Business with Marketing - BA (Hons)

This module progresses on from the Level 4 module Introduction to Data Analytics and AI. Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the business world and personal lives, and ‘Big Data’ is everywhere. This module will demonstrate how organisations apply analytical tools and techniques by harvesting and leveraging data to gain a competitive edge. Machine Learning (ML) is an analytical technique that delivers practical value for both organisations plus consumers and is embedded within modern products and services. Business processes, workflows and systems have been revolutionised via automation achieved from machine learning algorithms. You will be exposed to best practice approaches for building, training and evaluating machine learning algorithms such as neural networks, agent-based modelling, reinforcement learning and logistic regression.

Contemporary Global Management is a thought-provoking module designed to engage you with fast moving contemporary, political/social and business issues, and to deepen your understanding of how these contemporary issues influence the leadership, management and operation of modern globally connected businesses.

The Consumer Behaviour module builds on foundational marketing concepts, deepening your understanding of consumer behaviour in both domestic and international contexts. It unpacks the complex factors that drive decision-making, offering an insightful exploration of individual, social, and cultural influences.

In this Business Strategy module, you will explore the key concepts that shape strategy, formation and execution. Comprehensive coverage of topics includes current debates on ethics and resource-based strategy, more classic topics on the external environment, internal environment, including strategic management of business challenges.  

In this module, you will develop a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial process, focusing on the evaluation of the feasibility of new business ventures. You will explore how businesses are formed, structured, and strategically developed to achieve long-term sustainability.

In this module, you will explore the intricate relationship between legal frameworks and business operations, focusing on how laws shape, constrain, and enable business activities. This module delves into the critical areas of business law, including contract law, corporate governance, employment law, and intellectual property. As businesses operate in increasingly complex environments, a comprehensive understanding of these legal areas is essential for navigating risks and ensuring compliance.

Supply Chain Management has evolved in line with the development of the global economy. It is now widely considered a strategic activity, which manages supplier relationships, enables supply chain/network innovation, reduces cost, and mitigates impact from/on the environment.

This module will give an integrative perspective of the business organisation and underpinning knowledge of Sustainable Supply Chain Management and Logistics. It provides you with an introduction to modern supply chain management, sustainability and sustainable supply chain management principles, processes and the environment within which the Supply Chain manager operates.

In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, effective marketing communications are the cornerstone of successful marketing strategy as they give visibility to, and understanding of, an organisation’s products and / or services in order to drive a response from a target audience. The Integrated Marketing Communications module will explore the principles, tools and techniques of marketing communications and look at how these can be used to develop campaigns that resonate meaningfully with the desired audience.

This module is designed to provide you with the opportunity to undertake a credit bearing, 40- week Professional Placement as an integral part of your Undergraduate Degree.    The purpose of the Professional Placement is to improve your employability skills which will, through the placement experience, allow you to evidence your professional skills, attitudes and behaviours at the point of entry to the postgraduate job market.  Furthermore, by completing the Professional Placement, you will be able to develop and enhance your understanding of the professional work environment, relevant to your chosen field of study, and reflect critically on your own professional skills development within the workplace. 

The Research Project can take a number of forms including, but not limited to:

1. Research paper which can include business improvement projects
2. Business start-up project
3. Consultancy project for a live client

The module will allow you to demonstrate your ability to evaluate a business issue relevant to your discipline of study and utilize the theory from your study to date to generate recommendations at either a theoretical or practical level. It will allow you to demonstrate your analytic and time management skills in a practical way.

The Marketing Strategy and Planning module aims to give you an in-depth understanding of this process and how to create robust strategic marketing plans.

The module will be delivered using a combination of:

• Lectures that provide knowledge of core strategic concepts, theories and frameworks
• Workshops that allow students to apply the core knowledge to the assessment scenario
• Online material that enhances knowledge and supports progression with assessments

The module provides you with an introduction to the main issues of international business. This module deals with the cultural, administrative, geographical and economic differences around the world and how these differences shape businesses today. Three fundamental issues that this module addresses are: (i) the differences among domestic, international and global firms; (ii) the attributes of multinational corporations (MNCs) and finally; (iii) the determinants of success in international business.  

The aim of this module is to provide you with a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the intricate nature of event bidding and the legalities within contracts associated with the processes. Therefore, in this module you will gain valuable insight into the legal terminology, theory and application required for event bids. You will explore current and previous case studies of events which involve extensive bidding process (e.g. Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Expo’s, City of Culture).

This module builds on the previous modules (Introduction to Data Analytics and AI and Data Analytics and AI in Practice). The module offers hands-on experience of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based solution development for addressing a particular business challenge.

The module is designed for those of you willing to understand the process of AI solution development with detail analysis of its cost-benefit analysis and impact on the organisation. The module is ideal for those of you pursuing careers in data science, business analytics, or AI development, and it equips you with essential skills that are highly in demand in today’s as well as the future employment market.

The Customer Relationship Management module will explore the principles and practices of relationship marketing, looking at how it has evolved from simple tools for managing customer contact information to comprehensive platforms that integrate data, analytics and automation. You will learn about the key perspectives of CRM – strategic, analytical and operational – and identify how each can be configured to support relationship marketing goals.

Following from the discovery (L4) and practice (L5) phases of your journey into developing enterprise skills, this module focuses of the application phase (L6), where you are encouraged to learn and apply different techniques to launch a technology start-up.

You will learn to recognise interesting opportunities and convert the opportunities to attractive business propositions. You will validate and test the digital business ideas and transform it into a viable business model. You will develop a business plan for a tech start-up and will pitch your working business propositions to academics with a final pitch being delivered to the university’s STEAMHOUSE investor panel.

The Sales and Channel Management module brings together two critical commercial areas: crafting an effective channel strategy, and mastering the sales, promotion, and negotiation techniques essential for delivering products or services to customers. 

This module is designed to equip you with the necessary skills to plan and execute a robust channel strategy, including selecting and evaluating the right intermediaries, creating sales strategies to engage customers, and developing channel support plans that incorporate shopper marketing, account management and negotiation tactics. You will also explore how marketing integrates with other key business functions, such as category planning, and dive into the dynamics of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships, both in local and international markets.

Supply Chain Management is concerned with the flow of resources and information between all the companies that add value to a product, from raw material suppliers to end users. To gain a comprehensive grasp of a supply chain, the module incorporates challenges from marketing (distribution channels), logistics, and operations management. The module takes a strategic approach, focussing on relatively long-term decisions such as investing in productive resources, configuring processes, designing products, and developing partnerships with suppliers and distribution channels.