Course overview

Develop your expertise in key areas that underpin business and marketing, such as consumer behaviour, financial management for business, digital business and responsible business strategy.

Within our fiercely competitive and global economy, marketing is now central to commercial success. From roles in digital marketing and social media, to marketing strategy and planning, successfully completing our Business and Marketing BA (Hons) course can lead to exciting potential career options.

Gain the confidence and business acumen necessary to develop, position and build businesses in the most strategically effective way.
Develop a solid understanding of business analysis, marketing planning and management, including exploring topics such as leadership, alongside specialist marketing skills, such as understanding customer behaviour, developing creative solutions and promoting competitive advantage.
Hone a broad range of practical and transferrable skills – creative, analytical, inter-personal and communications.

What you'll study

The main study themes covered on this course are:

Business

We will cover a wide range of topics from business management to entrepreneurship, human resource management, supply chain and managing organisational change.

Marketing

We will study concepts such as consumer behaviour, marketing research and strategy, as well as specialist options like digital marketing, global marketing and services and retail marketing.

Communications

You will be able to choose options such as brand and corporate communications, which aim to teach you how to determine and analyse business problems and devise actions for success.

Research

You will be expected and encouraged to learn how to conduct both primary and secondary research and put your skills into practice by undertaking an independent and in-depth study of a marketing or business topic of your choice. This will form the basis of your final-year dissertation.

All of our Marketing courses share some first year modules, designed to develop your understanding of business in general and the holistic nature of marketing. We focus on developing your knowledge of the underpinning core principles of business, marketing and advertising, introducing you to market research, marketing planning and communications, which should enable you to become more strategic and specialised in subsequent years. All year one modules are mandatory.

Modules

Marketing Research and Data Analysis

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the wide range of secondary information that is relevant to marketing decision making. The difference between primary and secondary research is explored and applied in various business scenarios. The module also introduces you to basic techniques to analyse secondary sources of information. You will have an opportunity to base your research presentation on a business case study or your work-embedded experience.

Compulsory

Marketing Principles and Practice

This module aims to develop your knowledge and understanding of the fundamental theoretical concepts that underpin the marketing function. You will develop an understanding of key marketing theories related to the marketing mix, consumer behaviour, market research, marketing strategy, ethics and digital marketing which will act as a foundation of your future study.

Compulsory

Employment and Academic Skills

This module aims to introduce you to a range of learning and communication skills and enable you to develop into an active learner. The module intends to drive skills through the overall course syllabus. You will also be expected to start planning for your future career. Skills gained on this module will enhance your career prospects which you can then apply later in your studies and optimise your possibilities for finding fulfilling employment.

Compulsory

Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communications

This module will introduce you to Integrated Marketing Communications. The module is designed to explore the range of communication tools, such as Advertising, Direct Marketing, Personal Selling, PR and publicity available to practitioners for developing effective communication/promotional material. The module is focused on application and will therefore involve a significant amount of practical work applying different writing skills and innovative marketing communications skills to real life cases and exercises.

Compulsory

Organising for Business

The aim of the module is to provide you with an introduction to the key principles of business organisation and management, which are required to achieve business objectives in competitive markets. The module will give you the opportunity to comprehend and discuss how market-led businesses organise themselves to achieve competitive success.

Compulsory

Financial Management for Business

This module is designed to introduce you to the language, concepts and tools commonly used in financial management. In the first half of the module, you will be expected to demonstrate an understanding in the preparation of the core financial statements including income statements, statement of financial position and cash flow, in line with the prescribed international standards.

Compulsory

In your second year, you will have the opportunity to further develop your potential career pathway in business and marketing, by being able to explore a variety of marketing subject areas, such as consumer behaviour and marketing insights. All year two modules are mandatory.

Modules

Marketing Management

This module will enhance your knowledge of marketing principles and practices by enabling you to apply these concepts to the marketing planning process framework. This involves the analysis of marketing data to make effective marketing decisions and develop medium term marketing plans. The module utilises a marketing simulation game operating on a web-based software platform.

Compulsory

Consumer Behaviour

This module aims to provide you with an insight into how consumers make buying decisions and the various factors, both psychological and social factors that influence the decision-making process. The module provides a sound basis for further study in marketing, advertising and communication psychology.

Compulsory

Marketing Insight

The aims of this module are to develop your expertise in primary marketing research and data analysis techniques and to develop your research skills for your final year project. You will investigate a range of different research methods and will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of quantitative and qualitative research. You will also apply analysis techniques to both quantitative and qualitative data, to present insights and recommend solutions for current marketing challenges.

