Business and Management

Anglia Ruskin University

You'll explore consumer behaviour but not only the what and how we buy, you'll be getting deeper into how marketers tailor their offer to consumer demands and market trends, how consumer behaviour is influenced by new products and services, the marketing mix and its design and implementation. The psychological and sociological models and theories and emerging consumer psychology research will be illustrated with practical examples of the day to day marketing activities of product and service providers. You'll work in teams, following market research techniques, to develop your skills and entrepreneurial awareness. By analysing your research, you will propose a business case for a new market offering, after identifying a need within a consumer group. How you use marketing techniques to convey this offering and the value to the target consumer, how this would affect their decision making and behaviour as well as motivate them to purchase will form the basis of your individual assignment. On completion you will have gained technical and professional marketing skills to be able to identify opportunities and the transferable skills to be able to creatively and innovatively develop appropriate and entrepreneurial business cases.

From creativity comes ideas, different ways of doing things that could transform an organisation, industry, practice, consumers lives, the world? This module uses the concept of playfulness to lead to creativity and the chance to identify an opportunity. A variety of ideation techniques will help you develop ideas and subsequent business models. From a blank page, you'll be drawn through the creative process of ideation, risk, failure and revision to develop innovative solutions with the chance to consult with a range of stakeholders in our community to improve your idea, ready for testing. You'll develop entrepreneurial skills that may be used to start a business or bring innovative thinking to solving problems or exploring new opportunities in an existing business. You'll be exposed to a variety of creative processes and have the chance to explore your own ideas or work with local entrepreneurs throughout the ideation process. The first idea is not always the best idea so assessment on this module explores the concept of making continual improvements and evolving a concept through following the ideation process and reflecting on progress.

Entrepreneurs are people who identify and exploit opportunities for new products, marketing or processes to generate economic and social value. Entrepreneurship is not just about new venture creation, it involves using creative or innovative ideas to recognise and develop solutions. You'll work as part of a team over 3 rounds of activity (such as gamification, experiential learning and simulation) to focus on the identification of an opportunity, the creation of a product or service and pitching a concept to work as part of the team to develop your skills and collaborate with organisations and guest speakers.

Project Management is a key skill for any future professional. This module focuses on providing a sound basis for managing or working on project outcomes, cost and time. This module covers: Project Management Body of Knowledge; the importance of stakeholder and risk management; scheduling and costing; monitoring and controlling techniques, time management and resource optimisation; improving the success of projects; and the principles of agile project management.

Unusually, this is the module where it is quite acceptable to fail! Entrepreneurial thinking leads to ideas that may progress to prototyping and testing. You'll develop the prototype, working with designers/manufacturers, and see an idea come to life. We work with local organisations to give you the chance to experiment (and fail) with the development of a new product. External visits will include exciting opportunities like using 3D printers, visiting scientific and technical organisations in Cambridge's Science Park; speaking to real entrepreneurs who have tested and revised their products; finding out how injection moulding works; learning how to design an app; briefing designers; and so on? You will create a prototype, test whether it meets your set objectives, and plan interventions. Your prototype and accompanying portfolio could be an invaluable tool to show potential employers and showcase your entrepreneurial spirit.

You'll develop core marketing principles in a retail and experiential context and specialist knowledge of the retail and experience industry, such as museums, galleries, and physical visitor experiences, all from a marketing perspective. You'll explore retail and experiential marketing's key issues such as retail mixes and strategies, the 'retail product', experiential elements of customer satisfaction, digital retailing, behaviour research and supply chain management and retail performance. You'll look at the synergy between retail marketing and the marketing of experiences focusing on the services area of marketing. The sustainable and ethical issues of retail and experience operations are considered including the growth of consumerism, use of consumer data, environmental impact and consumer attitudes to debt.

Ruskin Modules are designed to prepare our students for a complex, challenging and changing future. These interdisciplinary modules provide the opportunity to further broaden your perspectives, develop your intellectual flexibility and creativity. You will work with others from different disciplines to enable you to reflect critically on the limitations of a single discipline to solve wider societal concerns. You will be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines to apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, seek and maximise opportunities to realise your potential to give you a distinctive edge and enhance your success in the workplace.

This module will give you a sound understanding of the knowledge, skills and behaviours required by human resources (HR) professionals, whether in a generalist or specialist role as described in the CIPD HR Profession Map (HRPM). You'll embrace the ?thinking performer? perspective and cover the competencies needed by HR professionals when collaborating and working with others and functioning efficiently and effectively in an organisational context. You'll assess your own strengths and identify a continuing professional development plan, based on the capabilities required for ethical, business-focused and interpersonal professional conduct, exploring and recognising the strategic importance of the effective management of the human resource and people management and progresses a critical appreciation of the role of HR. You'll explore and recognise the strategic importance of effective HR management and using work-based research and good practice, critically evaluate the role of HR in formulating strategies to prepare business cases and present viable and realistic improvement which shows an appreciation for issues identified in your research.

