The Frankfurt MBA | Part-time

In the last decade, more and more economic tools have been productively integrated in managerial decision making. Typical examples are game theory as well as the analysis of incentive problems and negotiations. In the first part of the course, the economic perspective on business problems is discussed by combining standard theories on strategic thinking and behavioral decision making with insights from empirical and experimental research. In the second part students get familiar with the current global business cycle and macroeconomic policies as important features of the business environment.

Unless a company is successful financially, it does not matter how good a company's products or services are. In the most basic sense, financial success is business success and requires an effective and state-of-the art financial performance management.

The aim of this module is to introduce students how to measure performance and use this information internally to implement corporate strategy and externally to communicate and inform external stakeholders. A major emphasis is put on accounting information as "the primary language of business" although the course also covers alternative performance information such as customer satisfaction measures or the growing importance of social media information.

For strategy implementation and managerial performance management, a particular emphasis is put on the measurement of performance at different levels in an organization. It will be discussed extensively how non-financial and financial performance measures can be used for decision-making and control to implement corporate strategy. For information of external stakeholders, a particular emphasis is put on financial accounting information such as understanding the structure, details and interconnections between the balance sheet and the income statement based on International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Students will learn how this information can be interpreted and used by external stakeholders of an organization.

The module explores how to evaluate and develop effective business strategies. We discuss key drivers of profitability and examine how market structures, competitor behaviour, and the resources and capabilities of a company contribute to sustained profitability. The module then analyzes how value creation and value capture affect competitive positioning and the design of business models. Finally, we discuss how corporate strategy -- diversification moves and vertical integration -- may create or destroy value for shareholders and other stakeholders.

• Teambuilding & Intercultural Management
• Presentation & Communication
• Regression Analysis
• Project Management
• Colloquium: In the Boardroom

People are often described as a difficult to imitate resource of a company that helps to create competitive advantage. At the same time employees are sometimes seen as a barrier to change hindering a company to react to new demands in the market within an appropriate time span.

In our module management approaches will be presented and discussed that contribute to achieving strategic organizational goals by building a competent and forward looking workforce whose capabilities are built through effective selection and development, training and development and performance management. HR practices are envisioned as key strategy implementation tools which give realisation to the strategic vision and purpose of the organisation enabled through feedback and learning. The role of leadership, middle management support and employee participation in decision making are particularly emphasised. Change models are also examined intensively through the use of case studies of leading firms.

Patrick Flood

"The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer" – this statement by Peter Drucker is as true today as it was 60 years ago. In this course, we will discuss marketing and innovation strategies for targeting, acquiring, retaining, and developing customers. Students will learn how to quantify marketing success and how to evaluate the contribution of marketing and innovation activities to the overall success of the firm.

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The purpose of the Finance the Enterprise module is the introduction of techniques to analyse major financial decisions made by corporations. The module focuses on finance concepts that can be applied directly to real-life financial decision making. Main topics covered in the course include hurdle rates and the cost of capital (i.e., the investment decision), the mix of debt and equity and the choice of the right kind of debt (i.e., the financing decisions), basic valuation concepts (i.e., discounted-cash flow and multiples valuation), mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. The course enables participants to make and assess complex corporate financial decisions.

The OB part of the course focuses on organisational, social and individual factors affecting people’s behaviour at work. In this respect various models and approaches to personality, social and organisational psychology will be reviewed. In their everyday work, managers make decisions, either individually or in teams, which have substantial bearing on the sustainability of companies. However, human mind has only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available, and only a limited amount of time is available to make a decision. Therefore even individuals who intend to make rational choices are bound to make satisficing (rather than maximising or optimising) choices in complex situations.

The course will focus on bounded rationality both on the individual level and in teams and discuss how to ensure quality in decision-making. Besides decision-making, motivating employees is another core challenge in managerial work. Drawing on insights from psychological research, the course will discuss what drives people’s motivation at work. Critical-ethical reflection will be encouraged in considering the subsequent conclusions regarding students’ individual approach to leadership.

The second part of the course elaborates on ethical and responsibility dilemmas at the level of individuals, businesses, and society. It reflects the philosophy of business, one aim of which is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company.

Students will be able to develop an independent analysis and provide solutions to questions relating to managers and corporations’ dispositions and their ethical and societal consequences. Knowledge gained from this course forms the basis of strategic and operational decisions relating to the structure and management of a business.

Matching demand and supply is a key driver of firms’ competitive advantage, but is difficult because demand in most markets can vary (in predictable as well as unpredictable ways) while supply is inflexible. This course provides a set of concepts and tools designed to better manage demand-supply mismatches. Importantly, a fundamental understanding of Technology and Operations Management is at the heart of business model innovation, which is evidenced by recent technology-driven business success stories, such as Amazon, Netflix, Starbucks, Uber, Zara, Zipcar, etc.

