Business in Action

The course is a compendium of knowledge and skills necessary to establish and run own business. The course presents critical steps in the process of designing a company, starting from a business idea and market analysis, through financial and strategic issues, to formal and legal aspects. In this context, the course consists of 6 thematic modules, corresponding to six essential steps in the process of establishing a business. The course inspires and encourages creative thinking about own business, and at the same time encourages participants to rationalise the entire process, so as to protect them against hasty and risky decisions.

Course curriculum:

Module 1. Initiation of the business

Module 2. Market analysis

Module 3. Financial analysis

Module 4. Strategy

Module 5. Financing

Module 6. Organisational and legal form and incorporation

Addressees of the course:

The course is addressed primarily to first-cycle students of economics and management, but it will also be useful as a supplementary/complementary course for those pursuing programmes other than economics who plan to develop their own business.

Conditions for completing the course:

To successfully complete the course, it is necessary to take a final test with 30 closed-ended questions and score at least 51% (16 points).

Requirements for getting a certificate:

To obtain a course certificate (generated automatically within 24 hours from completion of the course and available for download from the “My courses – My certificates” tab), it is necessary to take a final test and score at least 16 points.

Educational outcomes:

1. Knowledge:

- The student knows and understands the principles applicable to writing a plan of business undertakings in the context of macro- and microeconomic conditions, strategy selection, business model and organisational architecture.

- The student knows and understands the course and stages of the company incorporation process in the context of formal and legal aspects involved, depending on the organisational form and ownership of a new business.

- The student knows and understands fundamental mechanisms of economic analysis, including: financial analysis, marketing analysis and market analysis.

2. Skills:

- The student identifies and analyses all endogenous and exogenous factors that determine the choice of a business model, is able to review them and make an optimal choice based on such analysis.

- The student is able to design business undertakings in the form of Business Model Canvas, taking into account legal, financial, marketing and strategic determinants.

3. Attitudes (social competences):

- The student is creative and open to new initiatives, while maintaining a critical and rational approach to assessing various scenarios for new business undertakings.

- The student is determined, goal-oriented and takes responsibility for their achievement.

Course staff:

Aneta Zelek, azelek@zpsb.pl dr hab., prof. ZPSB Aneta Zelek - economist, academic lecturer and trainer of managers; professor and rector of the West Pomeranian Business School (ZPSB). She is the author of over 230 academic publications in the field of economics and management, mainly onstrategic and crisis management. Her original textbook: “Business Strategies: From Classics to Post-Modernism in Management” received Karol Adamiecki scientific award from the Scientific Society for Organisation and Management (TNOiK). A woman of numerous talents and passions, but her greatest passion is “explaining economics”. Although, as she claims, there is nothing fascinating about economics, one has to understand it! That is why she has been talking and writing about economic and business topics for over thirty years with an unwavering commitment. Her students and audiences unanimously agree that she is a “truly erudite scholar in economics”, which is why they so often reward her efforts with laurels and prizes for the best lecturer.