Hello. Thank you for attending this recorded webinar for MSc Strategic Management suite. My name is Yukari Iguchi and I'm leading this presentation today.
So before moving on to explaining the program I would like to introduce myself first so I'm Yukari Iguchi I'm academic lead for hospitality and business looking after some of the business programs and hospitality programs this University delivers online and I am originally from Japan but also lived in America the United States briefly and then also in Switzerland for about four years before I came to the UK and some years ago my professional background has always been the hospitality industry because I like interesting people and understanding people and then my interest gradually shifted onto developing people and that's how I came to the academia. So my research areas had always been on the internationalization of higher education in the United Kingdom and so to help those International students who are from all over the world from different educational and cultural background to succeed in our context in the UK and then in the professional context it is on managing culture diversity how we can actually achieve the organizational goal utilizing all those different ideas and attitudes and the strengths and then helping weaknesses of the employees and managers and then skills development mainly in the hospitality sectors but in more broader contexts in the business sector and in general. So this is about myself and then here are some information about my colleagues you will meet if you enrol on one of those MSc Strategic Management Suite and so here is Dr Uche Okere my colleague, who also managed the Environmental Management programs and so he's also going to lead the modules if you enrol on the Strategic Sustainability Management programs at diploma stage. So he has quite strong backgrounds in professional as well as academic context and then he's got PhD in quite kind of technical side, he also worked in the IEMA Institute of Environmental Management and agreed assessments and so you will learn from him based on his background and knowledge and research and then you will also meet Dr Salman Ahmad as your tutor and he's also quite well established academic who has been in the educational program or teaching on the educational programs obviously since 2011 and he also worked in the various organizations and in development sector and so he's specialized in entrepreneurship and Strategic Management. He has a range of international and National recognitions. And another team member is Dr Nauman Ali and he's a senior business analyst and his area on our programs tends to be on the marketing side so digital marketing and Innovative marketing, strategic marketing as well but he also has wider experience in business analytics and work-based learning and he also has a quite strong background both professionally and academically. Okay so there are the main members in our team but you will also meet a wider range of people in different modules. So overall these MSc Strategic Management Programs have three key pillars one is entrepreneurship and then another one's internationalization and another is sustainability. because they're all quite crucial in this 21st century world so you will develop the skills and understanding about promoting entrepreneurial and innovative thinking within existing business. You can also expand your idea as a new business start-up although this is not explicitly discussed on this program it is more about reviewing and evaluating what in organization has been doing and then become more and innovative and more entrepreneurial in their business policies and practice and then strategies and that sort of area, in international context which is the second point so we always look at how the landscape for international business is changing. There are some specific modules for international and business strategy but because people on this program are from all over the place anyway and from different time zone and all those things and so our discussion is always on the international context so it is okay to think about your own local context but at the same time you can also learn from the other people's context and then obviously you're encouraged to conduct your own research in the international context. And then in this 21st century we can't just ignore sustainability and so we will have a module, a sustainable business management however and it's an optional module I'm going to explain later but throughout all the modules on this program you will consider those sustainability here and there.
So if I move on to specific features of MSc Strategic Management because in this webinar I'm covering MSc Strategic Management and MSc Strategic Sustainability Management. So the first one is Strategic Management course and then this is obviously quite new. The course itself has been running for a number of years but it has been renewed about four years ago, just before the lockdown really and so this is quite contemporary in updated course looking at Strategic Management obviously on a global level as I explained and then it is for the students of all professions ideally engaged in some sort of business organization but you can also be in the public sector as well. We have a number of students who also work in government or some sort of public sector regulatory bodies those people as well. As long as you're interested in strategic management and then this is the right program for you. Then you have kind of, it says pathway but it is another program actually Strategic Sustainability Management but you also can choose to do the one optional module even when you are not on Strategic Sustainability Management MSc you have one module about the sustainable business management but again, as I said, sustainability is everywhere on the program and then also another main feature is ILM Institute for Leadership and Management so when you complete either a Postgraduate Certificate which is the first three modules or entire MSc, you will have either certificate or diploma from the ILM so it's going to be dual award really so when you complete your study you have the University of Derby qualification and the ILM qualification and then if you do the full MSc and then you will have a final Independent Study which you can actually choose the kind of traditional dissertation project or you can work with a supervisor that was the academic paper publication. Academic paper publication is smaller in size, the volume, number of the words however it is usually more challenging because you have to meet the standard expected by a publisher. You do not have to publish but you have to work towards the publishable standard on this module but you have a choice and then and there are two zero credit modules which you may consider extra support and one is about Career Coaching and Mentoring and another one is Transforming Personal Skills and those two modules are there for you to take and to further develop your professional skills on the Career Coaching and Mentoring and then a Transforming Personal Skills is to help you get back onto more academic work and using your professional background because we understand