International Financial Management and Control - English - 4 years - Full-time
IFMC will give you the tools to excel in business and financial management. You’ll learn all about management and marketing. But the main focus will be on financial accounting and cost accounting, using economic data to better a company’s market position. In the year one, you’ll develop an understanding of organisational costs and business administration and how to set up an investment plan for an international company. We’ll challenge you with business issues, which you’ll have to solve in group projects. In year four, you’ll go on an internship at an international organisation before finishing the programme with a minor and thesis to help you on your way to a career in finance or business.
Contact the study
If you have any further questions about admission requirements, enrolment or about following the IFMC programme, please e-mail Drs. Erik van den Ham at e.j.vandenham@hhs.nl
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Structure of International Financial Management and Control - English - 4 years - Full-time
Lectures
20hours per week
Self-study
20hours per week
Projects
10hours per week
Study credits
60in year one
Year 1
The first year is the foundation (propaedeutic) year.
Year one is all about equipping you with the skills to steer an organisation in the right direction. For starters, you’ll learn how to register financial data to create annual reports for large companies. But what about preparing an investment plan, or setting up business procedures within an organisation? Year one will feature a lot more than numbers and legislation. You’ll take part in a Business Game, a computer based game that will train you to run a fictitious business. What revenue models could you use to turn a company around? How do you manage a so-called lean start-up with minimum expense and maximum revenue? Year one also offers an Excel masterclass, so you can practice what you preach to international companies.
Timetable
Year 2
Delve deeper
In year two, practical projects and articles on recent business cases replace the textbooks. Once every quarter, you’ll get to meet financial professionals and executives that work at companies like Ernst and Young, Nestlé and BP to learn how to run a business from a financial perspective. You’ll also examine the financial fall-out of a near-collapsed banking system in the US and new, shared economy pioneers like AirBnB. You’ll focus on real business cases that make the news from a financial controller’s perspective. Recently, Shell’s head of PR explained how business ethics form the foundation for any financial controller to our students and how he/she must make crucial investment decisions on a daily basis.
Year 3
Specialisation and exchange
In year three, it’s time for you to see what financial controllers actually do during an internship, where you’ll put what you’ve learnt in practice. Many students go to financial companies like Delta Lloyd, but you could also could end up somewhere like Harrods in the UK. Your tasks will differ during this internship. You could be responsible for implementing a new financial system, supporting the treasury, or managing a company’s inventory. The second term of year three deals with an increasingly important aspect of financial control - risk management. During this phase, you’ll master business information systems that help smooth the decision-making process. You’ll also follow an Advanced Finance course and choose from a range of electives, for example, a crowd-funding project where students create a business plan and secure investment in a limited time span.
Year 4
Internship and graduation
Often an undergraduate thesis is a challenging but obligatory task. After completing it most students never look at it again. But what if we were to tell you that the subject of your thesis in year four could save an international company thousands of euros and generate real cash flow? And what if, as we have seen with so many students, your thesis can land you a job after graduation? On IFMC, students often write their thesis combined with their internship in year four. One IFMC student proposed a new online inventory system for Mediamarkt - a Dutch electronics store - that put the responsibility of replenishing Mediamarkt’s stock on the suppliers’ side. His just-in-time inventory system minimised overstocking and reduced the financial exposure faced by Mediamarkt. He now works for Mediamarkt as a financial advisor.
Minors
Shape your degree
Most IFMC students enter the workforce with some form of specialism. We have two special minors called Risk Management and Controlling at IFMC, but you could decide to do a different minor at another THUAS faculty. Are you more internationally inclined? No problem, we have a list of 350 partner universities offering minors, such as University of Lyon, France, University of Dusseldorf, Germany and University of Seoul, South Korea.
Working methods
Lectures, seminars, study visits, self-study, group activities and project work
Each term we invite CFO’s and CEO’s from the business world to be guest lecturers at IFMC. Recently, Anton Philips, the grandson of the Philips founder, gave students an inspiring lecture on how to successfully manage costs. The new economy needs doers not philosophers. And that’s what distinguishes IFMC’s teaching methods from an academic university. For example, year one will equip you with an Advanced Microsoft Office diploma, which will make you an Excel wizard. Practical skills like these will give you a head start when you graduate. In all likelihood, these skills could land you a higher starting salary than other business management programme graduates.
Assistance during your studies
Study coaching and advice
We assume your time on IFMC will run smoothly. However, we do offer personal assistance if you are experiencing any study problems. You’ll be allocated a mentor who can help you keep track of your study progress. He/she can help you improve your time management skills, or find the right people within the programme to answer more complicated questions. He/she will also support you if you have any personal problems that can adversely affect your schoolwork.
Collect ECTS
Binding Study Advice (BSA)
If you haven’t acquired the basics needed to continue the degree programme of your choice, you will have a hard time completing it successfully. To make sure that you have these basics, you will have to meet an academic progress standard during your first year as a student (the foundation year). If you have earned at least 50 of the 60 credits (or, if relevant, have satisfied a qualitative requirement), the Examination Board will give you a positive binding study advice to continue your degree programme. In most cases, if you earn fewer than 50 credits, you will receive a Negative Binding Study Advice (NBSA) and you will have to leave the degree programme.
But the Examination Board will always consider personal circumstances. These could include illness or participating in elite sports: personal conditions that might have kept you from meeting the required academic standard. In such cases, the Examination Board can postpone giving its study advice. This means that you can continue your degree programme for the time being and that your study advice will be issued later, possibly with additional conditions imposed.
It is important, however, that you inform the Examination Board immediately of any personal conditions that might apply to you.
In conclusion: every student is responsible for his or her own academic progress. For this reason, make sure to contact your academic career coach early on if things are not going well. Read all the rules and requirements for the binding study advice in Chapter 7 of the Programme and Examination Regulations (PER) for your degree programme.