Business Transformation MSc
- Level(s) of Study: Postgraduate taught
- Start Date(s): September 2023
- Duration: One year full-time
- Study Mode(s): Full-time
- Campus: City Campus
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Entry Requirements:
More information
Introduction:
In today's rapidly changing business landscape, successful leaders need to embrace transformational entrepreneurship thinking and action to overcome challenges, seize emerging opportunities, drive innovation, create new value propositions, and fast-track growth. The MSc Business Transformation program offers a unique combination of academic excellence, practical relevance, flexibility, and a strong network of successful entrepreneurs to equip future leaders with the skills and mindset needed to transform the current business practice and disrupt the industry norm.
As an emerging transformational business leader, you understand the importance of leveraging available resources optimally and dynamically reconfiguring them towards new products and services. This course empowers you to reinforce transformational entrepreneur behaviour traits, master growth mindsets, and gain a holistic view of business modelling and resource integration, enabling you to design and build disruptive ventures. You will be able to reinvent a family business, lead corporate spin-offs, scale up your own ventures, or pursue a professional venture-building career.
The course situated within the Centre for Business and Industry Transformation, and providing direct access to world-leading researchers and insights from cutting-edge research programs, presenting an opportunity to integrate the latest innovation into ventures or pursue a research-related career. The MSc Business Transformation is particularly impactful for:
- Family business successors, who seek to transform the current practice.
- Serial entrepreneurs, who are to scale up current offerings and operation.
- Corporate entrepreneurs, who have identified gaps in the market and plan to create new businesses to address them.
- Inventors, who have developed (or are developing) a new product or service and are determined to bring it to market via a new venture.
Why MSc Business Transformation?
- Unlock your grit: equip you with entrepreneurial mindsets and behavioural traits.
- Find your missing piece: discover how to identify your knowledge gap and where/how to find the solutions; instead of teaching you every domain-specific knowledge
- Get practical: apply the knowledge to your enterprise/problem during the course; rather than how others doing it.
- Get inspiration from people like you: gain relatable experiences from budding disruptors who are just two-three years ahead of you.
- Be a trailblazer: Learn how to identify and leverage (or reject) innovations
- Go “blue ocean”. Test "blue ocean" solutions, bring new offerings to market, or create new markets to avoid competition in the red ocean.
If you have a business challenge, or an industry problem, in mind that you’d like to bring into the course as your case, please provide the context in detail within your personal statement.
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A Top Team - The course is designed and delivered by a team of entrepreneurs in CBIT, who built the UK’s top-ranked entrepreneurship course. The team has a proven track record in industry transformation and knowledge transfer. -
This course emphasises experiential learning and practical application, providing students with opportunities to work on real-world projects with industry partners. You will have the opportunity to participate directly in live venture-building projects through the CBIT Venture Builder and get access to a network of 800+ successful entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders. -
Candidates are encouraged to bring their own industry challenges, opportunities, and business case into the course as the central case for their study throughout the key modules and dissertation. The course adopts a consultative teaching style, fostering an environment where the course team and fellow students collaborate as "sparring partners" to optimise scaffolded learning tailored to each individual learner's existing knowledge base. -
Core modules are delivered as sprints where an emphasis is placed on learning by doing. Your learning experience will be driven by a lean start-up approach, with enhanced peer-to-peer learning via the scrum method. It is delivered through a realistic activity-based learning process that generates practitioners' level thinking in business decision-making and transformation.
What you’ll study
The course is designed to be completed in one year, divided into three semesters. Semester one will begin in late September 2023, with the final coursework to be submitted in August at the end of semester three.
To kick-start your journey, a dedicated induction day will be provided for all students to introduce you to the course, teaching teams, and university facilities, followed by an informal social event.
Each core module will be delivered as a sprint, with most of the teaching delivered in the first weeks. These modules will last over four weeks, with touch points in weeks two and three. The fourth week will be left clear for assessment work. This structure allows you to focus on one subject at a time while also providing ample time for preparation and assessment work.
The course will use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, simulations, seminars, and workshops, to develop your knowledge and understanding. Small group tutorials are also provided to support your development of subject knowledge and transferable skills. Alongside developing critical thinking and analytical skills, you will also gain a c-suite level understanding of how different business functions can work together to bring about sustainable business transformation.
