Students survey major business functions including management, marketing, finance, accounting, and information systems with emphasis on how these functions work together in organizations. Students explore business career paths using labor market data.
Students explore human relations and professional skills essential for success in business environments. Students examine personality styles, self-concept, emotional intelligence, communication strategies, and diversity in the workplace while developing practical skills in self-management, professional etiquette, decision making, goal setting, professional networking, and strengths-based career planning.
Students develop the supervisory skills needed to lead teams, manage performance, and resolve workplace conflicts. Topics include delegation, coaching, performance feedback, time management, and decision-making in front-line supervisory roles. Emphasis on inclusive leadership and managing diverse teams using professional communication and digital collaboration tools.
Students analyze the legal and regulatory environment affecting business operations including contracts, torts, business entity formation, employment law, and government regulation through case-based analysis. Emphasis on applying legal reasoning to realistic business scenarios and evaluating ethical dimensions of business decisions.
Students apply mathematical methods to solve business and finance problems including pricing, interest calculations, consumer credit, and time value of money. Emphasis on using spreadsheet tools for calculations, comparisons, and data visualization to support financial decision-making.
Students analyze business financial decisions using ratio analysis, time value of money, and capital budgeting techniques. Topics include financial statement interpretation, risk-return tradeoffs, cost of capital, and investment evaluation. Emphasis on spreadsheet-based modeling and dashboard-style visualization of financial data.
Students interpret and compare corporate financial statements using ratio analysis, trend analysis, and industry benchmarks. Emphasis on using spreadsheet tools and publicly available SEC filings to assess financial health and support evidence-based recommendations.
Students make informed personal financial decisions across life stages including budgeting, credit management, saving, investing, tax planning, insurance, and retirement. Topics include comparison of technology-based and traditional financial advisory tools. Emphasis on constructing a comprehensive personal financial plan using current rates and real-world data.
Students evaluate investment opportunities across asset classes including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, and alternative investments. Topics include fundamental valuation, portfolio diversification, risk assessment, and awareness of technology-driven investment platforms. Students construct a model investment portfolio with written justification for allocation decisions.
This course is designed to provide the student with an understanding of the foundations of the operations function in both manufacturing and services. The course will analyze operations from both the strategic and operational perspectives and highlight the competitive advantages that operations can provide for the organization. The emphasis is on decision making (to include business ethics) in areas such as: facility requirements and utilization, control and coordination of resource inputs and outputs, types of transformation/conversion processes, and performance measurements. Diverse activities, such as determining the size and type of production process, purchasing the appropriate raw materials, planning and scheduling the flow of materials and the nature and content of inventories, assuring product quality, and deciding on the production hardware and how it gets used will be the primary content areas of this class. NOTE: Students are strongly encouraged to first take Introduction to Management BUS 1200.
This course is an in-depth study of how and why people buy and gain an understanding of the factors influencing a purchase decision and how marketing research can enhance decision-making in this area. Topics include social structures and their effect on consumer purchase behavior, individual adoption and resistance behavior, and marketing efforts based on consumer research. Marketing research procedures, methods, and information sources are identified and evaluated. The ability to perform basic marketing research is emphasized.
Students develop a comprehensive business plan for a new venture, acquisition, or franchise. Topics include opportunity identification, feasibility analysis, business model design, market research, financial projections, operations planning, and digital channel strategy. Emphasis on evaluating digital tools for business operations and presenting the plan professionally to stakeholders.
BUS 1990 Business/Marketing/Retailing Special Topics
Credits: 0
Goal Areas:
Course Outline 1990 (PDF)
This course will provide flexibility in offering an in-depth review of topics of immediate importance and topical interest. These topics will go beyond the introductory courses in examining specific aspects of the subject matter.
Students apply business concepts from their degree program in a supervised professional work environment. Structured reflection connects workplace experience to course theory. Students use MN DEED career tools to research post-graduation opportunities and construct a professional internship portfolio including work samples and competency summary.
Students apply statistical methods to business problems using real-world datasets and software. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability distributions, sampling, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, chi-square tests, one-way ANOVA, regression analysis, and correlation with emphasis on interpreting statistical results to support evidence-based business decisions.
Students examine management principles organized around the four functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Students analyze organizational challenges, evaluate leadership approaches, and apply decision-making frameworks to realistic business scenarios. Emphasis on managing diverse teams and evidence-based organizational problem-solving.
Students analyze how organizations design, manage, and improve processes for producing goods and services. Topics include operations strategy, supply chain management, quality systems, capacity planning, inventory management, and process improvement. Emphasis on using data-driven tools and KPI metrics to evaluate and optimize operational performance.
Students examine marketing principles and the strategic role of marketing in organizations. Students analyze consumer markets, evaluate marketing mix decisions, and develop a marketing plan for a real or simulated business. Emphasis on market research, segmentation, and data-informed marketing strategy.
Students analyze the psychological, social, and cultural factors that influence consumer decision-making. Topics include perception, motivation, learning, attitudes, group influences, and the consumer decision journey. Emphasis on applying behavioral frameworks to develop marketing strategies for diverse consumer segments, including Minnesotas multicultural communities.
Students develop and evaluate integrated marketing communications (IMC) strategies across advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, and digital channels. Topics include creative strategy, media planning, budget allocation, and campaign measurement. Emphasis on analytics-driven campaign evaluation using KPI dashboards and projected metrics.
Students practice professional selling and customer service through applied scenarios and role-play exercises. Topics include consultative selling, objection handling, closing techniques, customer relationship management, and ethical sales practices. Emphasis on building a sales plan with CRM workflow and performance targets.
Students plan, execute, and measure digital marketing campaigns across SEO, paid search, social media, email, and web channels. Topics include platform analytics, content strategy, conversion optimization, and marketing automation. Students evaluate AI-assisted marketing tools for effectiveness and ethical implications, maintaining human oversight of AI outputs.
Students integrate prior marketing coursework into a strategic marketing plan for a real business. Topics include market research, positioning, branding, promotional strategy, financial projections, and analytics-driven performance measurement. Students present the plan professionally, defending strategic decisions through evidence-based argumentation.