MEng Mechatronic Engineering with Industrial Experience / Course details

The unit aims to:

1. Allow students to understand and develop the necessary skills to produce a proposal to support a major project within an organisation or a business plan for a new start-up.

2. Introduce essential business finance and business risk management tools.

3. To explore resources required to form, develop and grow a business or a product line within a business.

4. To encourage students to think entrepreneurially as an essential component of their personal development.

The unit aims to:

1. Allow students to understand and develop the necessary skills to produce a proposal to support a major project within an organisation or a business plan for a new start-up.

2. Introduce essential business finance and business risk management tools.

3. To explore resources required to form, develop and grow a business or a product line within a business.

4. To encourage students to think entrepreneurially as an essential component of their personal development.

This unit investigates the process of establishing and growing a business and the process of developing a new project within an organisation.

Emphasis is given to the essentials of financial management and risk management in a business or project, such as the research and development of a new product or service introduction. Attention is given to the process of identifying and using information concerning resources required for the proposed business activity.

Topics Include

• Adding Value – How is value created by a company – linking your subject area with the commercial world
• Financial Statements – Cash Flow, Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and what we can learn form them
• Diagnosing financial problems and what we can do about it – Break Even and Ratio Analysis
• Controlling costs and lean start-up
• Sources of Funding – From Banks, Venture Capital, Grants to Crowdfunding
• Risk – Financial implications of risk
• Exit Strategies for owners and equity investors
• Growing a Business

There is a consultancy session where you can get feedback about your assignments from the lecturer

The full range of contemporary methods will be used for the delivery of this module including creation of financial statements, the use of case studies, evaluation exercises etc. This programme will be supported by material on Blackboard including online financial exercises, supporting material, unit handouts, assignments other audiovisual resources that may be of interest to the students.

Formative feedback is the feedback given to help you to develop and improve with the unit of study. Understanding the calculations in the formative feedback exercise will help you with creation of the financial spreadsheets.

In this unit, there will be consultancy meetings with the lecture to get feedback on your work before it is submitted.

Additional formative feedback is available to you through the following means:

Attending lectures, joining discussions about case studies and doing short work tasks set within the lecture session.

Your lecturer will reply to brief individual questions at the end of each lecture session, if there are a few minutes to spare.

Your lecturer will provide brief replies to your e-mailed enquiry.

Your lecturer may feedback messages to the whole class via Blackboard if the point that you have raised could be of benefit to the whole class.

Summative work is any course assessment that contribute to the final mark for the unit

Summative feedback for assignments is provided via Blackboard. You may e-mail the lecturer to ask for further feedback and they might raise the point in the next lecture, reply to you or invite you to attend a brief one to one feedback meeting.

Reading References

Main Texts

Throughout the unit the students will be referred to several online resources which they will be expected to read. Additional help can be found in the following texts:

“Accounting and Finance for Non-Specialists”, Peter Atrill and Eddie McLaney, Published by FT Prentice Hall (copies available in the library).

“Accounting a Smart Approach”, Marey Carey, Cathy Knowles, Jane Towers-Clark, Published by Oxford University Press

“Costing & Reports”, David Cox and Michael Fardon, Osborne Books

“Financial Management for the Small Business”, Colin Barrow, Published by Kogan Page

Additional References

“Small Business Management, an entrepreneurial emphasis”, JG Longenecker, CW

Moore, JW Petty, South Western College Publishing

“The Business Plan Workbook”, Colin Barrow, Paul Barrow, Robert Brown, Published by Kogan Page

“Strategic Entrepreneurship – A Decision Making Approach”. Philip Whickham, Published by Prentice Hall

“Entrepreneurship”, David Kirby, McGraw Hill

“How to Master Finance”, T Gasking, Published by Kogan Page