Throughout the course, you will be equipped with key tools and models that are effective in real life, which will enable you to raise the key questions required to develop a transformative venture. You will also be taught the skills to conduct applied research in any business design and operations area using a pragmatic research approach that aligns research methods and techniques to achieve business objectives and test business hypotheses or questions to be answered.
The course is designed to adopt a problem-solving approach that begins with identifying and diagnosing your business model to pinpoint gaps and norms. Through various modules, you will be guided in transforming your model and ultimately onboard early adopters to accelerate your venture's growth.
Semester One
Business Model Generation (20 credits)
A Business Model describes how a company intends to create, deliver and capture value. A business model is needed before a viable business plan can be made. The module teaches how to develop innovative business models and creates familiarity with the core tools and processes used. This is achieved experientially by forming a team that develops a viable business model for a business idea initiated by the team over the course period.
Innovation and Business Transformation (20 credits)
The principle aim of the module is to develop a set of skills in participants that help them innovate from an existing commercial context. This necessitates learning about concepts, models and frameworks to evaluate the nature of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship critically. Students must think about non-traditional and new approaches for sourcing and commercialising new offerings that address societal needs and the technologies or concepts that may drive them.
Sales and Growth Hacking (20 credits)
The module objectives are to build confidence and acquire knowledge and skills to apply in the real world of business. Focus areas are the sales process, the sales techniques, the design and management of sales processes, the management of the sales team, methodologies, techniques, and tools for growth hacking a company.
Professional Practice (10 credits)
The module aims to increase your understanding of how to manage your own continuous personal and professional development to enable sustained career success and enhance your business acumen. Personal and professional development in this context involves providing you with academic tools and experiential opportunities to expand your horizons and challenge your actions, attitudes and behaviours.
Semester Two
Multichannel Digital Strategy (20 credits)
The module covers the entire lifecycle of digital marketing from initial strategy through to execution. Participants will get hands-on experience working with the latest digital marketing technologies and techniques alongside the business strategies to implement them successfully.
Establishing a New Venture (20 credits)
This module critically analyses the preparation and implementation issues in setting up a new venture. Students will design, analyse and evaluate options for business processes. Through sprint and scrum-based activity, the students will evaluate the impact on their venture growth models. The module will also teach how to leverage process design to possible growth for due diligence in investment evaluation.
Global Consultancy (20 credits)
The Global Consultancy Experience aims to provide the opportunity to experience dimensions of international strategic management by working intensively for a period of up to one week on the case for 'going global' in a different country and market in a facilitated study tour, including lectures, company visits and an internal consultancy project. Students are encouraged to propose their project as the topic for an international consultancy.
Semester Three
In your final semester, you will take on an independent research project, which can be your own business case. This provides a challenging but excellent opportunity to use the theories and knowledge you've gained to produce a piece of academic work that informs your business transformation case.
Business Transformation Project (50 credits)
This dissertation module enables students to engage in an extended piece of independent research, answering a question relevant to the programme of study. The project should relate to exploiting a business opportunity or addressing a problem in any business sector. Technology, processes, and competitors should be considered innovative factors to generate and test viable business models. The project should involve identifying and analysing options and a comparative evaluation of the business model design. It will include identifying and analysing best practices in the problem domain and evaluating business model design options that suit the opportunity/problem being addressed. Innovation in the business model design is emphasised.
You will be assessed in various ways and modularly through coursework, essays, group reports, oral presentations, and a research project. The course assignment focuses on critically evaluating and applying the module knowledge. The research project on addressing a business opportunity is assessed for domain knowledge and research skills competence.
If you opt for the two year route you can add a year’s work placement onto your course. It’s a great way to put your learning into practice and gain valuable real-world experience to help boost your career prospects once graduating.
Your placement year will last up to 48 weeks (minimum 36 weeks). If you are unable to take a full year's placement, but have completed the minimum 36 weeks you can qualify for a Placement Diploma in Industrial Experience. If you undertake a placement, you must take up the Business Research Project in Semester Three.
Please note that placements are not guaranteed and you will need to work hard in securing one during your first semester. We have a dedicated Employability team who are here to help and support you during the placement process with CV writing, creating a LinkedIn page, interview tips, where to search for a placement etc. You can visit the Employability team’s page for further information.
Please contact us through Ask NTU if you have any questions about securing placements.
How you’re taught
This course's primary learning and teaching approaches include lecture, simulation, game-based learning, 1-2-1 tutoring, mentoring, small-group tutoring, peer learning, team-based learning, self-assessment, buddying, debate, negotiation, self-reflecting and practices depending on the learning goal.
