Handbook

The Strategic Management Year (SMY) is the capstone course of the AGSM's EMBA. The design of the SMY course is organised around the general manager's fundamental problems, and arranged to reflect the different stages of the organisational life cycle. The course is divided into four stages:

Strategic Management 1: Detecting and Selecting Business Opportunities. The stage is constructed around four specific problems faced by the manager in the early stages of a business: How do I formulate a successful strategy? How do I position the organisation to compete? How do I sell a business plan to potential investors? How do I evaluate the level of risks associated with a proposed business? The stage seeks to provide opportunity for students to explore the answers to these questions, and to develop self reflective team working and communication skills

Strategic Management 2: Developing Business Opportunities. This stage focuses on the second key question, i.e. how to develop business opportunities. Students will learn about different organisational architectures and how to decide which architectures are most appropriate for different business opportunities. Students will consider organisational arrangements required to successfully implement strategies, as well as organisational arrangements required to generate new strategic alternatives. 

Strategic Management 3: Growing Business. The stage is constructed around four specific problems faced by the manager in the middle stages of a business: What options for growth do I have? How do I implement a growth option? How do I sell a growth plan to internal and external stakeholders? How do I evaluate and manage risks associated with a proposed growth option?

Strategic Management 4: Transforming Business. The fourth stage in the SMY addresses how a General Manager can respond to performance risks generated from a lack of external fit that might already exist or be likely to exist in the near future. The risk to external fit can come from any one of a number of sources: regulation, buyer power, technology, competitors, supplier power etc. When external fit is at risk it is likely that the business model will need to be reexamined and redefined, leading to transformational change. At the end of this stage, students will be able to: Recommend a transformation strategy for an organisation, Develop a plan for the implementation of transformational change, Evaluate and manage the risks associated with a proposed transformational change and Facilitate an organisation's ability to renew itself proactively through identifying and interpreting weak signals in both the external and internal environments.

Additionally, the SMY explores four themes across all four courses: Critical Thinking, Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Decision Making.