EE204: Business Management for
Electrical Engineers and Computer Scientists

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EE204/EE353 next offered Spring 2010

EE204 Syllabus

All assignments are listed in the following table. Cases, Required Readings, and Recommended Readings can be purchased directly from Harvard Business School. Students are responsible for preparing both the cases and the readings listed for each class. Web links lead to the actual assignments and supplemental readings for each date. Assignments list specific questions which students should be prepared to answer

For those of you visiting this website who wishes to read the cases or articles, they can be purchased online at Harvard Business School Publishing


Date

Case Study

Required Reading

Recommended Reading

Amusing Links

Introduction 
3/30/10 
  1. Netflix Battle with Blockbuster Gets Ugly

    2. Will be handed out in class
  1. How to read a case
   

Strategy 

4/01/10 
  1. Apple 2008
  1. What Is Strategy
  2. Price/Features matrix
Let Me Go Back. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5
4/06/10 
  1. LinkedIn Corp., 2008
  1. The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
  2. Product Lifecycle
Camels and Rubber Duckies
6; 7; 8
4/08/10
  1. MySQL Open Source Database
  1. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (and start-ups to win)
  2. Order of Magnitude Analysis
   

Product Planning & Marketing

4/13/10 
  1. VMware 2008
  1. Marketing Myopia
  2. The Rule of 72
   
4/15/10 
  1. Research in Motion Ltd. (A)
  1. Introduction to Marketing
  2. Basic Quantitative Analysis for Marketing
  3. Marketing Strategy
   
4/20/10 
  1. Cisco Systems: Managing the Go-to-Market Evolution
  1. Designing Channels of Distribution
   
4/22/10 
  1. Siebel Systems: Anatomy of a Sale Part 1;  Anatomy of a Sale Part 2;

    Anatomy of a Sale Part 3 (Handed out in class)
  1. Selling as a Systematic Process
   
4/27/10 
  1. Lenovo: Building a Global Brand
  1. Brands and Branding
  2. Product Lifecycle
  14; 15

Product Development
4/29/10 
  1. Teradyne Corporation: The Jaguar Project
  1. Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets
  2. Is your Product Development Process Helping or Hindering Innovation
   
5/04/10 
  1. Electronic Arts: The Blockbuster Strategy
  1. How Pixar Fosters Creativity
  2. Basic Quantitative Analysis for Marketing
Product Development Takes Ten Years. Get Used to It!
9

Group Written Assignment 
5/06/10 
  1. Flextronics: A Focus on Design Leads to India
  1. The New Practice of Global Product Development
   
5/11/10 
  1. Hewlett-Packard: The Flight of the Kittyhawk (A)
Group Assignment on Hewlett Packard is due at beginning of class (8am)
  1. A Note on Team Process
  2. Match Your Innovation Strategy to Your Innovation Ecosystem
  1. Debugging Your Product
  2. Measurement
  3. Evidenced Based Scheduling

Accounting and Finance 
5/13/10 
  1. The Case of the Unidentified Industries
  1. The Balance Sheet
  2. The Income Statement
  3. Introduction to Financial Ratios and Financial Statement Analysis
Text Book Recommendation: Essentials of Accounting By Robert Anthony and Leslie Pearlman, available on Amazon; Self-paced study of accounting. 10-15 hours to complete.
5/18/10
  1. Google & Microsoft Financial Performance and Competitive Analysis
  1. SEC Filings & Forms (EDGAR)
  10; 11; 12
5/20/10
  1. Juniper Networks
  1. New Venture Financing
  2. Funding New Ventures: Valuation, Financing and Capitalization Tables
  3. Alternate Sources of Financing
  13

Student Research Case

5/25/10
  1. Apple Inc. and the eBook
     

Individual Written Assignment 
5/27/10
  1. AMD: A Customer-Centric Approach to Innovation
Individual written assignment on AMD is due at beginning of class (8am)
  1. Industrial Marketing Strategy – An Overview
Mouth Wide Shut   

Career Planning and Responsibilities of Leadership 
6/01/10 
  1. Meg Whitman at eBay, Inc. (A)
  1. What Really Works
  2. Skill Set of the CEO
  16
6/01/10  (4:30 to 6:30 pm) 
    Meeting at California Café (Stanford Barn) 700 Welch Road, Corner of Welch and Quarry Roads, on Campus, 325-2233
Drinks (beer, wine, soft drinks); Appetizers   17; 18
 

Amusing Links

  1. Apple “1984” Commercial
  2. Microsoft Vista Commercial (2006)
  3. Windows Laptop Hunters (2008)
  4. Steve Jobs Video
  5. SNL Weekend Update IPhone
  6. Reid Hoffman / Charlie Rose
  7. Why I Invested in LinkedIn
  8. Reagan / Tear Down This Wall
  9. Gamasutra History of EA
  10. The "Internet Thing"
  11. Steve Balmer Video #1
  12. Selection-based Search
  13. Fund Raising - Israeli Style
  14. Microsoft Designs the iPod Package
  15. TRS-80 Commercial (circa 1982)
  16. Ebay by Weird Al Yankovich
  17. The Graduate (1967 Academy Award Winner)
  18. Plastics