The course is driven by actual business and societal challenges with which you or fellow transformational leaders may have experience, giving you opportunities to work on your own case, as well as a variety of 'live' business cases. You will additionally benefit from mentoring opportunities from a network of alumni as a vital part of the course experience.
Teaching and Learning
Nottingham Business School adopts a distinctive approach to the design of student learning opportunities. Your learning is structured around theory, practice, experience and observation, and reflection and improvement. At each level (course, module and session), you will study different theories, concepts and approaches and be given opportunities to apply these in a range of practical settings. The aim is to enhance your understanding through the direct experience of business, where you will have opportunities to observe business practices and behaviours (including your own) and analyse these using theoretical knowledge. It is our intention that by reflecting on these experiences, you will be able to use these theories to guide your actions and decisions in a business context or even consider how a theory itself might be improved. In this way, we aim to enhance the quality of your learning.
Academic Mentors
Every postgraduate student will be allocated an Academic Mentor at the beginning of the academic year and you will meet with them regularly throughout the year. Academic Mentors help you make the most of your time at NTU. They will support you in developing and enhancing the qualities and transferrable skills necessary for your studies, career progression, professional and personal development.
Assessments
A range of assessment methods are used across the course, the choice of which reflects the needs and demands of the different types of module. Some modules will assess the ability to work collaboratively in a team and others will assess individual capability. Types of assessment will range from examinations to group presentations including essays, reports, financial analyses, literature reviews and research based projects.
The interactive nature of the taught sessions offers opportunities to gain feedback on your performance before being formally assessed and increasing use is made of eLearning to further support the feedback process.
In-sessional English language support
In-sessional English language classes are offered to international students at no extra cost. The classes aim to provide focused support in the skills you need in order to develop your English in your subject area.
Further information please contact the Nottingham Language Centre based in the DICE building on City Campus:
Tel: +44 (0)115 848 6156 | Email: englishsupport@ntu.ac.uk | Website: www.ntu.ac.uk/nlc
Personalise your journey
We know our postgraduate students are a diverse group, with different levels of academic knowledge in their chosen area of study, different cultural and educational backgrounds, and varying levels of personal and professional skills and competencies.
At NBS we strive to ensure that these two motivating factors are nurtured and therefore supported. Our students are encouraged to practice and develop the skills and competencies required to critically reflect on their learning, and on their ability to apply this learning to their studies and to real world complex issues within the workplace. Through a series of curricula and extra-curricular initiatives, strengthened by tailored academic mentor support, NBS provides all our postgraduate students with the ability to participate in a range of challenging and unique activities, projects, events and experiences to enable our students to succeed in a competitive and dynamic global environment.
Careers and employability
At Nottingham Business School, we’re focused on your employability from the start of your postgraduate degree. We provide you with a learning experience that integrates theory and practice.
Upon graduation, you'll possess the methodological approach, practical knowledge of tools and skills to realise your potential as a business transformation practitioner, investment analyst, growth consultant, business analyst or general consultant in various markets and organisation types.
Graduates from the course can also pursue an academic and/or research career in various areas of Business (by working as a research assistant or associate, for example, or by studying for a PhD).
The core skills gained are transferable across a wide range of careers. Your qualification is likely to be popular with many employers because you'll have demonstrated an ability to write essays and reports, master advanced data analytic methods and pitch effectively in front of the public.
Similar graduates have gone on to pursue careers as:
- Entrepreneurs / Corporate Entrepreneurs
- Investment advisors
- Project managers in businesses and universities
- Transformation management in SMEs and blue chips
- Innovation managers
Employability Team
We have a dedicated Employability Team who not only help you during your time with us but also following graduation, they’ll continue to support you by providing a number of services that will help kick-start your career.
Our Employability Team offer a wide range of support from one-to-one appointments with our specially trained consultants, to arranging recruitment fairs and skill building workshops.
Services they provide include:
- Finding placements, internships and part-time work
- Helping you to pursue self-employment
- Advice on taking gap years and time out
- Information and help on getting into volunteering
- Providing advice on further study.
As a student you will have access to our virtual learning environment, where you will be able to get in touch with our Employability team for CV support, application, interview and job hunting advice, career ideas and employer videos.
You can visit the Employability Team on your local campus every day during term time. They are also open outside of term time too, except on University closure days. So drop in, say hello, and get help with quick enquiries or book an appointment with a careers consultant from your school.
