• Course title: Finance for Supply Chain Managers
• Number of ECTS: 3
• Course code: F2_LSCM-8
• Module(s): Core courses
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Describe and communicate how operational decisions in a supply chain impact on the financial situation of a company


• Rephrase operational suggestions into financial terms


• Indicate the financial impact of operational decisions on the company’s cash flow / working capital


• Discuss the importance of financing for supply chain management


• Identify situations where operational and financial decisions within a supply chain interact


• Apply your knowledge on financial supply chain management to tackle real business problems 
  

This course links supply chain management to the financial systems and objectives of the corporation. It is aimed to provide supply chain professionals with the basic language and tools to assess and communicate the impact of the supply chain on a company’s financial and societal performance.

Themes include: Basics of Accounting, Supply Chain and Financial Performance, Financial Planning and Management of Operating Working Capital, Discounted Cash Flow Techniques for Project Valuation, Managerial (Cost) Accounting.

The final grade is made of three parts: homework (50%), class participation (10%), case writeups (40%).

Literature:

• 
  Serrano, Alejandro and Lekkakos, Spyros D.: “Practical Finance for Operations and Supply Chain Management”. MIT Press, 2020


• Karen Berman, Joe Knight, and John Case: “Financial Intelligence: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean”. Harvard Business School Press, 2006


• Brealey, Myers and Allen: “Principles of Corporate Finance”. 8th ed. McGraw- Hill Irwin, 2005


• Northcott D: “Capital Investment Decision-Making”. International Thomson Business Press, 1992


• Stickney C., Weil R.: “Financial Accounting”, 9th ed. Harcourt, 2000


• Robert C. Higgins: “Analysis for Financial Management”, 10th Ed. McGraw-Hill Education, 2011

• Course title: Selected Seminars and Site Visits
• Number of ECTS: 1
• Course code: F2_LSCM-36
• Module(s): Transferable skill courses
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Build a professional business network


• Articulate and understand real-life supply chain problems
  

The LCL regularly hosts informal seminars throughout the academic year from September to June. This is an essential and mandatory part of the Master programme, as it is a prime opportunity for our students to learn from logistics and supply chain experts about their daily challenges, and solutions that have been applied. 
These insights complement the content taught in the LSCM (Logistics & Supply Chain Management) curriculum. Moreover, it allows students to build their network in Luxembourg, the Greater Region, and beyond, by interacting directly with corporate speakers. For the speakers and their HR colleagues, the Industry Seminars are a great opportunity to present their company to the LSCM students and to enhance their potential talent pool generally – independently of the company’s prevailing recruitment context. 
The seminars may include companies such as CFL (Luxembourgish National Railway Company), Cargolux Airlines, POST (largest postal and telecommunications services in Luxembourg), Ferrero, Amazon, PwC, Grosbusch and many more.
Students also attend events organised by the Cluster for Logistics (C4L).

90% Quizzes – A couple of days after a visit, seminar, or conference, the students will be administered a quiz on Moodle with 4-5 questions relevant to the event they participated in.

10% Active participation

Attendance is compulsory and any absence must be justified (medical certificate).

• Course title: Introduction to Supply Chain Leadership
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-44
• Module(s): Transferable skill courses
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Draw from a diverse pool of leadership theories,


• Channel stress into productive team relationships and successful projects,


• Use all four communication styles (V.E.L.D.) in their persuasion of others.
  

