This document outlines the teaching schedule for an Introduction to Business course organized into 6 blocks of approximately 4 weeks each. Block 1 will cover the enterprise and its environment. Block 2 will focus on developing business ideas. Block 3 will address recruitment, retention, and compensation of employees. Block 4 will examine customers. Block 5 will involve a research project. And Block 6 will discuss technology and its relationship to business. The course will also include a student-run conference in the second semester to apply the lessons.

1. Introduction to Business: Teaching Schedule
Q. So, what are we doing and when?
Rather than pin this Intro to Business down to specific dates (because events, illness and over-
runs almost always force changes upon us), I will outline the programme in terms of 'blocks'
usually of a four weeks duration (6 x 4 = the 24 week teaching year), where:
Session 1: the scene will be set, perhaps with a keynote lecture or exercise whereupon you
will be given a block project to begin on an individual or team basis.
Session 2/3: you will work upon the task and I will support your work with appropriate inputs
(mini-lectures / micro-workshops / advice / feedback on progress)
Session 3/4: you will present your work and receive immediate feedback. I will then 'round
off' the block and lead out towards the subject of the following block.
The programme block titles and outlines are as follows:
• Introduction (15th Sept at 0900) to:
o the unit content, rationale and learning outcomes
o the tutor
o the teaching schedule
o assessment
o resources
• Block 1 : The Enterprise in its Environment. (Finding maintaining the right 'fit')
o Blending the Business and PESTLE/STEEPL models
o SWOT analysis
• Block 2 : Building the Business Idea (Welcome to the Dragon's Den')
o creativity
o feasibility
o value & viability
o acceptability
• Block 3: Recruitment, Retention & Remuneration. (Attracting & making the most of
the right employees)
o job descriptions
o person specifications
o recruitment & selection
o professional development
o appraisal
o remuneration, reward and retention

2. • Block 4 : The Customer is King. (Finding the right customer and developing a
mutually-fulfilling relationship)
o who do we want?
o what do we know (about him/her)?
o how do we reach him/her?
o what do we say?
o ... the first kiss is not a marriage!
o Complaints as 'relationship counselling'
o ''Til death us do part'?
• Block 5 : Research: Information = Power to Perform.
o what is it we need to know?
o where might such information reside?
o how may we access it?
o what does it mean? (Presentation, analysis, evaluation, conclusion....)
o who needs it?
o how, when and in what form do we communicate it?
o how can we maximise returns to it?
• Block 6: Technology: Opportunity & Threat
o history of technology and its symbiotic relationship with business
o Information and Communication Technology and Business
o The future... 'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine but stranger
than we can imagine.' -
Source: Arthur C. Clarke. The originator of the idea of geo-stationary communication
satellites upon which our global communications are dependent today. Prolific science and
science-fiction writer, particularly remembered for '2001 A Space Odyssey' the award-
winning Stanley Kubric film. He died recently in Sri Lanka.
BELOW: Arthur C. Clarke. The originator
of the idea of geo-stationary communication
satellites upon which our global
communications are dependent today.
Prolific science and science-fiction writer,
particularly remembered for '2001 A Space
Odyssey' the award-winning Stanley Kubric
film. He died recently in Sri Lanka.
ABOVE: All Sci-Fi aficionados will
recognise this icon as the earth-based version
of 'TMA-1': Tycho Magnetic Anomaly,
which in '2001 a Space Odyssey' was
discovered on the Moon buried in the Tycho
crater. It was a sort of 'sentinel' placed by a
higher civilisation looking for the emergence
of life.

3. As part of the programme, we will also be running a 'live' event together: a conference (in
Semester Two), to give you the opportunity to do something 100% real and to 'showcase'
some of the work you have been doing. This also involve some external speakers who are
specialists in some of the areas in which we have been working together.