some of the people who come onto this program have been in the professional arena for so many years but have completed first degree so many years ago and the system have changed and in context of education have changed or you haven't really engaged with any kind of academic writing or research so the Transforming Personal Skills will help you and to kind of brush up those academic skills as well as help you to identify what sort of professional skills can help you on this course. Okay so this is the structure of this program so you have core modules and you have optional modules so you can see one two 3 x 20 credit modules and I have to note there is a typo actually Transforming Personal Skills and Career Coaching and Mentoring and you can see on the core modules, fourth one it's zero credit so you have three 20 credit modules Strategic Formulation Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Strategic Execution Management and Leadership and International Business Strategies and then you will choose an optional module just to make up another 60 credits. So you can do Finance you can do Talent Management you can do Marketing and you know those things depending on your occupation maybe or your career aspiration or your accessing knowledge or interest and then you do this Independent Studies and in the end which I have explained you can do the dissertation or you can do kind of publication type of thing academic paper so you have we we'd like you to know the fundamentals of strategic management by having specific core modules but you also will have some options to choose what you'd like to do. And then when you do Strategic Sustainability Management, there isn't actually optional modules because although it says on this column it's optional modules they're all prescribed actually for this program so I I apologize for this typo. So the first three modules under these core modules heading is the same with MSc Strategic Management but when you do Sustainability Management on the diploma stage you will do specialist modules so International Environmental Policy and Law and Tools for Delivering Sustainable Solutions and Sustainable Business Management. The third module Sustainable Business Management is actually an optional module for Strategic Management and so you will see some people but for all these three modules they also shared with the MSc Environmental Management so you will meet and interact with those people many of them actually professional in this subject area who have hands-on experience and some specialized knowledge in this kind of Environmental Management or Sustainability Management subject area which will help you to further develop your insights and knowledge and skills.
And then overall we have been working hard to deliver these programs and then here are just kind of extracts of the three points of our Postgraduate Taught Experience survey. It is a national survey that's run by an external organization and they run this survey for all the universities in the UK and who runs a postgraduate program so we have achieved hundred percent positive response on three aspects so you know 100 per cent of the students who responded to the survey said they agree the course is intellectually stimulating and then staff are good at explaining things and the course has embraced or enhanced their academic ability so many of our students are happy and they feel that either the Sustainability or Strategic Management fit for purpose and then they actually could gain and further confidence knowledge and also career advancement.
And then as I explained this program will give you two awards and so one is University of Derby either Postgraduate Certificate or MSc degree and the second one is ILM certificate if you do Postgraduate Certificate or Diploma so ILM is the Institute of Leadership and Management they are globally recognized qualification and so if you have this ILM qualification then you can also put this as you can see on the right hand side there is a badge and it's a digital badge, you can actually put it on your for example LinkedIn profile or maybe your email signature as well.
So this is globally recognized qualification you can show off you have completed and then that badge gives you a good evidence of application of leadership skills. And then while you are actually on this program you also have the free student membership of the ILM resources so you can access their news webinars podcasts and some practical research reports and all those things and then also there are many online courses as well for quite pinpoint specific tasks and exercises type of thing and you can also do more CPD activities using their resources and there's also lots of networking opportunities either on the website or sometimes they also organize some kind of face-to-face events in different areas in the country and so you can also network with 30,000 plus leaders in this business arena and then you can also get some career advice and you know access to those and career advancement tools and some resources provided by the ILM so you have almost two sets of qualifications as well as the resources attached to it while you are studying on this course. So you know it's I have to say good value for money because you get two birds with just studying this course one stone. So moving on to a little bit more specific aspects, teaching and learning. What are you going to learn? One of the modules a Strategic Formulation module I think, used the SimVenture. This is a business simulation that allows you to run a virtual business for up to 10 years so you make a decision and then see how your decision turned out, whether it was the right decision so you made a change in the financial budgeting for example and then leave it overnight, next day when you come back to it you might see the financial results going up or down or any other kind of an impact on the other resources or other business areas within the organization and so you have this simulation on one of the modules and that kind of lets you play around with sales marketing, finance operations, research development and kind of general organization.
And then why do we do this? Is because I know most of you have the wealth of experience in real business but in real business you're not allowed to make any mistake because it's going to have serious consequences but in this module, using SimVenture you can actually play around to see well, I don't really make this sort of decision because I never really thought it was the best idea I always played safe but should I try? It allows you to do them and then it allows you to fail and then restart sometimes. So that you know you can learn and 'what if' type of scenario from this one and then this is a really good opportunity for you to help develop more innovative thinking and and then try taking risks to a certain extent. Although it is just on one of the modules but you can actually keep thinking about it and then simulate it in your mind to a certain extent when you work on the coursework and then do some more research and have some sort of hypothetical idea but on this module you can actually try it and then see the actual results based on the computer simulation.
