In this course, students are exposed to the most important aspects of a business venture from an academic and practical perspective.

The course is structured along the process phases of:

1. opportunity recognition/evaluation (ideation, market analysis, competition, etc.)
2. strategic opportunity exploitation (strategy, business model, etc.)
3. operational opportunity exploitation (finance, organization, marketing, etc.)
    

The course combines academic lectures, case study analysis, and hands-on exercises to equip students with a fundamental understanding of business planning and business development in general.

Students gained insight on how to translate a new business idea into a business model and a business plan and how to carry out business planning as an ongoing activity in a dynamically evolving business. Students understand Business Planning as a continuous process of reviewing progress on business goals and targets as well as setting new goals and targets (related to strategy, marketing, production, financing, organization design) for a viable development of the business while considering the interests of involved stakeholders.

More specifically, the learning outcomes are:

• Students gained first insights on how entrepreneurs spot market opportunities for new businesses, and how to exploit such opportunities.
• Students have understood business planning as the process of determining a commercial enterprise’s objectives, strategies and activities to ensure its viability from the perspective of all involved stakeholders
• Students are able to apply basic business planning techniques and they understand how these techniques relate to each other in enabling professional business planning:
• Students know how to conduct simple market analyses (market size, segmentation, trends, market growth, product life-cycle)
• Students can apply simple strategic/competitive analysis tools
• Students know the most common types of legal structures of businesses and why their choice is important
• Students know the basics of how to obtain debt and equity financing for a new or an established business
• Students can translate planned business activities into planned/projected cash flow and income statements
• Students are able to do simple breakeven analysis
• Students understand how different planning/forecasting tools (sales forecasts, cash flow forecasts, planned operations) relate to each other

Students need to attend at least 80% of the classes in order to pass the course successfully.

Please note that attendance is mandatory during the first session!

This course is held as a formal lecture, combined with guest lectures, inverted classroom elements, and group assignments as well as pre-readings and online tasks.

The final grade depends on:

• Mid-Term Poster Presentation: 30% (group assignment)
• Group reflection task: 20% (group assignment)
• Final Written Exam: 45% (individual assignment)
• In-class participation: 5 % (individual assignment)

All parts must be achieved, there is no re-sit for individual parts (PI).

Excellent (1): 87.51%<100.00%
Good (2): 75.01%-87.50%
Satisfactory (3) 62.51<75.00%
Sufficient (4) 50.00%<62.50%
Fail (5) <50.00%

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Dr. Jakob Pohlisch: jakob.pohlisch@wu.ac.at
Richard Olbrecht MSc.: richard.olbrecht@wu.ac.at