Strategy:

The course on the Strategy theories was of great interest to me. When studying theory of four generic approaches to the strategy, I revealed the most suitable strategic approach to me and identified myself as a Processualist. This was an interesting discovery for me because I was not aware of this theory before.

Thanks to this course I have got a better understanding of the motivations and reasoning behind the ISTC's strategic choices, managing strategy, ensuring the company's growth. Although I do not have influence on strategic decisions of the company at the moment, I can apply my knowledge and skills when interpreting the company's strategies for the Bank's purposes

Tsyba Svetlana,
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

In conclusion I’d like to say that Strategy course was very useful for me personally as I was not well informed on the theory of different approaches to strategy before. Meanwhile I was involved in daily application it on practice. It means that I did what I felt I had to do but I didn’t know that all my actions could be named and classified. Now I defined what approach to strategy I use in daily business. And it was very useful for me to realise possible negative consequences of this approach and become aware of another approaches that exist. I understood that being deeply involved in calculations and planning basing on data for the given period I take the risk of missing important changes of environment. This may have negative effect on company and shipping line activity. Thus I have to pay more attention to environment even outside my business. It may help me from one side to be prepared and protected from negative changes and from another side it may give chances to find new traffics for company.

Valentina Podrezova
Formag Group

Öe all hear word "Strategy" every day. Every body has its own understanding of this word, I am not exception. But the study material clearly defines the differences to different approaches. Today I understand that why I had left the previous company, since understand that people with 2 different approaches can not do well in business. The theory obtained from text matter is well implemented into my practical day to day working and is systemizing the work. Better understanding of strategic approach allows the efficient working among not only staff but also people around you.

Pandey Jaydeep Kumar
Lupin Limited, India

Strategic Management:

’ll be honest, this textbook probably is the first one among others that impressed me very deeply! In combination with previous course “Strategy” these three courses give the possibility to understand what is Strategy and how can I manage it. A lot of thanks to IBR!Some things were not easy, exactly IFAS and EFAS tables. It was quite difficult to choose factors and give to it correct weights and ratings.In a practical terms, thanks to this course on strategic management and its assignment particularly, now I’m prepared for the introduction meeting with our new CEO of the BBH Group in Ukraine, who took his position on July 1st, 2004. This assignment was just in time.

Zhdanov Sergey,
Baltic Beverage Holding "Slavutich"

After reading the Essentials of Strategic Management by J. David Hunger and Thomas L. Wheelen, I understood definitely that it is interesting to work in the area of strategy development. It is important not only for the company but also for personality in particular; as such brainstorming exercise should be done by all the managers regardless of their position with the company. The boor and the course at IBR have completely overturned the concept of my personal role with Xerox. I am very happy that this course is included into the IBR programme and this manual will become my own handbook.

I would like to emphasize, that this course is very practical, and it will be very difficult for an IBR student to master it without working experience in a company with occupation of responsible positions. It would be also be difficult for me, but I managed to complete the assignment due to both experience, well-structured textbook and the right tutor. An experience itself, if not shaped in some structural framework, will be not sufficient here. This profoundly practical course in IBR has huge scientific implication. I am sincerely pleased that this material is included into the IBR MBA program and in particular in the form I studied it.

Makeev Sergey
LLC "Xerox (Ukraine) Ltd."

Business Plan:

This course is of very practical use for business life of every manager. The term was heard by all of us very often, but I agree with the statement in instruction sheet, which said, that many people in Eastern Europe think about financial calculation first when speaking about business plan. The course learnt how to write business plan in the best way. Since I do not have experience in writing external business plan, I could imagine the benefit of the studying the course also from this point of view.

Pykhalova Marina,
Wella Ukraine

This course turned out to be of a great use to me. Quite often the companies of Metal Holding Group launch new project that require thorough prior examination, the calculation of expenses, analysis of risks and opportunities and financial forecast. Several times we turned to the specialized agencies to elaborate a complex business plan for a complete new field, though such projects are usually worked out by our staff. To elaborate a business plan they used the typical legislatively approved business-plan structure, with substantial adjustments to each specific occasion. Though, the typical business plans were intended for the processes of company's readjustment and were more general that the one proposed in this course.

Thus, the course will be of a great use for me as I'll implement a single structure and criteria for business plans elaborated within Metal Holding Group.

Sergey Loychenko,
Metal Holding LLC

Taking into account that course on business plan was not envisaged in my educational programme at the Institute, this course:

• eliminated serious gap in my theoretical knowledge,
• enabled me to prepare real internal plan and ensure my participation in elaboration of next plans.

The book is well written and structured. It's a very simple manual to follow and succeed.z

Novikov Sergey
Calyon Bank Ukraine

In this assignment I have used business plan for my real business situation. That is why it was very important lesson for me that helped me to create of great vitality and effective business plan. The structure, which was proposed in a textbook, was very useful and I followed faithfully it and will be use it in my future documents. Also, I have received plenty of information and skills, which can really be put into daily practice. I am talking primarily about the forecasts and financial analyses. I am sure that the information gained during this course will be very useful to me in the future, since it has systematized information, which can be extrapolated to my daily work for a multinational company.

Alexander Pushkar
Schering AG (Germany)

Business ethics:

Studying the course I understood that we are working not in the vacuum in our organizations. Beside relationships between companies and their staff, we have to think carefully about different constituencies upon which our organization activities and performance have an impact, i.e. stakeholders and anticipate their reaction on all our actions.

The decision making process suggested within the course will certainly help me to feel considerably more secure and better equipped to resolve dilemmas, defend my actions and explain the choice. I also understood that in case of ethical quandaries it could be useful to discuss and handle them beyond with colleagues.

Having examine ethical dilemma in the assignment I realized how important is for employees to understand the values on which the corporate Codes and Rules are based, so that when situations arise which are not covered by the document explicitly they can work out a viable course of action from principles and values. At the same time the Code of conduct should be a vital instrument, should be reviewed and updated according to the requirements of the real day-to-day life of organization.

Zakharova Inna
JSC BANK "HVB BANK UKRAINE"

In the process of studying the course on Business Ethics, I have become aware of another area of the managerial activity, which is the ethical management. I realized that under the current trends of globalization, in the "shrinking" world, violating some fundamental and universal human values while doing business is becoming unproductive and sometimes even detrimental not only for the business reputation but also for the result of business activities. Besides, the course on Business Ethics has offered us a very conveniently formalized instrument of analyzing and managing ethical dilemmas which might be of much help and use both in our professional activities and everyday life.

Olga Chmola
International Monetary Fund

I found this course very interesting and informative. It provided an excellent insight into issues of business ethics. I especially enjoyed reading sections relating to the stakeholders issues with their practical exercises and useful comments. I have also liked sections about business ethics in “shrinking” world and instructions about creating a code of conduct. And the last but not least, I liked the methodology suggested to resolve dilemmas. I found that with the use of new tools the reasoning process becomes more reliable and fruitful. It gives very valuable advises as to where find the answers to uneasy questions where intuition and clear logic seem to remain the only resorts for taking decisions.

Oleg Zamorsky
Raiffeisenbank