BA (Hons) Business Management with Foundation Year

What will I study?

Over the past year, the global business landscape has had to adapt to a different way of working and trading. The use of technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increased to ensure that key

business activities are fulfilled. Subject areas such as Global Business Environment, Digital Business and New Technologies and Managing and Developing Innovation and Creativity will help you understand how technology can underpin innovation and improvements to business and organisations, alongside developing key skills, such as empathy, problem solving and creativity, which will ensure you are well placed to enter the employment market.

During your foundation year you will have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of business and study topic areas like, creativity, self-development, responsibility, business studies and inquiry based learning to provide you with a solid basis for your study of business management.

In Year one, core topics include finance, marketing, data insights, and people management.

In Year two, you will gain a more strategic understanding of business issues, and in particular work with real clients to support you in implementing changes to their business. You will study topics including economics, enterprise and entrepreneurship and consulting.

In the final year, you will be expected to integrate, apply and evaluate the knowledge you have gained through independent study on your dissertation or consultancy project. There is an ongoing emphasis on leadership skills, particularly within a changing business environment. The dissertation or a consultancy project will be a key focus this year and will allow you to specialise on your area of interest. This will prove invaluable when you graduate, allowing you to showcase your particular area of expertise at job interviews.

The course has been purposely designed to prepare students for life beyond university and to reflect what businesses want from employees in the workplace. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) refer frequently to ‘accidental managers’ within business; those people who have been promoted due to competence in one role but who are not trained or equipped to be managers. This is a key focus within our degree programme, we want to ensure that you start to develop management and leadership skills in readiness for the workplace.

Working closely with others on a project or brief is a common occurrence throughout a business management degree, we believe that this provides you with crucial and transferrable skills that can help hit the ground running in a fast-paced business world.

The BNU Business School is proud of its links with international and national companies and frequently welcomes businesses in to lead live briefs and watch student presentations. You will be asked to develop solutions for businesses, allowing you to gain real-world, hands-on consulting experience while businesses benefit from having bespoke research and advice tailored to their needs.

We think students thrive from being able to hear from those currently working in the industry, which is why we regularly welcome guest lecturers to speak and share their insights as current business professionals.

We’ve had students consulting major companies as well as helping start-ups to get their businesses on the move. Companies we have worked with include Dreams, Enterprise-rent-a-car, Dow Chemicals, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and KVA Digital.