Business Strategy Courses Online

Why Focus On Using The Internet As A Marketing Channel [for Promotion & Consumption of your products and/or services]?

Your company may have a superior product in terms of Brand Recognition, Pricing & Usability however - without giving adequate attention to the path that the product takes before it end up in the hands of the end user; your organization can quickly find itself losing significant market share.

The internet is becoming increasingly involved in the purchasing decisions of the end user. The internet can be both a strategic Promotion as well as Consumption channel. The challenge however is for organizations to incorporate the internet into the corporate plans from a strategic perspective.

Benefits of attending this comprehensive course will include :

• Learning practical tips how to stabilize existing client bases, acquire new customers and ultimately drive revenues
• Getting simply stated, armed with the practical, down to earth, tried and tested information
• Enabling the organizations to modify and extend their strategies & Tactics as appropriate in order to separate themselves from the competition

Why should you attend?

The overall effective use of the internet as a channel to market works in conjunction with the existing components of the Business strategy, such as Branding, Pricing, the USP & specific target Market segments in order to ultimately sell more to existing customers as well as acquiring new ones. As the focus of this program extends far beyond the standard practice of a company having a website and employing an agency to run Pay Per click campaigns all those involved with the Sales, Marketing and Support functions of the organisation will gain from exposing themselves to the content of the seminar.

Contents 

1    Creativity and Its Role in Business Analysis
    1.1    Importance of Creativity
    1.2    Balancing Left Brain and Right Brain Thinking
2    Creativity Techniques
    2.1    Brainstorming and Brainwriting
    2.2    Checklists
    2.3    What-If Scenarios
    2.4    Reformulating the Problem
    2.5    Role Playing
    2.6    Provocation Techniques
    2.7    Mapping
    2.8    Reverse Engineering

Stakeholder Analysis is the activity of: 1) identifying key parties (stakeholders) who may be affected by a proposed initiative/project or those who share a common business need; 2) identifying and managing the stakeholder needs; and 3) determining stakeholder influence and/or authority regarding the approval of project deliverables.

Stakeholder analysis is performed to develop cooperation between the stakeholder and the project team and, assure successful outcomes for the project.

This course will provide further discussion and recommendations regarding successful stakeholder analysis.

Contents

1    Content
    1.1    What is a Stakeholder?
    1.2    Stakeholder Responsibilities
    1.3    Activities
    1.4    Benefits
    1.5    Stakeholder Analysis Techniques
        1.5.1    Brainstorming
        1.5.2    Interviews
        1.5.3    Requirements Workshops
        1.5.4    Use Cases
        1.5.5    User Stories
        1.5.6    Survey/Questionnaire
    1.6    References

This course describes the standard phases and major processes of the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC), using a common language and in sufficient detail to provide a Business Analyst an understanding of the system development lifecycle and the expected deliverables for the various phases within a project.

Contents

1    Business Analysis within typical System Development Life Cycles
    1.1    Introduction
        1.1.1    Information Technology Governance Process
        1.1.2    Roles and Responsibilities
    1.2    System Development Lifecycle Methodologies (Workflow Patterns)
        1.2.1    Waterfall Methodology
        1.2.2    Agile Methodology
        1.2.3    Iterative Methodology
        1.2.4    Incremental Methodology
    1.3    System Development Lifecycle
        1.3.1    System Initiation Phase
        1.3.2    System Requirements Analysis Phase
            1.3.2.1    Prepare for System Requirements Analysis
            1.3.2.2    Determine Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
            1.3.2.3    Define Process Model
            1.3.2.4    Define Logical Data Model
            1.3.2.5    Reconcile Functional and Non-Functional Requirements with Models
        1.3.3    System Design
        1.3.4    System Construction
        1.3.5    System Acceptance
        1.3.6    System Implementation
    1.4    Software Quality Assurance (SQA)
    1.5    Project Roles and Responsibilities
    1.6    SDLC at a Glance

Once you have decided you alone cannot bring your plan to fruition, you have to build a team around you.

Planning the staff you want and how you will recruit them. Once you have recruited them you need a plan of how to motivate them.

Contents

1    Recruitment
    1.1    Creating a job description
    1.2    Conditions of employment
    1.3    Detailing the person specification
    1.4    Recruiting
    1.5    Employment incentives
    1.6    Selecting the Right person for the job
        1.6.1    Application Forms and Curriculum Vitae
    1.7    The Job Interview
2    Managing your team
    2.1    Staff training
    2.2    Why train staff
    2.3    How much should staff be trained?
    2.4    Training Options
    2.5    Motivation
    2.5.1    Performance Appraisal
    2.6    Internal community focussed budgeting
    2.7    Innovation
        2.7.1    Creating a culture of innovation
        2.7.2    Encouraging creativity
        2.7.3    Encourage everyone to participate
        2.7.4    Provide recognition and rewards
        2.7.5    Keep an open mind and think laterally
        2.7.6    Innovation through serendipity
        2.7.7    Innovation through chance discovery
        2.7.8    Encouraging Employee Innovation.
        2.7.9    Recognise the efforts of employees
        2.7.10    Give a profit share or offer a bonus
        2.7.11    Low cost rewards
        2.7.12    Days off
        2.7.13    Trips away
        2.7.14    A fair evaluation process
        2.7.15    Building Innovation into your business practices
        2.7.16    Innovation and staff skills
        2.7.17    Innovation and your customers, clients and suppliers
        2.7.18    You could
        2.7.19    Implementing innovative ideas
        2.7.20    Project selection and management
        2.7.21    Monitor the level of success of internal innovation
    2.8    Vary the work
    2.9    Sick Leave
    2.10    Dismissal
    2.11    Retirement
3    Future thinking

In this course, we critically assess models and theories relevant to the field of Human Computer Interaction.

