BA Hons Business Enterprise & Marketing

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

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 COREecon resources, which provides a complete introduction to economics and the economy. COREecon 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 a complex process involving many different skills and activities, but it is based upon simple principles: understanding what customers want and need, being able to collect and process information relevant to the marketing environment and being able to put together and implement plans to take the business forward.

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.

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-centered Learning approaches

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.  

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 MDP3; 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 MDP 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.

At the heart of this class is the recognition that services present unique challenges, and that building customer relationships through quality service is fundamental to marketing success in every organisation. Over the past decade the retail sector has been one of the most dynamic areas in business. The retail sector also provides a very clear indication of the overall health and robustness of the economy. The rise or fall of the individual’s disposable income is very quickly reflected in terms of expenditure on items. In this respect, the retail sector acts as the weather vane for the economy.

Many of the fundamental concepts of marketing are based on an ability to understand consumers and the marketing concept can be implemented more effectively when adequate information about the market and potential consumer behaviour is available. Marketing Research and customer information provide a critical input to the planning and development of a company's marketing strategy in relation to marketing communications, strategic marketing and branding.

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 SBS. You work on two live business consultancy projects (one in each semester) and, as a team of 6, 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 MDP3 although there is pathway support with the pathway leads and tutor support.

This class will outline and discuss the strategic role of marketing in a digital context, and further elaborate on the integration of digital marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing and traditional and digital marketing communications. You will learn about the enduring strategic power of marketing communications in a digital world and learn how to plan for effective, strategic communications which integrate a wide range of channels including the traditional communications mix and the extended mix including all the assets of the brand and digital opportunities.

This core class addresses the strategy formulation and planning aspects associated with strategic marketing management as it is applied in domestic and international contexts. The class offers students an analytic decision oriented approach for the development and implementation of international marketing strategy.

The importance of brands raises significant questions of how to develop brand equity and how to communicate a branding strategy of differentiation, value and identification. The role of the Brand Manager is reviewed along with formulating the necessary communication strategies to build brand equity and secure market share.

More recent approaches in this vein suggest that the traditional Brand Management approach is all too limited, leaving many questions unanswered. Consequently more recent approaches address the co-construction of brand value, through viral branding, using social media, co-branding and brand extensions. In this respect, the principles of branding are now being applied beyond simply new product development, to such strategies as places, communities and countries.

Other key strategies that may be discussed include, luxury branding, nation branding, business-to-business branding and corporate brands.

This course aims to build foundational knowledge of traditional commercial-oriented Marketing, by examining applications of Marketing in a social context. Each year millions of pounds are spent world-wide to combat health and social problems such as HIV/AIDS, smoking, drug and alcohol abuse and rising obesity levels. At the same time excessive consumptions burdens society with building landfills and increasing pollution. Meanwhile there are still people who consume 'too little' and who suffer from hunger.

The class considers recent research in a variety of Social Marketing contexts and material is continuously updated to ensure that students gain an understanding of the most relevant and critical Social Marketing trends.

This class provides students with an understanding of some of the contemporary issues and challenges in understanding consumers. Building on the undergraduate Consumer Behaviour class, this module aims to develop students’ ability to analyse consumer behaviour in a variety of situations and to explore the complexity of 21st century consumption.

The class reviews consumer trends and the significance of consumer culture, and then explores topics that are the focus of recent research attention. Current topics include consumer identity (possessions and body image); consumer vulnerability; postmodern consumers; consumer tribes; consumption spaces; consumers and celebrities and consumers and ethics.

This class examines the theoretical underpinnings which help explain the operations of such enterprises, covering both international business strategy and international business management. This will be achieved by exploring contemporary issues in academic thought and international business practice.

The class will create a learning environment in which students can enhance their knowledge of relevant marketing communications theories and develop the necessary analytical, creative and decision-making skills required to effectively manage IMC in a variety of contexts.

This class provides you with an opportunity to study and apply marketing principles and concepts to a sector that has gained increasing significance in society world-wide. We’ve witnessed the emergence of a sports culture in many countries. This, in turn, has led to the emergence of sport as a global industry.

Sport is one of the most important sectors in the UK in terms of spectator interest, participation and consumer spending. It is also a varied industry consisting of sports products as well as sports services, spectator sports, sports media and sport-related travel.

This class explores sustainability and the role of marketing in society as an agent of change. Marketing as a discipline is often tarnished by the assumption that it focuses on encouraging overconsumption, driving sales for sales sake and is misleading the public. Whilst this is often true, marketing also has a substantial role to play in tackling the biggest challenges in our society, and in particular driving societal discourse and market change towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This class builds from a foundation of evidence-based marketing, driven by systems thinking, understanding full product and service life cycles and fact-led decision-making. Ensuring the claims made and communication approaches employed are substantiated, well-designed and targeted at change for good. A number of different techniques are explored to identify and exploit vectors for change through different approaches to understanding market systems, targeting key stakeholders to drive change, and marketing tactics for reshaping market, organisational and consumer behaviour. The class is an advanced marketing class, assuming a sound grounding in areas of consumer behaviour, branding, strategic marketing and marketing research as a foundation on which more advanced concepts can be built.