BA (Hons) Business and Marketing

Program Overview

The BA (Hons) Business and Marketing program at the University of Hertfordshire equips students with expertise in both business and marketing principles, fostering a deep understanding of brand creation and positioning. Through interactive teaching methods, industry connections, and a focus on contemporary marketing approaches, the program prepares graduates for a wide range of employment options in marketing, agency, and strategic roles.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

• Objective: To equip students with expertise and insight to create and position brands, with a focus on marketing and business principles.
• Combines the power of business and marketing, fostering both disciplines to work together effectively.
• Offers direct connections between classroom learning and external certifications from organizations like Google, Hootsuite, Facebook, and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
• Utilizes interactive teaching methods like role-play, presentations, and industry speaker involvement.
• Provides access to industry resources like podcasts and videos.
• Maintains strong relationships with professional bodies and business connections.
• As a CIM Strategic Partner, offers free access to the regional CIM Marketing Club for all students in the University of Hertfordshire Business School (HBS).
• Encourages students to expand their CVs through industry placements, study abroad opportunities, internships (including online bite-sized digital experiences), and extracurricular activities.
• Offers support for entrepreneurial students through the annual "Flare Ignite" competition, Enactus Society, and University Business Challenge.
• Provides a caring and friendly university environment with mentorship, support, and encouragement to achieve future personal and professional success.
• Graduates leave with a wide range of employment options, a supportive network, and the ability to work in agency, marketing department, or strategic roles.

Outline:

• Course content:
• Core marketing expertise fused with business principles.
• Focus on contemporary marketing approaches and ethical considerations.
• Coverage of key marketing techniques and tools.
• Development of valuable, sought-after professional skills like communication, creative problem solving, teamwork, and analysis.
• Course structure:
• Approximately eight hours of in-person lectures and tutorials per week (four modules per semester).
• Additional self-study through online materials and recommended resources.
• First year: Fundamentals of marketing, accounting, economics, global business environment.
• Second year: Enhanced critical thinking and analytical abilities in marketing, corporate ethics, project planning, cross-cultural management.
• Third year: Advanced marketing concepts, global marketing, digital economy, project completion.
• Optional elements: GoHerts program, placements, internships, study abroad, Future Success team events.
• Modules:
• Level 4:
• Introduction to Marketing Communications: Traditional and digital marketing tools, integrated marketing communication, social influence, messaging theories, advertising, digital marketing tools, content, direct marketing, and PR.
• Quantitative Methods for Business: Mathematical and statistical techniques for business, equation and graphs, measures of location and dispersion, weighted averages and indices, probability and normal distribution, basic optimization, critical path analysis, correlation and simple linear regression, time series forecasting, investment, simulation, software utilization.
• Principles of Marketing (CIM): Key marketing concepts and theories, marketing environment, consumer behavior, marketing history, ethical considerations, segmentation, marketing research, marketing mix, competitive positioning, application of knowledge to consumer marketing, business to business, and not for profit contexts, syllabus alignment with CIM Award in Marketing Principles (L3).
• Accounting for Managers: Manager's perspective on accounting, collection and reporting of accounting information, internal and external users, publically available accounting information, accounting's role in planning, control, and decision-making.
• The Global Business Environment: Globalisation, decreasing costs, ease of access, international and global operations, intercultural contact, legal, political, ethical, sustainability issues, managing in diverse and complex contexts, national similarities and differences, impact on business, global standardisation vs. local differentiation, world levelness and convergence vs. disparity and divergence, culture and cultural differences.
• Essential Skills in Marketing: Academic and practical skills development, reading, writing, research, diagnostics to identify skills gaps, personal development plan creation, resources like CASE and LinkedIn Learning, portfolio demonstration of plan completion.
• Preparing for Professional Success: Professional skills development for marketing industry, marketing, advertising, and digital professional roles, personal presentation skills (online and offline), online presence production (professional social media platforms), professional engagement opportunities (internships, work experience, work shadowing, professional qualifications, online courses, exhibitions/seminars attendance), personal plan creation and implementation, aspects of personal branding, networking, presentation and pitching skills, resilience, pressure handling.
• Level 5:
• Project Planning and Control: Hands-on project management experience, project planning and control in chosen discipline, general project management perspective, transferable skills and knowledge, sustainability considerations, flexible and supportive learning environment, face-to-face lectures and seminars, online discussions, simulated project environment, business software tools (e.g., MS Project), sound basis for further professional studies (e.g., Association for Project Management (APM) Introductory Certificate in Project Management).
• Managing People: Introduction to managing people in organizations, HRM development, theory and practice, contextual factors, strategic approaches, recruitment and selection (R&S) (role of R&S, models of R&S and their application), equality and diversity (E&D) (case for E&D, approaches to implementing E&D policies, tackling discrimination in organizations), flexibility and managing flexibility, performance and reward management (managing people for performance, motivation, link with reward management), employee participation and involvement (factors affecting success, effective communication), learning and development (L&D) (identifying need for L&D, evaluation of outcomes, contribution of L&D to people's performance and business success), managing people activities from strategic and operational perspectives, exploring the role of HR function and line manager.
• Exploring Business Ethics: Examination and reflection on ethical behavior of organizations and employees, application of ethical theories to real-world organizational cases and activities, reflection on responsibilities of organizations to society, study of guidelines, laws, and external pressures, analysis of individual choices and ethical dilemmas, exploration of child labor, bribery, price fixing, working conditions, corporate social responsibility, and whistleblowing.
• Cross-cultural Management: Contemporary, applied, critical approach to the study of cross-cultural management in an organizational context, critical examination of cross-cultural management theories and models, cross-cultural aspects of leadership and motivation, cross-cultural communication, multi-cultural team working, theories and models related to expatriation, cross-cultural management, and human resource practices and ethics.
• Consumer Behaviour: Comparison and evaluation of cognitive and behavioral approaches to consumer analysis, understanding of consumers and their behavior, greater understanding of target customer segmentation and product/brand positioning, product, pricing, distribution, and marketing communication strategies development, perception of self and brands, social issues of behavior, beliefs, personality, long-term impact on consumer learning, introduction to psychology of the consumer, impact on marketer in creating, developing, and delivering customer-valued products and services.
• Marketing Insights, Analysis and Planning: Identification, analysis, and interpretation of data from various sources, greater understanding of marketing decision-making, development of marketing plans to maximize identified market opportunities, support for students seeking a career in marketing planning, customer and market analysis, and marketing management.
• Working With Industry: Further industry knowledge development, support for progress into graduate-level employment or higher study, review of professional development plan produced in Preparing for Professional Success, emphasis on plan implementation, portfolio of experience building, online presence/CV refinement using gained experience, preparation for assessment centers, revisit of data analysis, idea generation, and presentation techniques.
• Innovation and Business Model Design: Understanding of innovation, entrepreneurship, and value creation through effective business model design, fostering creativity and enhancing entrepreneurial mindset, consideration of a variety of problems and/or opportunities across different business contexts, generation and validation of viable commercial or social proposal/project, evidenced arguments, research (including numeracy and data analysis skills), industry insights, utilization of elements of financial analysis to support business model design, proposal demonstration of feasibility and economic sustainability, expansion of professional network through participation in real-world initiatives (e.g., Business Incubators, local community and extracurricular University activities).
• Level 6:
• Business and Commercial Awareness: Supported by lectures and workshops, role-play of members of an organizational management team, development, planning, and implementation of a new product or service, lectures presenting theoretical underpinnings for each required case activity, workshops providing opportunity to apply theory and develop skills via shorter case-based exercises, consolidation of functional business knowledge, opportunity to integrate theories and gain experience in a simulated business environment.
• Leadership and Organisations: Exploration of leadership and management within the context of the business organisation, development of leadership and management theory, discussion of contemporary applications of theoretical approaches, analysis of leadership styles and models, impact on follower performance, use of up-to-date real-world examples and textbook cases to appraise the effectiveness of different organizational leadership styles, demonstration of how strategic leaders and their followers interact in practice, constant reminders of the messy and unstructured nature of strategy in action/implementation, focus on analytical and critical research skills, team work, leadership, and professionalism, development of student's professional skills critical to effective strategy development and implementation.
• Strategic Management: Introduction to a range of issues and challenges confronting strategic leaders of a diverse range of organizations in a turbulent global environment, focus on conflicting perspectives within the subject of strategic management, consideration of problems involved in researching and developing, strateg

Tuition fees are charged annually. The fees quoted above are for the specified year(s) only. Fees may be higher in future years, for both new and continuing students. Study typeFees UK studentsFull time£9,250 for the 2024/2025 academic year EU studentsFull time£15,500 for the 2024/2025 academic year International studentsFull time£15,500 for the 2024/2025 academic year