Digital Business MSc draft

Program Overview

This MSc in Digital Business equips students with the skills to envisage, plan, and manage digital initiatives. Combining business acumen with technical understanding, the program emphasizes experiential learning, featuring real-world case studies, industry collaborations, and group projects. Graduates are prepared for careers in digital marketing, transformation, analytics, and consulting, across various sectors and industries.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

This MSc in Digital Business is designed for aspiring digital business professionals who want to enhance their skills and career prospects by becoming business-oriented, but with sufficient understanding of the latest technology to envisage, plan and manage digital initiatives successfully. It will prepare you to manage digital business challenges and lead at the forefront of digital transformation. The program focuses on experiential learning, taught by staff with direct experience of developing a variety of digital solutions for business and commerce. Industry experts will present real-world case studies and scenarios, focusing on various aspects of digital business, such as emergent technologies, encryption theory and digital transformation. Students will also work in groups on live projects aimed at designing digital solutions, for example, developing enterprise architectures, business process maps or prototype software applications in collaboration with industrial partners.

Outline:

Several BI platforms will be introduced, and data analytics technologies will be reviewed. Finally, the statistical skills and knowledge which can be applied to practical big data analytics cases in an organisational context will be developed.

• Contemporary Issues in the Delivery of Digital Business: This module builds digital business consultancy skills through the exploration of authentic industry scenarios.
• Cybersecurity and Blockchain Technologies: This module explores digital trust through three aspects closely related to digital business: cybersecurity, risk management and blockchain technologies.
• Digital Business Design: This module explores the design, architectural and technological aspects of digital business systems and the concerns arising from their continuous transformation.
The main themes of the module are: theoretical foundations of digital business and transformation, architecting the digital enterprise and State-of-the-Art technologies for the digital business. Through the analysis of theoretical frameworks and case examples, students will have an opportunity to discuss the fundamental nature of digital business and explore real-world cases of how digital technologies and information systems have enabled organisational transformation through the experience of digital innovation and disruption.

Semester 2:

• Generating Digital Transformation: This module will enable students to contribute to the development of digital transformation strategies, initiatives, operational models, and to support their implementation, as organisations transform themselves into digital native enterprises.
Whilst considering the associated impacts and implications for the organisation and stakeholders, addressing the hype and reality, including the ethical and social and where they link into the management of risk and change.
• Project: This module aims to build up practice-based skills by enabling students to produce a report based on an individually conducted research project.
Students will be supported by a series of research methods classes and by the appointment of a supervisor, who will provide advice and guidance throughout a research project.

Optional Modules:

• Agile Project Management: This module is designed to introduce students to working knowledge of agile project management methodologies, tools and techniques.
The aim of the module is to develop understanding of agile methods and practical skills in applying agile tools and techniques in projects using AgilePM. The module critically appraises various agile methodologies for project management such as Scrum and Kanban. The module enables students to practice aspects of applying agile principles and methods needed to manage agile projects in IT, digital services and other knowledge-based industries.
• Customers and Competition in the Digital Era: This module explores the integration of digital techniques within the practice of marketing.
There are four core themes – the gathering of information about customers and competitors and interpreting their behaviour; the development of strategies for acquisition, conversion and retention; the use of digital tools within the communication process and evaluation through digital analytics.

Assessment:

The program uses a wide range of engaging assessment methods, including simulations, business challenges, investigating briefs, group pitches and video presentations. The course involves a variety of assessment methods that call on the student to propose solutions to real case studies both in groups, alone and under short time limits. Presentations and essays are also included in the course content, but it is the focus on practical resolution to real problems and the encouragement of analytical skills and creativity that make this an attractive course. For example, the program encourages a reflective learning journey report following the consultancy or work project undertaken in the placement organisation.

Teaching:

The program uses a variety of teaching methods – from lectures and seminars to live case study analysis and business projects – to bring study to life by incorporating real-world experience. There is a requirement for ‘self-guided’ learning and students are expected to develop their own opinions and approaches to problems. Group work is a core component of the program, which allows students to deepen relationships with classmates, get a more thorough understanding of subjects by interacting with people from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds, and mimic the office environment in which projects are often conducted in small teams across different departments. For the Cybersecurity module, students work on encryption principles with the help of practical sessions that cover basic and advanced encryption methods and practices, while in Contemporary Issues, students learn agile development and work in teams competing for the best solution and honing their consultancy skills. The program also invites current practitioners to share current challenges and experiences – past talks have covered current topics in disruptive innovation, prototyping and business solutions, cybersecurity, encryption and digital transformation.

Careers:

This course will prepare students for a wide range of employment roles in digital business, such as digital marketing, digital transformation, enterprise systems, application development, business analytics, general management, leadership, consulting and contracting across all sectors and industries. Students will have the skills and knowledge to become digital business analysts, consultants and innovators or to create their own new digital businesses.

Other:

• The program is accredited by professional bodies including the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
• The program is taught at the Marylebone Campus, which has benefitted from a multi-million-pound refurbishment resulting in new workshops, digital studios and development of the Marylebone Library.
• The program is part of Westminster Business School, which is based in the heart of London's political, media and financial services.
• The program offers a Westminster Employability Award, which gives students the chance to formally document and demonstrate their personal and professional development activities and achievements.