By Dr. Ing. Ronald Cuschieri

Strategic management is associated with the management of key resources of any organization since it gives the direction and values to pursue its objectives and challenges at both the corporate level and across all strategic business units with their functional strategies. The module exposes the student and guides him/her to understand through a structured approach, how in practice, with references to various sectors both within the manufacturing and service sectors, one deploys various strategic conceptual frameworks. The approach is based on the strategic management extant literature, with reference to both seminal and latest literature, so as to situate the organization, from both an internal and external perspective. Such a learning experience will enable a student to understand all the drivers behind the business strategy based on both an academic and practitioner perspective. The student will learn about various academic strategic management frameworks so that the workplace ongoing experience and strategic decisions, can be critically reviewed and evaluated through a sound knowledge of strategic management.  Dedicated attention is given to understanding the business mission, objectives, culture, and all the domestic and international processes being used, which incorporates various disciplines and concepts, such as human resources, marketing, financial, technology, quality and supply chain management among others fields, that establish the course/s of action/s. Furthermore, the candidate will learn how to apply his/her strategic management skills through a level of innovation and creativity in the running of a business within a triple bottom line perspective. The learning experience is based on weekly formative assessments, to gradually apply the academic theories to practice so as to build holistic strategic management within a business by the end of the course. The course achieves such a holistic objective with a summative assignment, derived from all formative assessments, so as to apply that what is learnt is applied to the case study selected according to your liking or applied to your workplace, which will also include a critical literature review with various citations to situate the learning experience both within the academic arena and the practitioner competitive environment.

By Marvic Francalanza

Why is ‘Mathematics’ given so much importance across the globe? A plausible answer is that mathematics is very important for many day-to-day functions and a requirement for many jobs and careers. As much as this is true, I feel that the answer to the question goes beyond this.

I was recently reading a blog by Mike Lefkowitz who is a member of MIND Research Institute. He looked at the etymology of the word ‘mathematics’ and found out that in Ancient Greek its literal definition is ‘learning’ and in Hebrew, its root is ‘thinking’. I think that this makes so much sense since possibly the greatest power of mathematics is that it “gives us the critical ability to learn and think logically” (Lefkowitz, 2018). In the case of Business Mathematics, other than building on a range of mathematical concepts and techniques that are essential to use and present business data effectively, students also need to develop the analytical skills that help them make informed business decisions. Mathematics is thus a powerful tool to have at our disposal!

Unfortunately, as much as it is widely acknowledged that mathematics is important, it is also true that many students fear mathematics. This can have very negative consequences including hindering a person from furthering his or her studies. At STC Higher Education we acknowledge that mathematical anxiety is not something that students come up with to cover up their poor performance in mathematics. It is real! In view of this, we give priority to helping you understand concepts, communicate mathematics clearly and apply skills to alternative situations. We also appreciate that you might need more time or a change in teaching strategy to process mathematical ideas effectively.

Our aim is to give you a boost in confidence in mathematics and to help you encounter a success!

Reference:

Lefkowitz, M. (2018) Why is Math so important?  Available at: https://blog.mindresearch.org/blog/why-is-math-so-important [Accessed: 21 March 2022]

By Derek D’Amato

Most of the time the first thing that came to mind about electronic commerce or e-business is shopping online. However, this includes many other activities related to business trading. Some categories related to e-Business yes includes business to consumers (B2C) and others between businesses on the Web known as B2B. In simple words, any transaction between stakeholders executed on the World Wide Web includes private companies, governments, and the end customer. If you are interested to grow your business internationally or set up an online business from scratch as a young entrepreneur, e-business can comprise a range of functions and services. The growth of e-business in recent decades has given rise to new business requirements.  There are several types of e-business models. In the business-to-consumer (B2C) model, sellers offer products and services directly to consumers online, and the buyer purchases them via the internet. Under the business-to-business (B2B) model, companies use the internet to conduct transactions with one another. Unlike B2C transactions, B2B transactions usually involve multiple online transactions at each step of the supply chain. E-business has drastically changed how corporations as well as non-profit ones, government agencies and other such institutions operate, allowing them to increase productivity, lower costs and move more quickly. As a result of the time savings, businesses can either decrease their headcount or shift worker time to higher-value tasks. Additionally, such digital systems reduce the time between invoicing and payment, thereby improving cash flow for the business. E-business tactics offer advantages such as reaching a wider customer base and faster transactions, but they also come with associated risks. For example, e-business creates huge data security risks, because customers are often required to provide sensitive information, such as contact information and credit card numbers, during e-business transactions. Finally, we can say that E-business has an important strategic role for companies wanting a stronger performance on the web. It is part of a great moment of digital transformation that offers companies more growth opportunities. For the benefits to be fully enjoyed, it’s vital to shape your education with new emerging technologies and have the appropriate tools to become part of this new business era.

By Josef Pullicino

“Cybersecurity is a popular buzzword being used in today’s world of employment and beyond. Companies are getting momentum into getting their products and services online, as part of their digital transformation journey. This significant initiative brings along multiple added services as well as caveats especially from a security point of view and through the ever-increased use of social media.  It’s the norm of the day of receiving promotional emails from unknown or unidentified sources; others are to receive phone calls asking clients for sensitive data such as the bank account details; others would be part of a ransomware exercise where you would be asked to pay a hefty sum of money in order to unlock or recover specific data that might have been stolen before. These are all security realities and range in different shapes and forms, from trojans, phishing emails, to ransomware and dumpster diving with no end in sight for all the possible risks/threats that you might be engaged in the near future.  The cybersecurity Architecture and Operations module provides extensive knowledge and brings awareness to the cybersecurity landscape. It actually goes further beyond this, as it provides the necessary tools for threat modelling and risk management along with the different layers of the OSI model, including low-level networks and physical links. Security vulnerabilities can be exposed at any level so you are required to protect yourself and your company assets at all levels. The module provides different ways to secure the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability triad through the various strategic, tactical and operational strategies. It sets the mindset for identifying the risk, mitigating and controlling it where it matters most as well as protecting yourself from the residual value left after any remediation plans.”