• Defining inspirational leadership and managing the employee life cycle
  • Introductions of the course concept and student expectations
  • Presenting yourself and your leadership experience (setting the stage)
  • Why do we need leadership (cf. VUCA) and defining leadership (difference between management and leadership)
  • Theory on leadership (from 1900 until today)
  • Understanding individual performance (motivation and competencies)
  • Managing performance: from monitoring time spent in the office to measuring to managing output
  • Understanding the importance of delegation and learning to put delegation in action
  • Sourcing and recruiting – from employer branding to mastering the recruitment process
  • Team satisfaction vs. engagement: the impact of an engaged workforce on productivity
  • Employee retention: understanding the cost of staff rotation and developing retention strategies
  • Employee development: from career paths and evaluations to succession planning and mentorship
• Managing self – what it takes to be an inspirational leader 
  • Inspirational leadership and the art of leading (Goffee/Jones) – why should anyone be led by you?
  • Emotional intelligence and neuroscience of leadership
  • Role models: who they are for us and how we can be those for others
  • Personal values: understanding what drives us and setting reminders to stick to what matters
  • Personal balance: about the diversity of our traits and the importance to manage our energy
  • Understanding the 5 key elements of wellbeing (Rath)
  • The career trap: the fast-paced ride on the highway that led into nowhere – about making conscious choices in both professional and personal life
• Developing a leader mindset and Strengths based leadership 
  • Part 1:
    • Stages of adult development
    • Discovering our reactive tendencies
    • Learning about creative competencies
    • Putting the creative competencies into action
    • Solving leadership challenges – from the reactive space and from the creative space
    • Personal commitment 
  • Part 2: 
    • What is a strength (distinction between capabilities, strength and talent)
    • Sharing the strength equation, introducing numbers behind the Gallup StrengthsFinder Assessment
    • Positioning yourself on the strength-utilization scale
    • Sharing your top strength with the team (definition, what does it mean)
    • Plotting your top 5 strengths within the class and discussing implications for the class
    • Understanding what makes a great team
    • Group activity: reflecting on your former teams and conduct ‘strength guessing’ exercise
    • Paired discussion on how to leverage strengths in identifying future professional role
• Navigating cultural differencesLeaders with an inclusive mindset appreciate and draw upon the rich tapestry of diverse backgrounds and experiences within their teams. Insights from Erin Meyer’s research on cross-cultural communication can be instrumental in understanding and navigating these differences effectively. Coupled with a neuroscientific understanding of unconscious biases and decision-making processes, leaders are better equipped to build a more inclusive, equitable, and high-performing organization.
  • Understanding unconscious biases
  • Learning about cultural differences
  • Understanding how to navigate these cultural differences
• Additional sources of leadership theory and application
  • Setting the stage for the final presentations
  • Student presentations and discussion
  • Synthesis of learnings
  • Closing of the course

10% Active participation

30% Essay

60% Presentation

Litterature:

• MANDATORY READING: Strengths Based Leadership – Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow (Gallup– Rath)


• Why should anybody be led by you? HBR Article by Goffee/Jones


• The culture map – Erin Meyer

• Course title: Case Studies in Procurement Strategy
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-22
• Module(s): Track in Digital Procurement
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Describe the fundamentals of procurement management and the main challenges shaping and driving the performance of a firm’s 
  procurement function.


• Explain the key elements of a firm’s procurement strategy and determine how this should be aligned to serve the firm’s overall strategy and competitive position.
  

Supply chains for most products today are complex networks with many tiers and levels of decision-making. This course studies issues that arise in multi-party value networks, where coordinating the interests of all parties involved is challenging. One major difficulty is that each entity in the supply chain is interested in maximizing their own performance but not necessarily the utility of the entire supply chain. To ensure coordination, contracting arrangements and different modes of supply chain partnerships, as well as their key success factors are considered. In addition to coordination through contracting, this course covers several key concepts in procurement such as: supplier scoring, strategic sourcing, total cost of ownership, procurement centralization, e-sourcing, sustainable sourcing, supply chain resilience, and negotiations. 

Evaluation of your performance will be based on class participation, analysis of case studies and homework assignments, weighted as follows: 

• Class participation 10%


• Case studies in-class analysis 20%


• Group assignments (case write-up) 70%

Literature:

• David Farmer, Peter Baily, Barry Crocker, David Jessop, and David Jones, “Procurement, Principles Management” (11th Edition), Pearson Education Limited, UK, 2015


• Carlos Mena, Remko Van Hoek, and Martin Christopher, “Leading Procurement Strategy” (3rd Edition), Kogan Page, UK, 2021


• David Simchi-Levi, Philip Kaminsky, and Edith Simchi-Levi, “Designing Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies Case Studies” (3nd Edition), McGraw Hill, USA, 2008


• Handouts by the instructor.

• Course title: Negotiation in Procurement
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-40
• Module(s): Track in Digital Procurement
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Understand both analytical tools and psychological instruments for managing effectively negotiations within different contexts and bargaining styles;


• Learn to maximise value creation and to close deals that might otherwise be deadlocked;


• Negotiate effectively within groups and organisations by applying tools and methods from the course to real life scenarios.
  