People represent a key source of sustainable competitive advantage for most organisations. Employment law continues to expand both in terms of volume and complexity and the amount of regulation covering the employment relationship and the workplace has grown substantially in recent years. You'll gain a comprehensive understanding of employment law and employment relations in terms of theory, debates and practices in national and international settings and from a theoretical and behavioural competency perspective. Your knowledge, understanding and skills will let you brief and support organisations on the consequences of current and future developments in employment law/relations and give up-to-date, timely and accurate advice concerning the practical application of key legal principles of UK employment law. This will relate both to collective and individual employment relations and the actions of employers, employees and their respective organisations, whilst offering support and advice to management regarding best practice. Throughout the module you'll reflect critically on theory and practice and take into consideration both legal and ethical issues.

This module is designed to give you an overall understanding of marketing communications and the part that it plays in marketing and in business success. You'll explore the role of communications and the integrated nature of modern advertising campaigns, the tools and techniques used in marketing communications, both online and offline whilst looking into how and why each tool is used. You'll analyse the advantages and disadvantages of each, illustrating how the tools interact with the other elements of the marketing mix and how they must all integrate to achieve vital synergy. The promotional planning process at the strategic, tactical and operational levels is identified and examined and applied. You'll gain the knowledge and skills which will enable you to pursue a career in the marketing industry and in particular marketing communications in either a company or agency. The assessment requires you to develop and demonstrate your theoretical knowledge, as well as to develop your skills in the application of this theory in the creation of marketing communications and the appropriate media formats. Your brief will be to develop your advertising campaign ? live where possible - which you will present to a panel of experts (from the company when live). You can then take this feedback to reflect upon and improve your communications plan where necessary for the report submission. Working in a team, you'll develop your skills and marketing knowledge, whilst exploring cultural trends, entrepreneurial opportunities and reflect on your own pitch and performance to develop a positive, creative experience.

Strategic Management is a fascinating discipline that studies the long-term purpose and direction of organisations, by looking at how to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. You'll explore core frameworks and analytical techniques that will enable you to assess the resources and capabilities of organisations in relation to the conditions of the industry, macro environment and stakeholder pressures. Your focus then turns to strategic implementation, specifically in relation to business-level and corporate-level strategies. This is organised around five thematic areas: the evaluation of strategic options in terms of suitability, acceptability and feasibility; 'intended strategy development' versus 'emergent strategy development'; the role of organisational structures and systems in strategy development; leadership of strategic change; and finally the practice of strategy: who is involved in strategy development, the types of activities in which strategists are involved, and the types of methodologies that strategists use. With a practical and problem-oriented focus, the emphasis is on application of concepts and frameworks, helping you to analyse and gain insight into strategic challenges faced by an organisation. Throughout the learning period, you'll reflect on the global nature of competition, how strategic management can contribute to the creation of shared value and business sustainability.

You'll develop understanding of the shift towards more environmentally, socially and economically responsible business practice and in particular focus on the drivers behind this shift; including an understanding of the sustainable development goals and growing business arguments for including a consideration of sustainability in all business and management practice. The module promotes a personal approach to the issues of sustainability and personal and social responsibility. The module includes an authentic assessment where you'll be diagnosing, designing and evaluating an environmental management plan for your households or organisations, while reflecting on your personal responsibility and ethical behaviour. You'll pay special attention to questioning the different responses of business in relation to social responsibility and sustainable management.

From ideation, to prototype and testing, this module is about looking back on experiences and learning from them. An entrepreneur must be resilient, to keep going, and keep trying despite mistakes, lack of funds, or opportunities. You'll look at theories of reflection, and is analytical and theoretical in its approach. We look at the numbers and analysis to work out the next steps, reflecting on previous learning on the course. You'll build your social networks and capital, learn to pitch, find out how to apply for grants and write a successful bid and speak to entrepreneurs to find out what made them successful. We link to the patchwork framework and the entrepreneurial toolkit to help you to pull on your personal resources and we consider diversity and entrepreneurship as you prepare for self-employment or taking your entrepreneurial skills into the workplace. You'll be invited to explore different types of entrepreneurs and reflect on your own skills, knowledge and behaviours. The assessment will be scenario-based critically analysing the resources that can be used to overcome specific issues affecting the entrepreneur.

You'll have the opportunity to bring together your learning on live brief assessments and be part of an interdisciplinary team addressing a current issue in business. You'll be presented with a current business issue and be required to research, analyse and evaluate the issue effectively as a team. You'll act as the expert in your field of study to bring the perspective of that specialty to a complex business problem. You'll identify the key problems and issues, conduct literature reviews, evaluate information, investigate and adopt suitable development methodologies, determine solutions, process data, critically appraise and present the findings of your project using a variety of media. You'll create a poster presentation on your project for your team to display, and answer questions on, to an audience of academics and employers at a poster presentation event. You'll write a group business report on the outcomes of your project, evidencing your recommendations alongside an individual piece of reflective work on how you approached the issue, worked successfully as a team member, conducted robust business research and developed sound conclusions and recommendations.