Introduction

Courses in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management have gained popularity in business schools everywhere, but it is not clear just what should be taught and how. In contrast to accounting, for example, entrepreneurship lacks a defined technical base or discipline. Moreover, individuals and organizations ranging from street vendors to transnational corporations all espouse entrepreneurial activity, which suggests that the topic should permeate all of business education. What can the focus of a special course on innovation and entrepreneurship possibly be?

The mission adopted for the Entrepreneurial Management course is to prepare MBA and EMBA students to start and nurture their own businesses (whether such businesses are new or within established organizations). Business schools admit students with great talent and high long-term expectations of responsibility, autonomy, and financial reward. Historically, some MBA and EMBA students have had an innate desire to run their own businesses, but many of those who didn't often turned to entrepreneurship after they confronted the realities of a pyramidal corporate world.

Further, it is widely recognized that even the future leaders of large business corporations must have an entrepreneurial mindset, in order to create the growth engines that will provide sustainable growth opportunities to their organizations.

This course will provide an overview of innovation and entrepreneurship that will help entrepreneurs in independent start-ups as well as large corporations pursue new business opportunities.

Course expectations:

1. The course is really about developing an attitude, mindset, and skills that are crucial for becoming a creative business person. These skills and mind-set are applicable both in the context of starting a new firm as well as starting a new business in an established company.
2. Through cases and readings we will address questions such as:

• What is entrepreneurship?
• What is a good business opportunity; where does it come from?
• What is the difference between an idea and an opportunity
• What decisions/actions are required to convert an idea to an opportunity and an opportunity to a growing concern?
• What are the critical challenges in starting a new venture?
• How do you grow a business from start-up?
• What different kinds of innovations can an organization pursue?
• What are business models and how do they influence growth?
• What are the alternative sources of capital for early stage ventures?

3. The course asks the above questions in 3 contexts: start-up; growth; and established firm

4. Underlying the whole course is a particular approach to starting ventures that does not rely on large amounts of capital. The common resources we all possess are talent, intelligence, time, energy, and contacts. What most of us do not have is an abundance of financial capital. The bottom line is that it is out of commonly available resources (intelligence, energy, enthusiasm, education, and contacts) that you have to start the process to create a new business. Large corporations are also interested in understanding “lean” start-ups that can be set up and tested frugally.

5. This course cannot guarantee that you will become an entrepreneur, but you will understand what is required to develop the mind-set, attitude and skills that are the necessary hallmark of successful wealth creators.

6. One of the tools entrepreneurs use to communicate with their stakeholders is the Business Plan. We will think about the different uses for and the content of a business plan.

Topics to be covered:

1. What is entrepreneurship?
2. How are opportunities identified and how can they be evaluated?
3. What different kinds of resources do start-ups need and how can they be mobilized?
4. How can a start-up develop and fine tune its business model?
5. What are some of challenges associated with growth?
6. What are the unique challenges of launching new businesses from established companies?

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The master thesis as the conclusion of the MBA programme provides students with three options to put their newly developed skills into practice and to demonstrate their analytical and research competency at the Master level through a major piece of work.

Choose 1 of the following options:

• Research Project
• Consultancy Project (group or individual)
• Entrepreneurial Business Plan

Digitalisation focuses on transforming processes, products, or entire business models through information technology. The ubiquity of digital technologies in terms of enterprise applications, but also sensors, social media, and different kinds of mobile devices, the tremendously increasing availability of various kinds of data, and the development of analytical tools and capabilities for handling and utilizing these vast amounts of "Big Data" enable firms to transform any facet of their business – from optimising or re-engineering the business processes and operations, via changing the way how business decisions are made to digitalising the customer interface, products and services, or re-inventing the whole business model.

In this module, students will get an overview about the opportunities and challenges of managing digital transformation. They will get a basic understanding about how information systems support the operations of an organisation, they will learn about the range of technologies and analytical approaches that help to utilise “Big Data”, and they will develop competencies to use this knowledge for transforming parts of a business towards a digital business. They will also get insights into the fundamental challenges of establishing a firm-wide IT platform, which is required to run digital initiatives and to enable data-driven processes and business models. Finally, we will discuss the economic and societal changes that come along with the digital transformation of firms and industries.

The objective of this course is to undertake a rigorous study of the theory and empirical evidence relevant to investment management. It will introduce you to the characteristics of various financial securities and discuss the risks and rewards associated with them.

Topics covered include optimal portfolio selection and asset allocation, the theory of asset pricing models, market efficiency, behavioral finance, the mutual fund and hedge fund industry, as well as techniques for evaluating investment management performance.

The purpose of this module to understand how managers design organisations for superior performance. It offers a problem-driven analysis and discussion of how to manage coordination, cooperation, and choice in departments, business units, corporations, and business networks.

