BA Hons Business Analysis & Technology

This module includes two thematic parts which run in parallel across the semester. One part, Introduction to Tourism Studies, introduces tourism management as both, international business and as a global cultural phenomenon.

It provides insights into key concepts and theories to understand the intricacy of this industry in commercial, cultural and environmental terms. The other part, Managing People, focuses on the contemporary and practical issues of how people are organised and managed in the workplace and examines different theoretical perspectives which help our understanding of the complex relationship between the employer and the employee in the contemporary business environment.

The module will provide you with a balanced introduction to economics which will be based on a programme of systematic directed reading, supplemented by experiments and exercises undertaken in tutorials. 

The module uses the innovative CORE (Curriculum Open-Access Resources in Economics) Econ resources, which provides a complete introduction to economics and the economy. CORE Econ teaches about the economy and economics by starting from a question or a problem about the economy - why the advent of capitalism is associated with a sharp increase in average living standards, for example - and then teach the tools of economics that contribute to an answer. This innovative approach ensures that students understand how the tools of economics can help us understand the modern economy. 

The second half of the module is the study of how analytical thinking, scientific method and associated tools can be used to help decision making. This Business Analysis element of the module will provide an overview of where methods and tools are widely used across a large range of industries including the manufacturing, retail, healthcare, financial services, travel, and electronics industries, as well as in local and national government. 

Examples of where Business Analysis is put into practice are: 

• the management of new building projects
• the design of efficient transport systems and plant layouts
• personnel scheduling
• allocation of resources and financial modelling and forecasting

This area of expertise can help to reduce costs, increase revenues, improve customer service, increase efficiency and can even save lives. 

The aim of this module is to provide you with a solid foundation and understanding of the theories and principles underlying marketing and entrepreneurship. A combination of the subjects will be taught to enhance understanding of the way the two disciplines address issues related to both the macro and micro-environment contexts of markets and entrepreneurship.

Marketing is everywhere in contemporary society. It plays a central role in business as it is concerned with the creation and retention of customers. The module is designed to give you a foundational understanding of marketing and a critical introduction to the topic of marketing in both theory and practice through a series of lectures and workshops.

In your first-year class you will explore the core concepts of value and exchange. You will learn what marketing is and its core principles such as analysing the marketing environment, developing a marketing strategy, and dealing with the marketing mix i.e., product, price, place, and promotion. You will learn how organisations develop a customer centric approach to marketing and how that can create a competitive advantage in a dynamic business environment.

The assessment for this module will involve individual coursework.

In this module, you will be exposed to concepts and ideas from economics, sociology, psychology, geography and other social sciences, all in the context of the competitive business environment.

Entrepreneurship too is a complex process involving many different skills and activities, though it is based upon a 'mindset and process by which an individual or group identifies and successfully exploits a new idea or opportunity. For this part of the module, you'll be working in teams to learn about the ideation process, which forms the foundations of new venture creation, in our Creative Challenge.

This module will provide you with an introduction to finance and accounting, covering the basic concepts and practicalities of corporate finance, the principles of valuation, financial management and business investment, the role and purpose of company accounts and their usefulness, security analysis, risk and returns from investments, and personal finance.

At all times the module content will be linked with financial behaviour and events in the real world.

This module introduces learners to the field and practice of international business and management.

Drawing on classical and recent debates in theory and practice including, but not limited to commercial concerns, learners will be equipped with an understanding of the foundational principles and developments of the subject.

In the module, we consider how international business and management is researched, and facilitate a critical understanding based on real-life case studies in international contexts. This module gives learners the capacity to look at the past, present and future in organisations and provides the foundations for intellectual progression in the subject, and broadly, for year two and beyond.  

The ICE Pathway - “Innovation, Commercialisation & Entrepreneurship”, where you'll learn about the Foundations of 'What is Business’.  Alongside:

• Personal & Professional Development: Who am I? How Do I learn? How do I lead & work in a team?
• Knowledge & Practice: What is a business/organisation? Why does this matter? How does this affect society?
• Experiential Learning: Real-world cases & clients; team-based and student-centred Learning approaches

This class aims to support you in developing key skills that are important to both your academic and future career. These include skills associated with:

• research
• data analysis
• critical writing
• team working
• communication

Topics

Semester 1 topics include:

• Working in Business Organisations
• Working Business Research & Consultancy
• Working Internationally
• Working in the Third Sector
• Rhetorics & Oratory

Semester 2 is about developing the proposal of Management Development Programme 3; with a presentation and a final report.

Class description

The second year concentrates on developing understanding through industry-specific contextualisation. Sessions are weekly and three hours in length.

The sessions are thematically linked to the pathways for individualised experience in third year whilst also drawing on the theoretical knowledge developed in Management Development Programme 1. In order to develop understanding, organisations will deliver a half-day session. This consists of a one hour plenary introduction where the company and case study are introduced. This is followed by the group sessions where you undertake activities in relation to the case study set by the company.

This class is one of the two undergraduate Business Analysis & Technology classes before the Honours year that apply various approaches to operations management problems. Following on from the fundamentals in the first year class, this class introduces you to the subject of operations management in detail and provides opportunity for you to apply some of the basic decision analysis techniques, including simulation, in this context.