 

• Module 1: Fundamentals and main negotiation concepts, analytics (game theory); BATNA, walkaway, ZOPA, negotiation management
• Module 2:(1st Simulated negotiation) 
• Module 3: Factors and context in negotiation, the content of negotiation, barriers to value creation, bargaining styles 
• Module 4: Advanced negotiation analysis, weighting trade-offs, tactics and strategies, (2nd simulated negotiation) 
• Module 5: (2nd Simulated negotiation)
• Module 6: Emotional self-assessment, the negotiator mindset, Bias and irrational negotiations, cultural issues, ethics in negotiations
• Module 7: Negotiating with Artificial Intelligence and Online Negotiations. Negotiation Capability at organisational level. How to deal with negotiation conducted via emails, Web conferencing platform, AI chatbot. (3rd simulated negotiation with an AI agent)
  

 

5% Attendance

5% Active participation

45% Written Exam

45% Group work: simulated negotiation

Literature:

• About the Negotiation fundamentals:
  – Fisher, Roger, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton. Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in Penguin, 2011.
  – Korobkin, Russell. Negotiation: Theory and strategy. Wolters Kluwer, 2014.
  


• About the Human biases and heuristics:
  – Cialdini, Robert B. Influence. Vol. 3. Port Harcourt: A. Michel, 1987.
  – Sierra, Erlend. Cognitive Biases in Business Negotiations for Entrepreneurs. MS thesis. NTNU, 2017
  


• About the negotiation capability for organisations:
  – Ertel, Danny. “Turning negotiation into a corporate capability.” Harvard Business Review 77 (1999):
  55-71.
  – Borbély, Adrian, and Andrea Caputo. “Approaching negotiation at the organizational level.”
  Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 10.4 (2017): 306-323.
  


• About the negotiation and Artificial Intelligence:
  – Baarslag, Tim, et al. “Self-sufficient, Self-directed, and Interdependent Negotiation Systems: A
  Roadmap Toward Autonomous Negotiation Agents.” Bargaining. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham,
  2022. 387-406.
  – Monahan, Shannon, et al. “Autonomous agent that provides automated feedback improves
  negotiation skills.” International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education. Springer, Cham, 2018
  

• Course title: Airline Fleet and Network Planning
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-29
• Module(s): Customised Track
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: No

 

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• understand how airlines decide on their key strategic investment, the fleet, and use their aircraft on their networks, and how they decide which routes to fly
  

 

 

• Fleet selection criteria: the right aircraft for a given network or the right network for a given fleet?
• Introduction to aircraft performance
• Modelling fleet and network options
• Investment appraisal for aircraft
• Principles of route and network profitability analysis for cargo and passenger carriers

80% Seminar paper

20% Presentation

Literature:

• Clark, Paul: Buying the Big Jets: Fleet Planning for Airlines, Routledge, 3rd edition (2017)


• Morrell, Peter and Klein, Thomas: Moving Boxes by Air: The Economics of International Air Cargo, Routledge, 2nd edition (2018)

• Course title: Pricing and Revenue Management
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-17
• Module(s): Customised Track
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: No

Setting prices is a critical decision in B2B and B2C environments as it directly impacts consumers’ and buyers’ choices. This course aims to introduce students to the theory and practice of pricing analytics and revenue management (PRM) by learning and applying the analytical methods necessary for estimating demand and modelling different pricing environments so as to optimise prices and product offerings over time. Real decision problems will be covered in the course and, to the degree possible, will engage practitioners. Lastly, contemporary issues in pricing will be discussed.

 

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Recognise the benefit and value of pricing analytics and revenue management 


• Formulate PRM decision problems and develop demand estimation models


• Solve the resulting models and translate the results for PRM actions


• Understand the impact and relevance of contemporary PRM considerations to support managerial decisions

 The course aims to cover the following topics: pricing strategies, markdown pricing and dynamic pricing, single resource and network revenue management, overbooking, bid pricing, choice modelling, assortment optimization, as well as other aspects of pricing (legal, behavioural) and new approaches to pricing (such as machine learning). 