The course blends economic and behavioural perspectives and exposes students to recent management thinking in organisation design. The course combines case analysis, conceptual frameworks, and classroom experiments, to offer a compelling introduction to managerial challenges in effective organisation design.

Video: What is organisation design? 

Supply chains are networks of organizations (suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers) that jointly supply and transform materials, and distribute products and services to consumers. If designed and managed properly, these networks are a crucial source of competitive advantage for both manufacturing and service enterprises. Each day, companies such as Amazon, Apple, Dell, and Zara try to leverage their supply chain management capabilities to achieve sustainable growth far ahead of their competition. This course develops a framework of supply chain drivers, that helps students understand the financial implications of a firm’s ability to align its supply shain strategy with its overarching competitive strategy. Importantly, the course addresses supply chain tailoring: what is the right supply chain strategy for one product (say, diapers), may well be the wrong strategy for another (say, fashionable shoes).

The elective “Renewable Energy Finance” will provide an overview of the regulatory environment as it is shaped by climate related policies. Together with an introduction to the specifics of electricity markets (e.g. grids, volatile and intermittent sources, challenge of storability) the approaches to finance renewables-based electricity generation will be discussed.  We will look at project finance transactions for wind or photovoltaic and identify major risks and potential mitigants. Along this we also discuss the role of public finance institutions (e.g. World Bank or national promotional banks) and their respective toolbox for investment support (e.g. concessional loans, guarantees), as these institutions play a significant role at a global scale. Global market trends will be discussed.

A significant part of the course will be dedicated to debate topical issues from the field. These may include: (i) characterising different forms of “Green Bonds”; (ii) relation between financial markets and climate change impacts and policies; (iii) trend to securitise renewables-portfolios through so-called “YieldCos” (tradable equity); (iv) impact of developments at the level of the UN climate negotiations.

Frankfurt School graduates are known for their first class-analytical skills and practical knowledge. To prepare MBA students for successful future careers, we provide the following services:

• Individual career planning and placement support
• CV checking
• Job market preparation
• Professional skills workshops and application trainings
• Job board
• Career fairs
• Corporate presentations and workshops
• Career Services newsletter
• Access to Frankfurt School’s career network with corporate partners and alumni

The aim of our professional services is simple: to enhance the professional development of our students and to assist in preparing them as thoroughly as possible for a successful career. Our Career Services team is here to help you make the most of your next career step.

• CV or resume
• Transcript of records and degree certificate(s) from previous university
• Two reference letters (at least one from an employer - can be handed in later in the application process if not available yet)
• Registration for FS Admissions Test in online application or upload GMAT/GRE score 
• TOEFL / IELTS score report, or proof of equivalent English proficiency
• Case study assignment (instructions provided in online application)
• Letter of motivation

Once you have been admitted to the The Frankfurt MBA programme, we kindly ask you to make a tuition fee deposit of 5,000 Euros to secure your place in the programme. The remaining fees will be paid in regular instalments at the beginning of each semester. If you were granted a scholarship, then the total amount reduces by the given scholarship amount.

Example:

Total cost part-time MBA: 36,000 Euro
Down payment to secure place in the programme: 5000 Euro
Tuition fee semester 1 (due at the beginning of the semester): 7750 Euro
Tuition fee semester 2 (due at the beginning of the semester): 7750 Euro
Tuition fee semester 3 (due at the beginning of the semester): 7750 Euro
Tuition fee semester 4 (due at the beginning of the semester): 7750 Euro

*adjustments to the payment schedule can be discussed individually

There are a limited number of partial scholarships available for outstanding candidates. If you apply for a scholarship by May 31, your application will be considered for funding by the Scholarship Committee. Scholarships will be awarded to candidates with outstanding academic or business track record or excellent performance during the admissions process.

All scholarship decisions are merit-based, although financial hardship may also be taken into consideration in special cases. Scholarships are awarded at the discretion of the Scholarship Committee and decisions are final. Scholarships will only be awarded to cover tuition fees and will be deducted from the total tuition amount. No funds are available to cover living expenses.

Several organisations offer competitive scholarships for outstanding students:

• The Generation Contract Study first, pay later: the Generation Contract is an innovative model to finance your studies. The GC allows the applicant to study at Frankfurt School without paying tuition fees during the study programme.
• Future Finance provides student loans for tuition fees and cost of living.
• Bildungsfonds offers funding to help cover living costs, tuition fees, and other expenses during the MBA programme. Funding is available for both EU and non-EU citizens. Applicants must complete a multi-stage selection process – part of the process is conducted in German, so at least basic German language skills are highly recommended. Engineers can apply for the specialised Festo-Bildungsfonds.
• Deutsche Bildung AG offers financial support to German and international students studying in Germany
• Student loans for US citizens are available by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Frankfurt School’s US Federal School Code is G40153.
• Private loans are available from many banks to support educational expenses. We recommend that you contact your local banks to find out what options are available.