Campus and facilities
We are continually investing in our facilities, and transforming our learning and teaching environment to create an inspiring and innovative atmosphere.
The School is based in the impressive Newton Building on NTU's City Campus. In 2009 the building was involved in a £90 million regeneration project on the site. Whilst maintaining its historic beauty, the Grade II listed building was transformed into an ultra-modern complex.
Centre for Business and Industry Transformation
The Centre for Business and Industry Transformation, is an integrated research approach bringing together industry transformation research, disruptive business practice, and education together into a continuous cycle. The centre focuses on helping businesses and entrepreneurs to transform their performance, productivity and innovative capability through a proven due-diligence methodology and techniques, which de-risks scaling up investment developed and delivered by the core team. The centre delivers this through three stands, research, venture building and education.
Fantastic facilities
- You can take advantage of the Link Lounge, a space dedicated to Business School students, located on floor seven of the Newton building.
- Explore your career prospects with the help of the University's Employability Team.
- You will benefit from spacious teaching rooms and lecture theatres.
- We provide students with a variety of social spaces.
- Your studies will benefit from the £13 million Boots Library.
- You can take advantage of our 24-hour IT facilities.
- Our Student Services Centre will also be on-hand should you need support.
- sports facilities
- shops
- student accommodation
- music venues
- cafés.
The location of the City site also means that you have easy access to:
Entry requirements
- You will need an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK undergraduate honours degree (2.2 or above).
- Applicants without such qualifications will be considered individually. Still, they will be required to demonstrate how their experiences and knowledge would enable them to study this course at Masters-level in their Personal Statement.
Other requirements
- Your application requires a written statement in which you should outline reasons for wishing to undertake the MSc Business Transformation course. We will be looking to ensure that you have a sound rationale for joining the course based on a realistic appreciation of the discipline and profession of Business Management and Business Consultancy.
If you’re considering submitting an application for this course, but you have more than three years of relevant work experience, why not consider applying for our Master of Business Administration (MBA) course? Find out more about our MBA here.
Get in touch If you need any more help or information, please contact us at Ask NTU or call on +44 (0)115 848 4200.
NTU may admit a student with advanced standing beyond the beginning of a course, through an assessment of that student's prior learning, whether it is certificated or uncertificated. Our Recognition of Prior Learning and Credit Transfer Policy outlines the process and options available to these prospective students, such as recognising experiential learning or transferring to a similar course at another institution, otherwise known as credit transfer.
All prospective students who wish to apply via Recognition of Prior Learning should initially contact the central Admissions and Enquiries Team who will be able to support you through the process.
- You will need an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK undergraduate honours degree (2.2 or above).
- Applicants without such qualifications will be considered individually. Still, they will be required to demonstrate how their experiences and knowledge would enable them to study this course at Masters-level in their Personal Statement.
Other requirements
- Your application requires a written statement in which you should outline reasons for wishing to undertake the MSc Business Transformation course. We will be looking to ensure that you have a sound rationale for joining the course based on a realistic appreciation of the discipline and profession of Business Management and Business Consultancy.
International qualifications
We accept qualifications from all over the world – check yours here:
Postgraduate preparation courses (Pre-Masters)
If you don’t yet meet our entry requirements, we offer Pre-Masters courses through our partner Nottingham Trent International College (NTIC), based on our City Campus:
English language entry requirements
You can meet our language requirements by successfully completing our pre-sessional English course for an agreed length of time, or by submitting the required grade in one of our accepted English language tests, such as IELTS:
Would you like some advice on your study plans?
Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.
- Complete this simple form to keep in touch with the International Office.
Fees and funding
Home fees for September 2023 entry
| Study route | Home fees |
|---|---|
| One year (full-time) | £13,150 |
*Please note that if you are considering a course that runs over more than one year, the tuition fee stated is for the first year of study. The course fee for the second year may be subject to annual review.
Placements are only available for students beginning their studies in September.
Additional costs
Your course fees cover the cost of studies, and include loads of great benefits, such as the use of our City Campus library, support from our expert Employability team, and free use of the IT equipment across our campuses.
You may choose to purchase core text books for your course, and prices for these may vary. However, our library is home to four floors of books, journals and materials (many of which you can access online) – meaning you may not need to purchase as many books as you might think!
Whilst on placement students will be expected to pay for accommodation, travel and living costs.