This class forms a bridge between the first year class and more advanced classes in Enterprise Resource Planning, Business Process Outsourcing, the role of ICT in business environment, etc.

The class will seek to combine conceptual and technical skills, and it will provide the basis for a series of classes in third and Honours years, especially in areas of Business Process Integration with ERP, organisational innovation and E-commerce.

The third year of centres on individualised experience in an organisational context through one of the following pathways:

• Internship/Charities - gain practical experience in a private or third sector organisation. You need to negotiate and locate your own organisation and experience – this is one of the key learning points of the pathway.
• Research and consultancy - a facility for local small businesses to gain from the experience and expertise of those within Strathclyde Business School. You work on two live business consultancy projects (one in each semester) and, as a team of six, develop solutions and strategic initiatives for the local SME economy.
• International experience – only available for students who are undertaking an international exchange for either one semester or full year.
• Vertically Integrated Projects - working on a cross-faculty basis to research longitudinal projects (including the ‘Bill Gates Toilet Challenge, Solar Panels for Gambia and Enterprise in Schools) you work with a team of students from all levels of study (first year undergraduate to final year PhD) to further the work of the project.

In addition, you’re required to undertake a social responsibility element (this accounts for one quarter of the overall workload).

These have been designed to provide support to the Curriculum for Excellence and the Widening Access to Higher Education programme. There are no formal classes for Management Development Programme 3 although there is pathway support with the pathway leads and tutor support.

The first part of the course will introduce and build experience in two problem structuring methods, SODA and Soft Systems Methodology. The second part will establish an overall understanding of how supply chains work as well as appropriate modelling approaches to address various operational challenges. The third part of the course will introduce basic mathematical optimisation modelling and present how it can be used to tackle problems in different business systems, including applications in supply chains.

The fourth and final part of the course will introduce the students to the ideas of Multi-criteria Decision Analysis to make students aware of the importance of carefully defining objectives when intervening in business systems. Overall, the course will equip students with the qualitative and quantitative analytic skills and techniques in order to make action recommendations for performance improvements in complex business systems.

In this module, you will develop a comprehensive picture about knowledge and innovation. It goes to the very basis of what constitutes knowledge and knowledge work, and based on this, develops the notion of creativity, as creation of new knowledge, and subsequently conceptualises innovation as new value created from the new knowledge.

An important aspect of this module is the experiential learning element, where you'll work in teams on management science projects, directly for external clients.

The clients will introduce their problems, provide information during the project, and listen to your recommended solutions. These client projects will be chosen to highlight the differing nature of individual practice, allowing comparisons between qualitative and quantitative projects to be explored.

Alongside the experiential learning will be a reflective element, which will focus on issues relating to client, consultant relations and implementation of management science, as well as addressing more conceptual issues relating to problem structuring, modelling, data collection, and choosing and mixing methods in the light of your growing experience.

Professional and ethical considerations will be highlighted, introducing you to the areas of agreement and debate within the profession. This module will also include an individual or small group project, where you'll select a technique or method they haven’t previously studied to research in more depth, mirroring professional development that they will undertake in practice. This component of the module will be managed through learning contracts.

Identifying and managing risk is a fundamental skill required by managers. Many models exist for supporting risk assessment and this is a major area of interest within the Management Science department.

This module will introduce you to the general concepts of risk and common measures used as well as considering ways of modelling and interpreting technical risk within the context of managing complex systems in areas such as transportation, aerospace, health.

It'll develop knowledge and skills introduced in years 1-3 in operations, statistics and modelling modules by integrating and extending them within the context of risk assessment.

This module builds upon your understanding of information systems. It'll provide you with the opportunity to develop analytical approaches for mining data using commercial software that'll be intellectually challenging and useful.

This module focuses on the methods used for mining data, complementing the other Honours modules that provide business context and processes.

This module investigates the application of sophisticated business technology systems to the management and, more particularly, integration of business processes.

In doing so, it builds directly on the knowledge and skills acquired as part of Management of Business Processes and, in a more indirect manner, on modules like Technological and Organisational Innovation, Information Systems in the Knowledge Economy, and Information Systems Support for Managers.

This class will examine contemporary issues within Business Technology. It will provide students with the latest trends and thinking on Technology issues, which will prepare them for their future graduate career. For example, key trends to be discussed in the coming year will be Cloud Computing and Open Source Software.

This class also seeks to explore the inter-relationship that exists between a theoretically grounded understanding of technology and its effect on how modern organisations adopt such technology through an increasingly changing and competitive environment. This class will build upon skills gained in previous years, whilst allowing students to generate their own knowledge through rigorous class discussion and presentations.

Project management and project based organisations are becoming increasingly common in industry. Therefore, this class assumes that every management student requires some knowledge of the tools and techniques used to manage projects within organisations. The class aims to provide the student with these. It will introduce the student with no project management background to:

1. the concept of the project lifecycle
2. project management as a strategic tool
3. the methodologies and tools that enable efficient project execution

The class will familiarise the student with the basic concepts associated with project management.

This class forms the taught element of the dissertation. It should provide the underpinning philosophy, methods and practice you need to undertake effective research. Teaching methods will rely on a combination of formal lectures and student participation in class discussions on issues arising.