Digital & Technology Solutions (Business Management)

In this module, students will be introduced to the concept of Software Design and Development. Students will be discussing the software development lifecycles, design techniques, and learning the basics of procedural programming. Students will also be discussing the need to develop interfaces to ensure that they are accessible to a wide range of potential users, with consideration of the alignment to Sustainable Development Goal 10, which focusses on reducing inequalities.

The emergence of the digital economy has unlocked fresh opportunities for businesses, whilst also creating different modes of competition in both traditional and new sectors of the economy. The aim of this module is to develop an understanding of digital business together with the practices and processes required to create effective digital strategies. In order to succeed, businesses need to identify and integrate multiple technologies and develop new digital strategies. This, however, is often a complex task. This module provides insight into the key concepts, digital technologies and strategies that can directly shape businesses and processes.

Whatever a student’s future business career, there are certain basic professional skills and expertise that are required in the workplace. This module provides opportunities to acquire and apply essential skills for academic success, while also developing ‘soft skills’ that are a prerequisite for a successful career. Students will practice, and build confidence in wide ranging skills, as part of their transition into higher education. This module will help students develop basic research skills as part of individual work on a topic of their choice. They will also enhance their communication and negotiation skills; and increase awareness of the importance of evidence-based thinking and reflective practice.

This module is designed to allow flexibility of study, to enable employed students to gain credit for work-based activities, and to contribute to the continued development of academic and professional skills. The aim of this work-based learning module is to help students develop a deeper understanding of how their organisation operates including examining the relationships and dependencies that exist between different functions within an organisation, and to help them to recognise how their own contribution can form the foundations of a successful career within the company. To achieve this, students will reflect on themselves, their skills, and how they fit within their company.   With support from a work-based mentor, students will identify their development needs, manage their own development, and reflect critically on their learning.   This module provides the foundation for continuing personal and professional development building confidence to provide students with the potential to maximise both academic and career aspirations.

The aim of the module is to introduce the application of information, information systems and information technologies within organisations and understand the impact of such systems on organisational performance. Students will develop an understanding of the project lifecycle focussing on the importance of the customer and will look at the process involved in creating information systems by learning how to investigate and define customer requirements and understand future needs. Undertaking this module gives students an introduction to information systems and organisations, giving them the skills to work effectively within an IS organisation on projects and giving them the base for understanding other IS modules within the degree programme.

The aim of this module is to introduce concepts of IT security in order to understand the security threats to an IT system and the operational impact of these threats on an organisation. The module will explore different protection methods for data and develop knowledge of security policies and procedures, including risk assessments, and how these procedures can be implemented and maintained. This module will introduce topical case studies of attacks on organisational information systems, highlighting the business consequences.

Generating the right information and insight for decision-makers is a major challenge for many organisations. The challenge lies in coping with a burgeoning amount of multifarious data, analysing data and ensuring it reaches decision-makers in a timely and meaningful manner. Information Management and Data Analytics encapsulate the challenges faced in deriving insights from data to underpin fact-based decisions. This module examines the different types of systems and data that can flow into organisations. It evaluates the characteristics and value of these different data sources. With an awareness of the nature of data, a model of how data may be creatively integrated and analysed to deliver insights will be explored. Data analytics will then be explored given the demands of decision makers to: segment and target markets, predict the development of markets, assess customer profitability and the lifetime value of customers, and understand corresponding relationships.

This module will explore both technical and client management. Students will explore how to plan, design and manage IT infrastructure with an overall focus on the services and capabilities that infrastructure solutions enable in an organisational context including (but not limited to): identification of network security risks and their resolution; software development tools and techniques. Students will also understand concepts of technology and client management and recognise any inter-relationships between them. The module is also aimed at helping students to develop some of the skills involved in managing and leading people and projects, thereby further cultivating the self-awareness that characterises outstanding managers and leaders.

The aim of this module is to further develop student understanding of IS Security.  The main focus of this module will be to explore key themes, trends and issues in cyber-security, policing and governance of the internet and business vulnerabilities.  The module provides students with an opportunity to analyse risk management, information risk assessment, risk mitigation, management standards and methodologies, implementing a risk management strategy and business continuity planning.

This module introduces key aspects involved in project management of IT projects. The range of perspectives in project management studies are analysed both in theory and in practice. Students will explore roles and responsibilities of those involved in project management and explore documentation from planning to reporting used and how to deliver a successful project. The module will look at the management of projects including lifecycles and investigate the importance of relationship management focussing on stakeholders and teams.

The ongoing success and sustainability of established organisations often depends on their ability to generate innovative products and services. New and early-stage ventures typically rely upon radically different ideas to gain a critically important foothold in the market. Without creativity, design and innovation many organisations would lose a critical source of competitive advantage.

The processes through which creativity, design and innovation occur, and how these can be encouraged at individual, team and organisation level, are therefore important concerns for founders, managers and investors, regardless of business age, type, size, location or sector. In the modern knowledge-based economy, they are often critical to success. The module will challenge students to develop their creative and critical thinking skills, to engage in design-thinking processes and to employ a user-centred approach to innovation. Students will apply the processes to both generate, and critically evaluate, innovation concepts, to ensure they are practical, viable and market focussed. 

