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1. General Management - 3 courses
1.1 Accounting for Managers
This course aims to provide students with knowledge
of accounting basics, the ability to better
understand and analyse a set of financial statements,
and how these financial statements are used. It
covers issues such as accrual vs. cash systems of
accounting, measurement difficulties, and timing
judgments involved with assets, liabilities, revenues
and expenses etc.
The course also aims at improving analytical skills
through problem solving using accounting
information such as fixed versus variable costs and
the use of this distinction to conduct a CVP analysis.
Students are also required to understand relevant
costs for decisions such as make versus buy and
segment analysis. The course will also introduce
students to costing systems, performance measures,
planning and performance budgets, and how these
accounting tools help organisations to be more
effective.
1.2 Strategy and Organisation
This course examines organisational structure and
culture with emphasis on leadership. Students will
explore the soft side of managing and motivating
individuals and teams. Students will also be
introduced to corporate strategy and business
strategy including marketing.
1.3 Finance
This course aims to provide students with a basic
understanding of Finance. Students will be
exposed to key financial concepts and tools commonly
used by managers in making sound financial
decisions. These include ratio analysis, time value of
money, risk-return trade-off analysis, capital
budgeting, cost of capital and option pricing. In
addition, the course also covers various financial
instruments so students will be acquainted with
financial products commonly transacted in the
financial services industry.
2.1 IT Governance and Innovation Management
This course covers IT governance issues including risk
management as well as IT portfolio and capability
management. Students will also be exposed to
innovation methodologies and intellectual property
rights related issues.
2.2 Spreadsheet Modelling for Business Decisions
Very often, managers need to quickly make important
decisions related to managing IT investments, assets,
operations and projects. Understanding how to analyse
trade-offs across alternatives is difficult to do
without a good model. This course focuses on using
Microsoft Excel as a spreadsheet tool to build such
decision models and to do business analysis. Students
will be able to analyse trade-offs and understand the
sensitivity impact of uncertainties and risks. The key
emphasis of this course is on developing the art and
intuition of modelling , more so than just learning about
the long list of available models, in the context of
managing IT resources and operations.
2.3 IT Project and Vendor Management
IT projects face a myriad of challenges that can cause
delays or blow the budgets. However, there are ways one
can mitigate the risks inherent in IT projects.
The risks include new technology platforms,
multi-system and vendor dependencies, missed
milestones, political resistance, poor process
reengineering and system rollout. Sound project management
would involve: identifying all the risks upfront;
assigning the right people; understanding the strengths
and weaknesses of the vendor; establishing clear project
reporting hierarchy; timely escalation of issues; and
managing the change anxiety of the users. This course
will enable the you to gain insights into the complexities
of IT project and vendor management, and learn the
finer art of managing projects and vendors.
In the trend of out-sourcing, it is important that
organisations are able to leverage effectively on the
vendors' strengths. It is important to understand the risks involved and apply the appropriate
methodologies in selecting and managing vendors.
The course will include best practices in drafting
requirements, structuring contracts, building vendor
relationships and managing vendors' performance.
2.4 Global Sourcing Management
As technology and operations units increasingly
source for delivery capacity on a global basis, it is
critical for managers to know how to evaluate the
various alternatives for sourcing projects or processes
externally or internally. In addition, once development
projects or process operations are sourced in a
distributed fashion across the globe, there are
numerous operational, managerial, legal and
regulatory issues to contend with. This course will
equip students with an understanding of global
sourcing practices and challenges as well as cover
special managerial issues arising from global
sourcing.
3.1 Banking Products and Processes
The success of a banking product is dependent on the
extent to which its features and its delivery meet
customer needs. In many cases, product delivery and
its underlying processes create differentiation leading
to significant competitive advantages. Product
specialists and front office staff typically lead in
creating, pricing and selling such products and
services. However, it falls to the technology and
operations staff to ensure timely delivery, and that
user-friendly, secure customer and internal
transaction processes and appropriate external and
internal reporting are in place.
Accordingly, technology and operations professionals
need to understand banking products, control
requirements, customers’ and management’s needs in
order to design necessary processes that will lead to
superior delivery through various channels and media.
Students will learn to view several retail and
wholesale banking products and services from this
perspective. As-Is and To-Be analysis of the
processes, cross-border compliance considerations
and analysis will also be covered.
3.2 Retail Banking Solutions & Architecture
Among the selected retail banking products and
services, students will view and analyse them from
the solutions and architecture perspectives, spanning
from front to back office. Students will be exposed to
vendor application packages used for retail banking.
Students will also learn how to compare and contrast
software packages from different vendors. This course
does not involve hands-on programming and low-level
implementation, however, students will be exposed to in-depth material on system and application
architecture, functionality and performance through inclass
lectures, user case studies, and vendor
provided walkthroughs and demonstrations. Topics
such as data management, business intelligence and
analytics solutions; security, privacy and trust;
enterprise integration; legacy vs. new technology
integration and migration will be included.
Technology and architecture requirements, choices and
trade-offs will be covered.
3.3 Corporate and Institutional Banking Solutions & Architecture
Complementing course 3.2, this course covers the
corporate and institutional banking solutions and architecture. The
complete set of complementing issues will be included.
Emphasis is placed on solutions and architecture for supporting financial markets related products and enabling transaction fulfilment. With the course, students will be able to compare and
contrast the similarities and differences between retail
and corporate and institutional banking.
3.4 Managing Operational Risks in Banking
The external competitive environment is constantly changing. Financial industry deregulation creates pressure for launching new products and services at an even faster rate. In parallel, new regulations and legal requirements mandate stricter and more comprehensive controls in order to meet new compliance requirements. And technology continues to rapidly evolve, creating new opportunities (e.g. business intelligence and analytics) as well as new threats (e.g. security, privacy). These drivers have enormous implications for IT and Process Management, and for Financial Services Processes, Solutions and Technology. In this course, students will learn the management of technology and operational risks due to technology and operations changes, regulation and compliance, regulatory changes, product and market changes, and transitional scenarios versus steady state interruptions. For example, students will consider the impacts of emerging technologies, new standards (e.g. SOX and Basel 2), changing customer requirements, cross border compliance considerations and impacts, and the implications of these changes on financial industry technology and operations.
The project enables students to apply and integrate what they learn, and gives them an
opportunity to go into more depth in one or more of the
topics covered in course areas 2 and 3. Projects will be
done in conjunction with employers or with sponsoring
companies. The monthly workshops will be used to help
students define and develop their project proposals and
to provide guidance and critique from experienced
financial service business and technology experts and
decision makers.
Full time students must complete the project within
their one year of study. Part-time students start the
project within their first year and complete it during
their second year.
The MITB Capstone project is a compulsory component/course in the Master of IT in Business (Financial Services) programme offered in SMU's School of Information Systems . The project will be worked on by the student with a sponsoring company, and supervised by a SMU appointed advisor. For large projects, more than 1 student may work on the project, but each student must make a distinct contribution to the project. Each student is expected to commit at least 182 hours on the project, including meeting time with the company and SMU advisors. Students may be expected to work on-site at the sponsoring company if necessary, to understand the business domain, problem definition and even to gain access to systems, documents and resources available at the company. Students may be paid a sum of money by the sponsoring company at the discretion of the company.
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