Why ICORE?

ICORE:

  • Serves to broaden the Kelley student before they go on to become specialists dealing only with a single component of business

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  • Considers business as a whole and from a very diverse set of perspectives

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  • Helps students to better choose a field of concentration and to also better understand the function of their chosen field in the overall scheme of business

    • Pre-requisites & General Overview

    Educational Breadth
    I-Core serves to broaden the Kelley student before they go on to become specialists dealing only with a single component of business. I-Core pushes students to consider business as a whole and from a very diverse set of perspectives. It is a semester that forces students to stretch their understanding, to approach general business issues with both strongly conceptual and strongly analytical models and methods. The corporation (viewed in a holistic sense) is the focal point of all four I-Core classes. The Kelley student must learn to address issues ranging from precise internal corporate issues to more diffuse external market-wide issues. In this sense I-Core helps students to better choose a field of concentration and to also better understand the function of their chosen field in the overall scheme of business.

    Educational Depth
    I-Core represents a key step in the progressive deepening of a student’s intellect and skill set across their undergraduate experience at the Kelley School. First, through the study of a set of business problems and situations, students are time and again asked to apply many important skills and concepts learned earlier in their prerequisite classes. In one sense, I-Core is a semester-wide and semester-long application of critical concepts from economics, accounting, statistics, math and computer technology. At the same time, I-Core also introduces students to many important new concepts in the fields of finance, marketing, operations and strategy. In terms of rigor and content, these I-Core classes are structured so as to create a semester that is a definite step-up in the level of analysis and study required from a student. In this sense, students who have completed I-Core will have met a rigorous set of standards that signals that they are now able and ready (that they are academically mature enough) to handle the high standards set in individual areas of concentration.

    Prerequisites For I-Core

    * Students must be admitted to the Kelley School.
    * Completion of 56 credit hours.
    * successfully complete 15 prerequisite courses (or approved substitutes) with a grade of C or higher:

    ENG-W 131
    BUS-X 104
    BUS-X 204

    MATH-M 118
    MATH-M 119

    ECON-E 201
    BUS-G 202
    ECON-E 370

    BUS-A 100
    BUS-A 201
    BUS-A 202
    BUS-L 201
    BUS-K 201
    BUS-X 201
    BUS-X 220

    For approved course substitutions please see an academic advisor.

    NOTE: Students matriculating prior to Fall 2004 may use ECON-E 202 instead of BUS-G 202 as an I-Core prerequisite. However, they will be required to complete both courses before graduation.
    Students must apply for I-Core

    Students must complete an I-Core Certification Application the semester before registering for the Integrative Core. Visit www.kelley.iu.edu/ugrad/applist.html for applications. Applications are open from September 15 to October 15 for students registering for spring I-Core and from February 15 to March 15 for both summer and fall I-Core.

     

    Development Through The Semester In I-Core
    Students take all four classes as a group and develop a strong sense of being part of an overall system and organization. Policies and practices are consistent across the four I-Core classes and certain expectations are communicated to students with respect to their interaction with faculty and with other students in assigned teams. There are a number of team assignments and given that grades are very competitive in I-Core therefore students must learn to balance their individual goals with the need to contribute to the overall success of the team. Teams also provide students with opportunities to learn professional habits and communication skills from each other. Through the use of selected workshops held on Fridays, students are exposed to issues related to Diversity, Ethics and other timely business topics through a mechanism named the Knowledge Expansion Day. Finally, in taking four classes with a large group of peers, students can not help but to gain a good feel for their relative strengths and weaknesses, passions and dislikes. This helps a student to project forward and assess the level of success they may realize in different areas or positions within a company.

    The I-Core Case
    The I-Core semester is well known for its large end-of-semester two-week case. For this case, student teams act as divisional managers or perhaps as consultants who advise upper management as to the merits, impacts, and best design of a major capital investment project. For many of the I-Core cases, students consider the launch of a new product by firm which already has a line-up of products and some operating history. They are first asked to complete several analyses related to each of the four core classes; strategy, marketing, operations and finance. These assignments typically take about four days to complete. Some assignments deal with stand-alone issues such as whether to hedge exchange risk or not, while others are interconnected such as when students first estimate product demand as a marketing assignment and then use these forecasts to build an aggregate plan in an operations assignment.

    Strategy typically examines the status of where the company stands. In launching this portion of the case students will need to look at its competitive environment; its business-level strategy, its strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities; consumer and supplier power; the role of Porter’s five forces and many other strategic tools for analysis.

    Marketing tends to examine demand elasticities. Through this the student can recommend a price for the new product as well as a channel through which to distribute it. Students will need to devise a promotional plan for their product and assess marketing possibilities.

    Operations assignments may relate to the choice of assembly for the new product, the potential for outsourcing, production planning with seasonality issues, the choice of suppliers, and learning costs for new employees and possible other issues.

    Finance assignments focus strongly on capital budgeting. Students determine a cost of capital and use information from marketing and operations to build near-term estimates of cash flow.

    In the second stage of case, students must bring together all the information, findings and insight from the subject-specific assignments and complete two broader and more integrated assignments.

       One of these assignments will focus on the firm’s current practices and product line. Teams must provide an evaluation of the firm and make recommendations for improvement. In doing so, they are asked to evaluate the ways in which problems or changes in one area may impact the other areas of the firm.

       The second of these assignments is to write an executive summary focusing on the proposed new product launch and its production issues, marketing issues, strategic issues and financial issues. The summary should contain a set of recommendations for the launch and any insight and data that will support those recommendations.

    This Case Assignment seeks to broaden the student’s understanding of business. The overall goal is to introduce new skills and concepts while reinforcing previously learned skills and concepts. This assignment should push students to higher levels of commitment and analytical ability by advancing their development as a professional in a simulated professional working organization.