Economic Environment and Business Strategy

By Prof. Sukumar Vellakkal | IIT Kanpur

Learners enrolled: 243 | Exam registration: 1

ABOUT THE COURSE:

The course aims at providing adequate exposure to the basic concepts and policy issues related to the economic and business environments, both nationally and globally. Furthermore, this course is designed better to understand macroeconomic dynamics within business and the economy. It also offers an understanding of how the business will succeed in a dynamic business environment with competitive strategies. Finally, the course aims to enhance our understanding of how business decisions are made.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Senior UG and PG Students

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Academia, Public Policy institutions, Economic Environment Research, Consultancy and Financial firms

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Economics Managerial Economics
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	18 Aug 2025
End Date :	10 Oct 2025
Enrollment Ends :	18 Aug 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	29 Aug 2025
Exam Date :	01 Nov 2025 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Introduction to Economic and business environment: Concepts, Internal and External environmental variables; Economic, political, legal, environmental, technological, reputational risks

Week 2: Government intervention in competitive markets: costs and benefits

Week 3: Understanding macroeconomic environment: Key Macroeconomic Variables: GDP and Inflation and their relevance to business

Week 4: Financial Environment: Direct and Indirect finance; financial institutions: Banking, insurance, mutual funds and pension funds: Financial instruments and markets; Bond markets; Regulation of Financial markets; Credit ratings

Week 5: Economic Policy Environment: Basics on monetary and fiscal policy; India’s economic environment

Week 6: Understanding an open economy: Balance of Payment, Capital and Current Account, Ex- change rate determination

Week 7: Understanding global business environment: Business Cycles, International trade. CBAM – Free Trade, WTO negotiations

Week 8: Introduction to strategic management: Environmental scanning, Industry Analysis, Internal scanning; Corporate Strategy, Competitive tactics and strategies, basic types of strategic alliances

Books and references

A: Text Books

1: Wetherly, Paul, and Dorron Otter. The business environment: themes and issues in a globalizing world. Oxford University Press, USA, 2014.

2: Wheelen, Thomas L., et al. Strategic management and business policy: Globalization, innovation, and sustainability. pearson, 2018.

3: Mankiw, N. G., Kneebone, R. D., McKenzie, K. J., & Rowe, N. (2007). Principles of macroeconomics.

4: Mishkin, Frederic S. The Economics of Money, Banking and Financial Markets (Addison Wesley) Ninth Edition, 2010

B: Other Materials

1: Websites of Regulatory and Promotional institutions: RBI (www.rbi.org); IMF data (www.imf.org/en/Data); FRED (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2); RBI: Handbook of Statistics On Indian Economy

2: Economic Dailies: Economic times, Business standard, Financial express, Hindu business line, The Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), Financial Times (www.ft.com), Bloomberg (www.bloomberg.com), and The Economist (www.economist.com)

Instructor bio

Prof. Sukumar Vellakkal

IIT Kanpur

Dr. Sukumar Vellakkal is working as Associate Professor at Department of Economic Sciences, IIT Kanpur. Dr Vellakkal holds a PhD in economics from ISEC Bangalore. His teaching interest and expertise include macroeconomics, banking, financial economics, health economics and impact evaluation methodologies. Prior to joining IIT Kanpur, he was post-doctoral researcher at Oxford University and also worked with various academic and research institutions as faculty member, namely, ICRIER (New Delhi), PHFI (New Delhi), Azim Premji University Bangalore, and BITS Pilani.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: November 01, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kanpur. It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

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