30% Case studies

20% Assignments

50% Written exam

Literature:
Recommended textbooks:

• Gallego and Topaloglu (2019) Revenue Management and Pricing Analytics, Springer


• Phillips (2005). Pricing and Revenue Optimization, Stanford


• Bodea and Ferguson (2014). Segmentation, Revenue Management and Pricing Analytics. Routledge


• Talluri and van Ryzin (2004). The Theory and Practice of Revenue Management. Springer. Available in a condensed form at: https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/3958/Tutorials2005-chapter06.pdf 

Cases:

• Shumsky. 2009. BlueSky Airlines. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 9(3): 140–147


• Ferguson and Queenan. 2009. Starting with Good Inputs: Unconstraining Demand Data in Revenue Management. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 9(3):182-183. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/ited.1090.0032cs


• Talebian and van Ryzin. 2014. Markdown Management at Sports Unlimited. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 14(2): 100–104. (optional if time allows)


• Agrawal, Cohen, and Gans. 2009. Revenue Management at Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 9(3):160-168. (optional if time allows)

Game:

• Metters, Vargas, and Weaver, (2009) Case-MotherLand Air: Using Experiential Learning to Teach Revenue Management Concepts. INFORMS Transactions on Education 9(3):127-129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/ited.1090.0028cs 
  

 

• Course title: Optimal Decision Making
• Number of ECTS: 2
• Course code: F2_LSCM-38
• Module(s): Customised Track
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: No

This course aims to introduce tools and concepts of optimisation and mathematical programming and to showcase how they can be used to formulate, solve and analyse real decision problems in order to enhance decision-making skills. Examples are used to illustrate the practical use of modelling tools to improve management practice.

 

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to: 

• Recognise the power of using optimisation methods and models in their careers


• Formulate managerial decision problems as optimisation models


• Solve the resulting models with off-the-shelf optimisation software and interpret the results


• Model and solve decision problems affected by uncertainty
  

The course primarily focuses on techniques for formulating decision problems as linear, stochastic and discrete optimisation problems that can be solved with existing software tools. We will also cover some fundamental theory of optimisation including duality theory.

The fundamental techniques are motivated through examples across several application areas such as project management, production planning, revenue management, transportation, etc. We will use PYTHON to model and solve practical decision problems.

50% Written exam

50% Group work

Literature:

• Dimitris Bertsimas and John Tsitsiklis, Introduction to Linear Optimization, Dynamic Ideas Athena Scientific, 2008


• Stephen Boyd and Lieven Vandenberghe, Convex Optimization, Cambridge University Press, 2004

• Course title: Master Thesis
• Number of ECTS: 11
• Course code: F2_LSCM-45
• Module(s): Master Thesis
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

Students will be able to
-Critically read scientific literature in the Logistics and Supply Chain Management domain and reflect on it
-Articulate the contributions of others and cite these contributions properly
-State clear research questions and methodology to answer these questions

As part of the master thesis project, each student team will prepare a literature review and a research proposal regarding the master thesis project. The study of literature and write-up of the proposal and review will be supervised by the thesis advisor.

• Participation to company meeting, respecting deadlines  and meeting with supervisors


• Literature review


• Research proposal


• Thesis write-up


• Oral defense

• Course title: Thesis preparation
• Number of ECTS: 3
• Course code: F2_LSCM-9
• Module(s): Master Thesis
• Language: EN
• Mandatory: Yes

The goals of the course unit are:

1. To familiarize the students with the Master thesis procedures including supervision, research and writing process, as well as the assessment procedure.


2. To provide students with the necessary tools to be able to put into practice the knowledge and skills acquired during the implementation of a research project within the framework of the Master programme.
   

On completion of the course unit successful students will be able to:

• Develop a research plan including the description of the research topic, the formulation of the research questions, definition of the objectives and explanation of the methodology adopted to answer them.


• Collect, process and analyse data shared by the company sponsor or academic partner using the methodology defined in the research plan.


• Propose solutions that contributed to the problem stablished and supported by the research outcomes.


• Report the research process and outcomes in writing and in oral presentation.
  

• Introduction to the Master Thesis: What is the master Thesis, Latex and Word templates
• Research questions and objectives
• Literature research and theoretical background for the master thesis
• Methodology: Qualitative and quantitative methods
• Academic Writing: How to write the thesis, explain the results and provide a discussion section.
• Conclusions of the master thesis project
• Thesis defence-presentation skills
  

25% Take-home assignment 1

25% Presentation

50% Thesis Write-Up

Literature:

Thomas, C. G. (2021). Research methodology and scientific writing. Thrissur: Springer.