Compulsory

Digital Business

This module aims to develop your understanding of contemporary business practice in digital environment. The module builds on existing theories and concepts that encourage you to critically assess market opportunities and develop business ideas exclusive to online platforms. The module will offer a critical understanding of opportunities and challenges posed by transforming digital landscape and transforming consumer culture.

Compulsory

Career Preparation

This module aims to enable you to acquire the confidence and appropriate skills to make an effective transition from education to work. The module has a dual focus: Firstly, you are encouraged to know yourself, to know what kinds of employment you are suited to, and secondly, you are encouraged to develop an awareness of employment markets/potential employers. Skills gained on this module will enhance your career prospects and optimise your possibilities for finding fulfilling employment. You are encouraged to consider, plan and apply for a placement opportunity or work experience^**.

Compulsory

Management and Leadership in Marketing

The aim of this module is to develop an introductory knowledge and understanding of management and leadership theory, with a specific focus on how these are practically applied in a marketing context. At the core of this module is the question: ‘how can market-led businesses manage their people to deliver competitive value propositions to the marketplace?’ Answering this question will require you to understand the distinction between management and leadership as well as understand the main leadership models and theories.

Compulsory

In your final year you will have the opportunity to pick an optional module, to help develop your knowledge in an area of interest, such as innovation, entrepreneurship or global marketing. Then, the culmination of your studies will be the completion of an independent research project in a specialist area. There will be support from an academic supervisor who may have direct knowledge and interest in your topic area, and past topics covered have included branding, organisational behaviour, HR management, advertising and entrepreneurship, as examples.

Modules

Contemporary Marketing Issues

The aim of this module is to enable you to investigate and discuss the latest developments in the academic thinking and practice in marketing and business practice. The module will encourage you to use a range of academic literature to increase your awareness of contemporary marketing issues.

Compulsory

Career Development

This module aims to enable you to develop and refine skills, allowing you to gain the confidence and the competences needed to make an effective transition from education to employment. Learning gained on this module will enhance your career prospects and optimise your possibilities for finding, and succeeding in, graduate employment and your subsequent career development.

Compulsory

Marketing Strategy

This module aims to develop your critical understanding of marketing strategy. The module builds on the previous marketing planning knowledge and aims to provide a critical insight into the marketing frameworks studied to date. The module intends to use contemporary strategic marketing theory and practice to provide you with an insight into how this contributes to the development of competitive advantage. The module will also enable you to apply contemporary marketing theory to address organisational challenges. You also have the option to participate in the global X-Culture project (subject to X-culture running)^**.

Compulsory

Responsible Business Strategy

This module challenges you to develop a realistic, yet innovative, strategic vision for current and future business. Responsible business issues are essentially strategic in the way that they are always acknowledged to be long-term matters requiring far-reaching solutions. Sustainability issues span three-time frames, past, present and future, and strategy needs to be designed to compensate for past malpractice, implement change for the present and establish a firm foundation for future.

Compulsory

Project

This module aims to provide you with an opportunity to apply and develop your research skills and to extend your knowledge, understanding and ability to critically analyse in a specialist area of interest. You will choose an academic area related to your programme of study and apply your independent learning skills to research this area in depth. You will receive academic support through a series of group supervisions and will be allocated a project supervisor.

The module includes three routes, and you will be given the opportunity to select your preferred route, although all project titles must be approved by the project supervisor in advance of commencing the project. The three routes are:

Route 1: An individual research-based dissertation
Route 2: An individual project report
Route 3: A group project report. Where work is completed as part of a group, each group may have no more than five members.

Compulsory

Optional modules

Choose one of the following:

Global Marketing

This module aims to deliver and develop a wide-ranging and contemporary perspective of the international marketplace and the strategic issues involved in marketing across countries and cultures. While the major focus of the module is global marketing, some teaching contents will be from European and other trade blocs (i.e., emerging economies).

Innovation and Change

This module seeks to explore the theories and frameworks underpinning organisational change to allow you to develop your understanding of what change means, how it happens and how it is best managed. The links between innovation and change in organisations will also be explored and ways in which organisations can develop a culture open to continuous improvement, innovation and change. The material covered draws heavily on 'real' examples of change processes and encourages you to apply the theory you have learned to these examples, to understand the alternative methods of reacting to situations. You will (where appropriate) have the opportunity to use your own experiences of changes within the workplace to further illustrate the material covered. A thorough understanding of the management of change and innovation will help you to make sense of the environment in which you work and the approach of this module will further develop their capacity for critical analysis and synthesis.

Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

This module aims to develop your understanding of business enterprise, entrepreneurship, start-up processes, effectual and critical thinking as applied to business innovation and creativity. Innovation, creativity and their applicability to entrepreneurship are essential skills for the marketer and business management. The module seeks to provide an academic and experiential perspective in the processes of managing enterprise entrepreneurship.

Optional

We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.

How you'll learn

Explore consumer behaviour and analysis, and have the opportunity to learn how this insight and more can be used to inform the planning and implementation of marketing programmes.
Take part in group projects designed to develop advertising campaigns and hone your analytical skills using simulation games, such as marketing management games designed to develop your understanding and command of the marketing planning process.
Expand your skills and knowledge of the development and operation of business markets, entrepreneurship and the management of key resources, including human capital, financial management, strategic management, corporate social responsibility and organisational change.

Teaching contact hours

The number of full-time contact hours may vary from semester to semester, however, on average, it is likely to be around 12 contact hours per week in the first and second year dropping to around 8 contact hours per week in the third and final year as you become a more independent learner. The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.

Additionally, you will be expected to undertake significant self-directed study of approximately 12 hours each week, depending on the demands of individual modules.

As an innovative and enterprising institution, the University may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the University may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prepared for courses due to start in or after the 2022/2023 academic year to be delivered in a variety of forms. The form of delivery will be determined in accordance with Government and Public Health guidance. Whether on campus or online, our key priority is staff and student safety.

Due to the ongoing restrictions relating to COVID-19, some facilities (including some teaching and learning spaces) and some non-academic offerings (particularly in relation to international experiences), may vary from those advertised and may have reduced availability or restrictions on their use.

Assessment

This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which will vary depending upon the module.

Assessment methods include:

Formal examinations
Individual assignments
Coursework
Written reports
Presentations
Group work
Workplace simulations

The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.

Job ready

On successful completion of the course, you will have knowledge of:

The essential principles and practice of marketing and advertising.
How an organisation interacts with its external environment, its customers and stakeholders.
The holistic nature of a business organisation and the financial management of organisations.
Key business management functions and the strategic management of a business in different forms and contexts.

On successful completion of the course, you will be able to:

Apply appropriate business concepts, models or techniques to analyse marketing problems.
Source, analyse and apply appropriate marketing information to support decision making.
Present ideas and findings and communicate effectively to an audience in written, verbal or electronic format, using appropriate business media and IT applications.
Identify and analyse relevant sources of marketing information and research techniques across different contexts and cultures.
Appreciate current contemporary issues, including sustainability, ethics and CSR in marketing and digital marketing.
Effectively use specialist tools in digital and social media marketing using appropriate software.
Apply appropriate techniques to solve various business management problems, including those of a financial nature.

Entry requirements

Contact PSB Academy

Fees and funding

Student	Full-time	Part-time
International	Contact PSB for fees per year	Not available

Careers and opportunities

On successful completion of the course, you will be able to:

Apply appropriate business concepts, models or techniques to analyse marketing problems.
Source, analyse and apply appropriate marketing information to support decision making.
Present ideas and findings and communicate effectively to an audience in written, verbal or electronic format, using appropriate business media and IT applications.
Identify and analyse relevant sources of marketing information and research techniques across different contexts and cultures.
Appreciate current contemporary issues including sustainability, ethics and CSR in marketing and digital marketing.
Effectively use specialist tools in digital and social media marketing using appropriate software.
Apply appropriate techniques to solve a range of different business management problems, including those of a financial nature.

Our Business and Marketing BA should provide you with a critical and reflective understanding of marketing and its relationship with the wider international business environment. It could lead to potential future specialist career options in such areas as advertising, digital marketing and project coordination, as well as more general roles in business analysis, project management or sales management.

Where our graduates work

Some of our past graduates have gone on to a range of careers in marketing, advertising, PR, brand management, marketing research, digital marketing, sales and general management with a wide range of large and small organisations such as Disney, Virgin Media, Dell, PepsiCo and Network Rail.

Further study

Upon successful completion of our Business and Marketing BA (Hons) course, you may wish to continue to further your studies at postgraduate level. You can do that right here at Coventry University, with our Master of Business Administration (Marketing). Studied on campus or 100% online, our MBA with Marketing specialism course looks in detail at topics such as strategy, digital and offline marketing, planning and management.

We also offer alternative postgraduate degrees if you decide to take a slightly different route. You can explore all of your options using our postgraduate course search tool.