Accounting and Business

It builds theoretical knowledge alongside core business skills needed to start new enterprises, make them grow or transform existing businesses through innovations in product, process or business models.

Stage one grounds business and non-business graduates alike in core knowledge, raised to new levels by highlighting networks and relationships needed for collaborative work in increasingly international markets for goods and services.

In stage two and the final project, you will select from a range of options to focus your learning and then execute a major practical exercise to help launch your new careers.

Key features of the course

• A conversion course enabling you to change subject or career direction
• Optional work experience as part of the research project unit, subject to availability
• Our professional teaching teams are experts in their field
• BU's world-class graduates are sought by global organisations
• Study at our modern Executive Business Centre (EBC) with state-of-the-art lecture theatres and learning facilities, located in the centre of Bournemouth
• We have a strong international focus, developing a truly global perspective to business
• We work closely with employers and professional bodies to ensure we provide you with appropriate and relevant study opportunities for your professional and personal development

Stage 1

Managing People

This unit aims to provide you with a secure foundation in the concepts and practice of management and leadership in the context of the changing nature of work and business in the international arena. A critically analytical and evaluative approach will be taken to explore these areas in a range of organisational scenarios, to develop a range of conceptual and practical managerial tools.

Marketing & Strategy

The Unit aims to explore and analyse the premise that in order to be successful, organisations need to gain a good understanding of their customers’ requirements and to seek to achieve organisational objectives through the satisfaction of their customers’ needs and wants. The Unit will also look at marketing against the backdrop of corporate strategy development, and establish the linkage between the two activities.

Accounting & Financial Management

This unit aims to equip you with the conceptual understanding, techniques and skills that are required to analyse and evaluate accounting and other forms of financial data for the purposes of performance evaluation, decision making and risk analysis. As well as providing a robust foundation for managerial action, the skills learned are also essential tools for consultancy, research and organizational analysis.

Stage 2

Core units

Business Models, Resources & Intellectual Property

The role of the business model, the resources it requires and the value of intangible resources including intellectual property are central to the development of new, entrepreneurial businesses, and especially those embodying a high level of innovative products and processes, creativity and design. This unit is intended to impart an appreciation of the issues these concerns raise and provide tools to help the entrepreneur or the manager of business innovation better evaluate what business models are most appropriate and how best to accumulate and protect the resources that matter most to its fulfilment.

Optional Units* (Choose Two)

Venture Capital & Growth Finance

This unit explores theories of finance, focused on issues for early-stage businesses along with practical knowledge of government grants, business angels, VCs, private equity, investment banks up to an initial public offering. The unit also looks at the implications of taking on outside finance for the nature of board decision-making, corporate reporting and disclosure.

Managing Innovation, Creativity & Design

The aim of the unit is to prepare you for exploring and managing novel ideas in a variety of business contexts. It is intended to develop your understanding of innovation, creativity and design, and to equip you with a set of tools and techniques for recognising, evaluating and supporting creative thinking and behaviour. You will review experiences of innovative organisations to identify determinants, challenges and consequences of innovation, and ways to manage these. You will build your confidence in fostering effective innovative work through experiential problem-based learning.

Selling, Relationships & Customer Service

In early-stage businesses, the top line is often the most important. Selling is essential, and it’s perhaps the most virtuous of occupations in business. Serving the customers you have convinced to buy your product or service is a close second. And in the increasingly collaborative ways of working that dominate innovative and early-stage businesses, establishing and nurturing relationships with suppliers, customers and other forms of business partners often lies at the heart of business success. This unit aims to explore these themes and generate both theoretical and deeply practical knowledge of selling, relationships and customer service.

The Entrepreneurial Mind

Entrepreneurs are born. Or can they be made? Is entrepreneurship a characteristic of a person, or a description of the relationship between an individual, other individuals and the resources and capabilities at their disposal? The unit examines the practice of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and explores the way that entrepreneurs think and act.

Stage 3

Project – Entrepreneurship in Practice or Innovation in Practice

The Project unit aims to provide you with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate your innovation and entrepreneurial skills through 'real-life' projects focusing on a problem/opportunity situation of their own choice. The unit offers the choice of two types of live projects; Entrepreneurship in Practice and Innovation in Practice.

Optional work experience

You will have the opportunity to undertake work experience as part of the research project unit, subject to interview and availability. The type of work being undertaken will be relevant to your course of study and will provide experience that informs your final research project. Combining work experience with the research project aims to attach further practical context to the value of your learning experience.

*Please note that not all option/elective units may be offered or delivered in a given year.

The normal requirements for embarking upon a postgraduate taught degree are:A good Bachelors Honours degree, 2:2 or above or equivalentFor post-experience and professional qualifications, there may be additional entry requirements set by the association or institute that ultimately administers the qualification in question. The qualification description on the course information pages should tell you what these are but please get in touch with the askBU Enquiry Service if you are in doubtIf you lack the formal academic qualifications needed to enter a postgraduate or post-experience degree, there are several alternative routes to follow - some based on experience. Preferred subjects All subjects considered. English Language Requirements IELTS band: 6 IMPORTANT NOTE: Since April 2014 the ETS tests (including TOEFL and TOEIC) are no longer accepted for Tier 4 visa applications to the United Kingdom. The university might still accept these tests to admit you to the university, but if you require a Tier 4 visa to enter the UK and begin your degree programme, these tests will not be sufficient to obtain your Visa. The IELTS test is most widely accepted by universities and is also accepted for Tier 4 visas to the UK- learn more.

For fees and funding information, please visit our website.