Business Management BA Honours

This course is designed to prepare you to become a business leader, an entrepreneur or seek employment in SMEs, blue-chip organisations, the public, private or third sector. It can lead to a wide variety of careers in business, HR and finance; marketing, PR and sales; management; consultancy (strategic consulting, organisational planning, marketing; IT consulting; human resource consulting and business process management). The skills, knowledge and practical experience you gain will allow you to start contributing to your employer’s organisation quickly and effectively. Many of our students go on to postgraduate study here and at a range of other universities.

The University's Careers and Employability Service has built up a network of over 3,000 employers around the world, helping all our students explore and connect with exciting opportunities and careers.

• Develop your innovation and entrepreneurial skills
  Develop your innovation and entrepreneurial skills in The Big Idea competition, sponsored by Santander.
• Kickstart your career
  Learn how to use social media in your job hunt or LinkedIn to kickstart your career.
• Develop your CQ
  Develop your cultural intelligence – or ‘CQ’ – by studying alongside students and staff representing more than 100 nationalities.

Industry links

Westminster Business School is one of London’s leading centres for business education based in the heart of London and its political, media and financial services scene. Staff who currently teach on this course have extensive professional experience in a range of business sectors with many staff maintaining links with industry through consultancy and training work.

Job roles

The course will prepare you for a wide variety of roles in business. Examples of these from our recent graduates are:

• Business partner (BT)
• Business sales executive
• Cyber security adviser
• International recruitment officer
• Marketing associate
• Personnel and development officer
• Senior solution engineer/consultant

Graduate employers

Graduates from this course have found employment at organisations including:

• Bank of England
• Barclays
• British Academy of Film and Television Arts
• BT
• Coca Cola
• EE
• HSBC
• NHS
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Transport for London

Westminster Employability Award

Employers value graduates who have invested in their personal and professional development – and our Westminster Employability Award gives you the chance to formally document and demonstrate these activities and achievements.

The award is flexible and can be completed in your own time, comprising a set of core and optional extracurricular activities.

Activities might include gaining experience through a part-time job or placement, signing up to a University-run scheme – such as mentoring or teaching in a school – or completing online exercises.

This degree will help you understand what makes a business tick and how to drive a business to succeed. In each year of study, you will take a combination of core and option modules. The flexible nature of the course allows you to choose topics that most suit your interests or career aspirations – even if these change as your course progresses. You can build your own general business degree or choose to specialise in subjects such as economics, entrepreneurship, human resource management, digital business or marketing.

Year 1

You are introduced to the functions of business organisations, the broader business environment, and key management skills and competencies, including information gathering and analysis, accounting, economics, marketing and organisational behaviour. We consider business organisations – their purposes, structures and governance in a global context, together with cultural differences and ethical constraints. You’ll be introduced to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, through case studies, discover how environmental, social and governance issues have affected companies including Divine Chocolate, for example. Drawing on real-life data from FAME, you’ll be tasked with analysing the financial performance of an organisation of your choice.

Subjects of study include:

• Global Economies and the Business Environment
• Analytics for Decision Making
• Behaviour in Organisations
• Accounting and Finance for Business
• Marketing for Business Managers

You will also have the opportunity to take an optional module that broadens your skills or helps you gain more in-depth knowledge of your specialist area. Your option module may be a foreign language.

Credit Level 4

Year 2

You will investigate and learn how businesses operate, looking at how people are managed, how you manage business operations and how managers make key decisions. We analyse business operations from both traditional and digital perspectives: the business process; the supply chain; systems integration; and the management of information, quality, demand, capacity and resources. This covers aspects of electronic and mobile services, commerce and business; innovation and design in products and services; and developments in technology and systems. You will select three optional modules.

Subjects of study include:

• Supply Chain, Operations Management and Digital Business
• Leadership and Development
• Sustainable City Economies

You can also choose three options Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Project Management, Web-enabled Business, Legal Aspects of Employment, Management Decision Making for Business, Sports Marketing, Corporate Governance or Entrepreneurial Practice. You will also have the opportunity to study a module from other faculties of the University, including a foreign language.

Alternatively, in place of the optional modules listed above, you may be able to take the WBS Study Abroad Experience (subject to eligibility) or the WBS Work Experience (not available to students on a Tier 4/Student Visa).

Credit Level 5

Placement Year

Optional work placement/study abroad year

Between Years 2 and 3, you can take an optional work placement or study year abroad. The work placement year is a one-year full-time business work placement. Past students have completed placements in a variety of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and prestigious organisations, including Barclays Bank, British Airways, Disney UK, IBM and the National Health Service (NHS). The study abroad year allows you to follow a programme of study at one of our partner institutions, giving you an opportunity to experience life in another country and learn Business from a different cultural viewpoint.

You can also choose to split your year abroad into a first semester exchange and a second semester work placement, both conducted overseas.

Year 3

Developing your specialist knowledge further through optional modules, you will learn to apply critical and reflective approaches to help explore the challenges facing organisations at a strategic level and from an organisational perspective, with a view of the broader competitive environment of today’s turbulent economy. In doing so, you will undertake research on a topic of your choice – anything from e-sport business development to environmental sustainability in business. Your studies culminate with the Global Strategic Management module, designed to simulate as closely as possible the nature of strategic decision-making in the management of a commercial organisation. You will analyse market, financial and human resource information on a weekly basis, making complex decisions.

Subjects of study include:

• Strategic Management
• Contemporary Issues in Business Management
• Developing My Professional Identity

In addition to studying the core modules above, you'll be able to select one track and one elective module (including a foreign language) OR one track and one option from another track.

Track: Finance and Accounting Options

• Global Accounting and Multinational Enterprises
• Banking Theory and Practice

Track: Global Business Options

• Comparative International Management
• Project and Programme Management

Track: Digital Business Options

• Digital Analytics
• Social Media for Business

Track: Marketing Options

• Global Marketing Management
• Interactive and Digital Marketing

Track: Economics Options

• International Economics
• Forecasting for Managers

Track: Entrepreneurship Options

• Social and Green Innovation
• Creating Entrepreneurial Leadership

Track: Sustainable Business Options

• Sustainable Supply Chain Management
• Social and Green Innovation

Track: Business Psychology Options

• Business and Organisational Psychology for Management
• Positive Psychology Coaching for Well-Being at Work

Credit Level 6

International Opportunities

Many of our courses offer international study and work experiences, and the University provides other global opportunities that all students can apply for - so whatever you're studying, you'll have the chance to go abroad.

Opportunities could include:

• Taking part in a semester or year-long exchanges at institutions around the world
• Attending an international summer school or field trip
• Developing your CV through volunteering or work placements abroad

International experience broadens horizons, boosts self-confidence, and improves global understanding, alongside being fantastic for your career.