Funding your studies
Preparing for the financial side of student life is important, but there’s no need to feel anxious and confused about it. We hope that our fees and living costs page and funding pages will answer your questions.
Postgraduate loans
The government introduced a new postgraduate loan scheme for Master degrees. The loan will be a contribution towards the costs of study and it will be at the student's discretion to use the loan towards fees, maintenance costs or other costs. Find out more on our postgraduate loans page.
Scholarships
You might be able to get a scholarship to help fund your studies. We award scholarships to those students who can demonstrate excellent achievement, passion and dedication to their studies.
Alumni Discount
We’re happy to be able to offer a 20% alumni discount to most current NTU students and recent NTU alumni. This discount is currently available for those starting an eligible postgraduate taught, postgraduate research or professional course.
Getting in touch
For more advice and guidance, you can contact our Student Financial Support Service on Tel: +44 (0)115 848 2494 or for Scholarship help please contact us on Tel: +44 (0)115 848 4460.
International / EU fees for September 2023 entry
| Study route | International / EU fees |
|---|---|
| One year (full-time) | £22,000 |
*Please note that if you are considering a course that runs over more than one year, the tuition fee stated is for the first year of study. The course fee for the second year may be subject to annual review.
Placements are only available for students beginning their studies in September.
Tuition fees are payable for each year that you are at the University. The level of tuition fees for the second and subsequent years of your postgraduate course may increase in line with inflation and as specified by the UK government.
Scholarships
We offer scholarships of up to 50% of your tuition fee. You can apply for your scholarship when you have an offer to study at NTU.
Living costs
Get advice on the cost of living as an international student in Nottingham and how to budget:
Paying fees
Find out about advanced payments, instalment plan options and how to make payments securely to the University:
Would you like some advice on your study plans?
Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.
- Complete this simple form to keep in touch with the International Office.
Additional Costs
Your course fees cover the cost of studies, and include loads of great benefits, such as the use of our library, support from our expert Employability team, and free use of the IT equipment across our campuses.
Library books
Most study modules will recommend one or more core text books, which most students choose to purchase. Book costs vary and further information is available in the University’s bookshop. Our libraries provide a good supply of essential text books, journals and materials (many of which you can access online) – meaning you may not need to purchase as many books as you might think! There may also be a supply of second-hand books available for purchase from previous year students.
Field trips
All essential field trip costs will be included in your course fees. There may be the opportunity to take part in optional field trips, which do incur additional costs.
Placement
Whilst on placement students will be expected to pay for accommodation, travel and living costs.
Print and copy costs
The University allocates an annual printing and copying allowance of £20 depending on the course you are studying. For more details about costs for additional print and copying required over and above the annual allowance please see the Printing, photocopying and scanning information on the Library website.
How to apply
Ready to join us? Apply through our NTU Applicant Portal.
- Register as a new applicant and create an account in the Applicant Portal - don't worry you won't need to complete your application at once, you can come back to it so keep your details safe.
- Fill out and submit your application - make sure to check all the information such as entry requirements before submitting.
- Track the progress of your application – you can do this by logging into the Application Portal.
- Check your offer – As long as you’ve provided all the information we need, we’ll try and make a decision on your application within five to ten working days. However, this can take longer and you should allow at least three weeks for a decision.
- Accept your offer within four weeks - Remember that competition for places is high, and if you don’t accept your offer within four weeks it may lapse. After eight weeks it will be automatically withdrawn.
- Meet the conditions of your offer (if you have any) - Upload all the documents required to meet the conditions of your offer using the My Documents section of the Applicant Portal.
Don’t worry if you’re waiting for results – we recommend applying now, and then adding them to your Application Portal once they arrive.
If you need some help in writing your application you can view our handy tips.
Good luck with your application!
Apply online through our NTU applicant portal.
Application advice
Apply early so that you have enough time to prepare – processing times for Student visas can vary, for example. After you've applied, we'll be sending you important emails throughout the application process – so check your emails regularly, including your junk mail folder.
Writing your personal statement
Be honest, thorough, and persuasive – we can only make a decision about your application based on what you tell us:
Would you like some advice on your study plans?
Our international teams are highly experienced in answering queries from students all over the world. We also have members of staff based in Vietnam, China, India and Nigeria and work with a worldwide network of education counsellors.
- Complete this simple form to keep in touch with the International Office.
The University's commitment to delivering the educational services advertised.