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What is a Capstone?

A capstone is a senior-level course in the Telfer Bachelor of Commerce program that lets you put theory into practice. You hone key business skills such as leadership, problem-solving and decision-making through the many capstone courses offered. 

All capstone courses simulate real-life business challenges in fields such as management, marketing and finance. During your capstone, you work with other students to analyze organizational challenges and develop strategies to present to a panel of industry professionals. In certain courses, you compete with your peers for a chance to win cash prizes.

The ADM 4311 (Strategic Management) course is a required course for all BCom students.  As part of this course, students undertake the Intopia Strategy Simulation. This simulation provides the opportunity for students to develop a strategy for an organization and then make required decisions before a predetermined time elapses. Student teams must negotiate with each other in order to grow their business over multiple decisions. Intopia participants get immediate feedback on their decisions and are given the opportunity to apply what they learned during their four years at the Telfer School.

Learn more about the Strategic Management capstone

This course integrates social and environmental issues with strategy frameworks to make the business case for sustainable enterprises. With an emphasis on leadership and decision making, students will explore how organizations are embracing innovative business models that tackle grand challenges such as resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and climate change. As the capstone course for students in Management, this course emphasizes action through case studies, simulations, and an applied community consulting project that allows students to apply core strategy concepts to real organizational challenges.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Leadership, Strategy and Sustainability CAPSTONE

As part of this highly applied marketing capstone, students undertake the Michel Cloutier Marketing Competition. The founder who originally created this opportunity was late professor and Associate Dean, Michel Cloutier, in 1986. The competition was renamed in his honour in 1991.

The purpose of the Competition is to have students work in groups to address a strategic promotional mandate from a major corporate sponsor. The Competition itself sees the 3 best promotional plans be presented to a panel of industry professionals.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Promotional Planning Practicum CAPSTONE

This integrative, capstone course for the HRM option is designed to teach prospective human resource professionals how to plan and make decisions about the allocation and alignment of human resources, within a given organizational strategy. Students will acquire technical knowledge related to traditional human resource planning activities, such as forecasting demand and ascertaining supply of human resources and implementing a succession management program.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Strategic Human Resources Planning capstone

Students in this class integrate their knowledge acquired in other finance and accounting courses to make multidisciplinary decisions. As part of this capstone course, students participate in the Lekadir LLP Accounting Case Competition, in which they analyze a real company and report on accounting issues being faced by the company. The judging panel includes partners from Lekadir LLP.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Cases Studies in Accounting

Students of ADM 4350 take part in a case analysis competition where they have to assess the value of a real-life company and propose a course of action that the company could take to solve its challenges and future opportunities.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Equity Valuation CAPSTONE

As a capstone course in Business Technology Management, this course offers an integrated perspective on the strategic role of information systems (IS) in improving business performance; socio-technical critical success factors underlying effective IS strategy formulation; and best practices for digital transformation initiatives. The course incorporates various experiential learning activities including case discussions, simulations and a field project. Course topics include IT business leadership, Business-IT alignment, and Digital Transformation Strategy. Special topics pertaining to strategic considerations for emerging technologies may also be included.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE Digital Enterprise Systems and Strategies CAPSTONE

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