization interface) and external (retailing, wholesaling, trade relationships, channel conflict, channel coordination) to a firm. The contexts used to explore these issues are a mix of B2B and B2C settings. At the end of the course, you will be able to appreciate the complexity and central role of the sales and distribution functions and the vital part they play in implementing the marketing strategy.