Equivalent to the final year of an undergraduate degree, our BA (Hons) Business Innovation & Management (top-up) course at UCA Epsom enables you to build upon an existing qualification such as a foundation degree or an HND.

This degree will show you the way social sciences can aid business innovation management, and by critically examining current research in the field, you’ll gain a deep understanding of the role it plays within the creative industries.

Throughout the year, your focus will be on learning through activities that enable you to practice, exhibit and develop your confidence in enterprise, and you’ll gain skills that will apply to any creative industry sector – from luxury and fashion to technology and music.

Overall, the course will develop your ability to weigh up ethical and intellectual considerations and build on your commitment to becoming a business professional.

What you’ll study

Business Bootcamp 5: Research & Methodologies (all students)
This bootcamp is about examining research and methodologies and how this applies to your course. We will discuss the different methods by which you can elicit findings whether quantitative (informing by data) or qualitative (informing from opinions).

Business Seminar 4: Strategy & Decision Making (all students)
More than ever, we are facing the challenge of making decisions under uncertainty against the backdrop of external factors that we cannot control or predict. As leaders, managers and executives, making effective decisions in a time-conscious manner is crucial. This bootcamp will enable you to transform decision-making into a smart and insightful process, providing a robust framework of effective and replicable solutions for better decisions and awareness of decision traps, as well as learning how to assess and choose high-value strategic options under the current climate of enormous uncertainty.

Business Bootcamp 6: Developing Enterprise (all students)
This unit will provide you with the opportunity to develop your creative thinking skills in a collaborative environment, bringing greater understanding to how those ideas may develop and transform through product or enterprise development.

Degree Project (all students)
In this final unit, you will apply all you’ve learned to create a distinctive piece of work for your degree project, the purpose of which is to allow you to identify opportunities successfully in your specialist subject area to promote and to develop your career. Through research, you will independently identify and/or generate innovative opportunities within your specialist subject area. Your portfolio will consist of a series of outcomes that showcase your knowledge, and your key attributes and skills as a reflective creative practitioner. You will be expected to consider the theoretical and professional contexts of your exploration. It is important that your work is contemporary, innovative, and representative of its target audience and industry sector.

You choose one unit from Cosmetics & Beauty: Contemporary Issues or Fashion: Contemporary Issues or Games: Contemporary Issues or Lifestyle Goods: Contemporary Issues

Cosmetics & Beauty: Contemporary Issues (elective unit)
To effectively inspire a team, gain clients’ confident and connect authentically with audiences, effective leaders in the cosmetics and beauty industries need deep understanding of contemporary issues and opportunities. In this unit you’ll gain knowledge on the influences that affect consumers, you’ll research and analyse diverse testimonies on experiences of work, creativity and collaboration in these industries.

Fashion: Contemporary Issues (elective unit)
To effectively inspire a team, gain clients’ confident and connect authentically with audiences, effective leaders in fashion need deep understanding of contemporary issues and opportunities. You’ll learn about the influences affecting consumer behaviour to enable you to advise clients credibly, and research and analyse diverse testimonies on experiences of work, creativity and collaboration.

Games: Contemporary Issues (elective unit)
To effectively inspire a team, gain clients’ confident and connect authentically with audiences, effective leaders in the games industry need a deep understanding of contemporary issues and opportunities. On this unit, learn about the influences affecting consumers’ lifestyles, free-time, self-image, and choices to enable you to advise clients credibly. You’ll also research and analyse diverse testimonies on experiences of work, creativity and collaboration.

Lifestyle Goods: Contemporary Issues (elective unit)
To effectively inspire a team, gain clients’ confident and connect authentically with audiences, effective leaders in the lifestyle industries need a deep understanding of contemporary issues and opportunities. You’ll learn about consumer lifestyles, free-time, self-image, and choices to enable you to advise clients credibly. And you’ll research and analyse diverse testimonies on experiences of work, creativity and collaboration in this specialised industry.

You choose one unit from Music: Global Industry & Futures or Cosmetics & Beauty: Global Industry & Futures or Fashion: Global Industry & Futures or Games: Global Industry & Futures or Lifestyle Goods: Global Industry & Futures

Cosmetics & Beauty: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
This unit explores the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global cosmetics and beauty industries. You’ll assess influence from culture and society and predict through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of these industries.

Fashion: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll explore the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global fashion industry. Analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations, you’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment and use the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of fashion.

Games: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll learn about the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global games industries, analysing influence from culture and society, and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future of the gaming industries.

Lifestyle Goods: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global lifestyle industries, analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future.

Music: Global Industry & Futures (elective unit)
You’ll explore the concept of future thinking and its influence on the global music industry. You’ll be analysing influence from culture and society and predicting through recognition of global shifts and emerging trend manifestations. You’ll complete an in-depth study of the current macro environment, using the findings of this study to translate, validate and communicate a vision for the future.

You choose one unit from Data Mining for Marketers or Audience Evaluation or Predictive Analytics for Business.

Data Mining for Marketers (elective unit)
Data Mining focuses on the use of automation to uncover relationships within datasets that can be used to support improved decision processes. When employed in marketing, data mining will use customer, potential customer, supplier, and population data to reveal patterns in the data that have potential to improve the marketing process and outcomes. You’ll be introduced to the processes of data mining using various tools including descriptive statistics, including SPSS and R.

Audience Evaluation (elective unit)
The concept of audiences has been broadened its meaning in recent years and is especially linked to the consumption of media and cultural productions. Audiences have been described as ‘spectators’, and most recently they are regarded as ‘consumers’ who avidly consume a variety of entertainment forms and cultural activities. This unit introduces audience research in the creative industries, aiming to evaluate how audiences play a key role in shaping creative and cultural experiences and marketing activities in contemporary business environments.

Predictive Analytics for Business (elective unit)
Predictive analytics is a domain of statistical analysis that allows an organisation to extract information from data to predict patterns and trends. This unit introduces predictive modelling and explains its application in business decisions. It focusses on a set of statistical techniques including regression modelling, cluster analysis and survival analysis.