Through providing a comprehensive introduction into best practice in undertaking a consultancy project this module contributes to the students continued professional development. Students will gain key insights into how to perform technical process improvement tasks in a range of environments to solve business problems. They will also learn how to evaluate, define and present optimised solutions to improve business process and workflows through improved technology and how best to tackle the challenges that arise. Also covered in this module is how to evaluate the success of a new system, process, initiative etc. Throughout the module emphasis will be placed on managing relationships to meet client expectations.

The pressures on managers and leaders in today’s complex organisations are immense. The emphasis on performance, efficiency and effectiveness together with the global competition for managerial jobs places a premium on managerial and leadership skills. This module introduces some of the latest ideas in the field whilst simultaneously evaluating them from a practical, ethical and international perspective. Students will explore the role of power in organisations and critically evaluate how power and influence is exercised in the managerial role. The module is also aimed at helping students to develop some of the skills involved in managing and leading people, thereby cultivating the self-awareness that characterises outstanding managers and leaders. The aim of the module therefore is to develop informed, critical and responsible managers who have the confidence to lead others in a way that is effective, ethical and consistent with their values.

This synoptic project demonstrates the application of the core and specialism knowledge and skills to meet the outcomes in the standard.  Evidence of appropriate project planning and research methodologies will be shown together with the application of behaviours.

This module will provide students with an understanding of the insight management function of an organisation and will equip them with key skills in insight generation and delivery for business decision-making.  The module will develop students’ ability to critically evaluate approaches to generating ideas and insight through creative thinking techniques, within both divergent and convergent thinking processes.   It will provide them with the knowledge and skills to identify and evaluate an organisational problem, and then to effectively draw and interpret insights so that they have an impact at both managerial and board levels of organisations. The ethical implications of the use of insight management techniques will recur throughout the module.

This module considers the different forms of intellectual properties created in the software development and information technology sectors, and how these might be utilised for commercial purposes.  Particular emphasis is given to the protection and utilisation of intellectual property rights in computer software programmes by copyright.  The module considers how an understanding of intellectual properties is vital to knowledge-based businesses, and needs to be incorporated into the conceptualisation, design and implementation of new information technologies.  Emerging information technologies create challenges in terms of information rights such as data protection and privacy, access to public information, and information sharing through social media.  Students will be introduced to information rights laws and the trends shaping real-time development of protections in this area.

Information Systems Futures evaluates contemporary issues in a rapidly changing information systems environment, as applied to businesses and their stakeholders. The module will focus upon in-depth studies of a number of recent, emerging or potential developments in information systems management – in both theoretical and practice driven terms. In-depth studies involve the evaluation of distinctive digital and online activities, especially as they relate to the creation of new forms of transaction, business models and markets. It will also evaluate the nature, growth and impact of virtual communities and the relationships that form and develop in those communities. The module will investigate a number of topical theoretical issues and practical developments that link technologies to information systems developments.

Business transformation and process redesign, provides a hands-on, skill building approach to student learning and application. All organisations are engaged in change management and improvement activities. The drive for efficiency and the need for customer centric activities being at the centre of this drive. The aim of the unit is to provide students with the principles of improvement and business transformation, and the opportunity to apply those principles.  The unit will cover a variety of high-performance methodologies such as operational excellence, lean, six sigma, and systems thinking. These methodologies will be presented within a transformation cycle framework, providing students with an ability to analyse change situation using various business improvement systems, models and techniques. Critical, Lateral and creative thinking skills/conceptual blockbusting will be applied to analyse and redesign situations. Systems thinking (to include Business process re-engineering) in the era of distributed organisation / cloud-based systems will be introduced. To enable students to apply the methods, managing organisational change and process change, and the role of Change agents in the engagement of employees in business transformation will be explored.

This module provides a holistic overview of the strategic management process with an emphasis on the development of sustainable and responsible strategic management. Drawing upon traditional academic theories and current debates, the module examines and critically evaluates the practice and process of strategic management in different organisational settings. The module considers strategy as a whole by integrating the different phases of the strategic planning process, namely Strategic Analysis, Strategic Formulation and Strategic Implementation. In particular, the module examines the strategic external and internal environment, the different strategic options available (Business-level Strategies, Corporate-Level Strategies and International Strategies) and issues associated with strategy implementation, such as managing strategic change, organisational design decisions and the fostering of a sustainable and responsible organisation.

Knowledge-based professional services firms in fields such as systems design, software programming and management consultancy achieve competitive advantage by creating and sharing knowledge within enduring and profitable client relationships.  It can be argued that whilst technology is important in delivering these professional services, effective client relationships are based on an understanding of the nature of knowledge, how to bring people together, and finding ways to interactively develop new knowledge.  This needs to be achieved against a background of rapid change and fragmentation of value chains into constellations or eco-systems.  This module considers how to add value to client decision making and capabilities, mechanisms for knowledge transfer and firm-wide relationship management, co-creation of knowledge, and how to price and profit from knowledge-based relationships.  The module draws upon cognitive learning theories and is broadly-scoped to be applicable to students at all stages of involvement in internal and external client relationships.