The common thread that binds all of these widely ranging topics together is high technology. High-technology firms place greater emphasis on certain areas of managerial knowledge and skills. Semiconductors, Computers and Telecommunications are the high-technology industries on which this course will focus. These mainstream Electronics industries impact modern society in a major way, and are closely related to one another. Two key areas of knowledge in high-technology environments are quality and technology.
Quality is important due to the extremely competitive nature of the high-technology industries.
Since technology is arguably the most fundamental aspect of high-technology firms, anyone who wishes to be a manager in such a firm must know something about it. Therefore this course includes a relatively intuitive overview of technology in the three mainstream industries. Each of these functions will be discussed. Human Resource issues, Materials Management, and a variety of topics related to overall company strategy will also be given significant attention. Since a high percentage of the people who work at high-technology firms are engineers, it is worthwhile to be aware of how they tend operate and what is important to them.