Contents

1 Models and Theories in Human Computer Interaction
    1.1 Goal
    1.2 Foreword
    1.3 Table of Contents
        1.3.1 Introduction
        1.3.2 Chapter 1: What’s a Model
        1.3.3 Chapter 2: Mechanical models: Human as machine, how to make humans more effective/efficient in the workplace?
        1.3.4 Chapter 3: Computer Systems Innovation
        1.3.5 Chapter 4: Theories of systems
        1.3.6 Chapter 5: Human Centered
        1.3.7 Chapter 6: Groups/Systems/Social Focus
        1.3.8 Chapter 7: Design centered

Sustainable Business - being in business for the long-term

Sustainable Business - getting started in a small business and staying in business.

This course will discuss who you are, what your business idea is, how you will go about your business, and what the market sees in your business.

Contents

1    About you
2    About the business
3    About the market
4    The principles of the business
    4.1    For Example
        4.1.1    A retail business
        4.1.2    A tourism business
        4.1.3    A service business
        4.1.4    A not for profit
        4.1.5    An accommodation business
        4.1.6    A manufacturing business
5    The methods for the business
6    The value proposition
7    SWOT

This Business Analysis course is to facilitate a consistent approach in the use of the tools and techniques contained within the Business Analyst profession.

The primary goal is to provide a simple "how to" guide for new and non-Business Analysts for gathering (eliciting) and documenting business requirements -- whether they are at the process, project or enterprise level.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Business Analyst Role
3. Keys and Barriers to Business Analyst Success
4. Maturity Models for Business Analysis and Self-Assessment
5. Stakeholder Analysis
6. Building a Business Case
7. Documenting and Managing Requirements
8. Requirement Gathering Tools
9. Business Analysis Within a Typical System Development Life Cycle
10. Data Modeling and Data Documentation
11. Test Strategy, Test Planning and System Acceptance
12. Implementation and Training
13. User Experience
14. Business Process Improvement Models
15. Root Cause Analysis
16. Strategic Analysis and Planning
17. LEAN
18. Facilitation and Elicitation Techniques
19. Prioritization Techniques
20. BA Software Tools
21. Communication Skills
22. Building Relationships and Trust
23. Analytical Thinking and Problem Solving
24. Creativity
25. Procurement, Including RFPs, RFIs and IFBs
26. Business Intelligence and Performance Management
27. Requirements Templates

In this course, participants should gain an understanding of the activities that are associated with the documentation and management of project and application requirements. These activities support an organized methodology for performing Business Analysis throughout a project life cycle and enable an analyst to position an organization to manage application projects and downstream maintenance in support of organizational strategies and work processes efficiently and effectively.

Whether an analyst is involved in a project or initiative from the ground level or 'Initiation' through enhancement changes or only involved in a part of the development life cycle, information contained in this course should provide guidance for the activities involved in the requirements management process.

Contents

1    Requirements Development
    1.1    Gather/Elicit Requirements
        1.1.1    Learn How the Organization Operates
        1.1.2    Learn How to Speak the Organization's Language
        1.1.3    Plan to Capture Requirements
    1.2    Requirements Sources
        1.2.1    Business Rules
        1.2.2    Business Case/ITIR
        1.2.3    Constraints
        1.2.4    Existing Applications
        1.2.5    Business Users/Stakeholders
    1.3    Analyze Requirements
        1.3.1    Categorization
        1.3.2    Dependencies
        1.3.3    Impact and Feasibility Analysis
2    Requirements Management
    2.1    Capture Requirements
    2.2    Verify Requirements
    2.3    Manage Change
    2.4    Trace Requirements
    2.5    Communications
        2.5.1    Appropriate to the Recipient
        2.5.2    Requirements Artifacts
        2.5.3    Requirement Information Delivery
        2.5.4    Communicate Requirement Changes
3    Application of Material Provided in this Course

Today Business Analysts may come from within organizations or from consulting firms. Often those from within the organization have strong backgrounds in either the business or its IT department.

This course covers the four skill sets that any Business Analyst will strive to improve regardless of background:

• Understanding of the business, its culture, and its domain (e.g., government)
• Understanding of the principles of information technology, the IT within the organization, and the trends in the IT field
• Business analysis techniques and tools
• Personal qualities and behavioral skills

Contents

1    Maturity Models for Business Analysis and Self-Assessment Models
    1.1    Analyst Maturity
        1.1.1    Agency BA Aptitude Questionnaire
    1.2    Organizational Maturity