And then on other modules you are not going to have weekly lectures.
This is the expectation many people just have when you come to online programs and as I said this program had the global student profile so you may be interacting with people from Tanzania and Kenya and at the same time someone from Thailand and then Canada and so you know people are in different time zones all over the world and then working most of the time so you have work, you have family commitment and then you are studying and you also need obviously some time to breathe and you know relax so our approach is not to tie you into the specific time and place to do any study and you have some flexibility in terms of time and study time of the day or time of the week but we normally progress just one unit each week and then when you access the materials this this is type of the things you could see. So there are lots of text and then occasionally you have those diagrams, interactive diagrams and some videos insert it with some exercises and we do also lots of discussion activities as well so you will not get bored and you will not be required to buy textbooks and not attend weekly lectures and so you have flexibility as long as you have good access to the online and then you can use all the resources we provide to complete your work. And then also as I mentioned ILM resources. So as I said we have students from all over the the world. So from Asia, Australia to Europe to North South America and Africa and so you can actually build a Global Network quite often professionally because you are professional when you study on these programs.
Then many of you must be here to develop your career otherwise you wouldn't probably be studying management or business area although some of you may be doing with your goal to be more like scholarly root which is absolutely fine but again if you're looking at your career to be a scholar that's still a career and so you need to have some sort of career development opportunities which we can provide while you're on this program so obviously by completing this program you know you will be equipped with the skills, knowledge, insights critical thinking and that sort of thing to add value to your organization and then by having you, that's going to be the good value and you become the good value for the organization because of your contribution you make to your organization and then you also can develop your business strategy or even you can start your own business and as I said this program doesn't really focus on the business start-up but by completing this program you will probably have enough knowledge and insights and to do so in the end. And then obviously you will have much greater confidence and from a holistic understanding of business operations and the strategy.
And then you have obviously extra credibility because you have an MSc master's degree and then also ILM award on your CV.
So when you complete your study many students actually get promoted or get the better job in the world or a more higher position job either within the organization or elsewhere. So you could actually look into taking a leadership role within your business and then within that role you can make more strategic decisions looking at the long term, looking at more high level thinking about different department not just what you do on day-to-day business and that's sort of with confidence really. Or you can actually progress on to PhD it doesn't have to be straight away but some people consider, the other people just want to focus on the business.
And then as I say you will have the confidence that allows you to apply for the higher positions within or outside your current organization or start up your business obviously and so this is a good opportunity to transform your future because having qualifications is quite significant.
And then while you study you will have this virtual campus and have everything you need to study really so as I said this is a great opportunity to advance your career and that means it is not just a couple of hours each week in a quick training course, it is the full commitment to the master's degree or postgraduate certificate so you have to spend the next two to three years doing that on a daily basis so in order to do so it is important to have your own rules and then get into the routine really and then here are some hints and tips from us to you, we are trying to give you some idea of what you need, to expect so you definitely should create a space to study. It doesn't have to be the full kind of study area in your home. It would be nice if you have, let's say the corner in your dining room with laptop and a pen and paper and a good lighting and good access to the internet and then almost program your mind when I sit here I just focus on this, with no distractions. That's ideal. But again you can take a more flexible approach for example you can also download all the unique materials although you wouldn't have access to videos and that sort of thing and you can print out or you can save onto your tablet and if you need to go offline for a while and then you decide, okay when I'm commuting on the bus I will look at at least two pages of this and I'll start thinking about my assessment and that sort of thing and take some notes so have some sort of mental and physical space to study and ideally really you should be protecting around 20 hours a week and during the term time which starts in September, January and May and for 10 week periods. It is because each module usually awards you 20 credits when you pass and then in the UK higher education context 20 credits means about 200 hours of study time and that study time includes those times you are doing the wider reading or completing your assessment tasks and so it doesn't have to be 20 hours every single week. Usually you start spending quite high number of hours in the first couple of weeks because you want to get into the pace and you want to understand and you're quite busy with introducing yourself and understanding the module, understanding the assessment and then it goes down a little bit and then you bump up the hours again before the assessment submission date and that sort of thing. So it can be different from week to week but overall and you should remember you are expected to engage with study of about 200 hours per module and you need to be prepared for that and as I say you can go up and down in terms of the level of engagement but it's quite important you have regular engagement rather than have like let's say try to finish everything in three weeks and then having three weeks off and just doing it intensively. It is a lot better to do little and often and then block some time to focus on doing some deeper thinking and assessment works and that sort of thing and because you will have lots of opportunity to interact with peers and then we usually progress on a weekly basis each unit and then each of them have at least one discussion activity so this is where you learn from each other and you receive the feedback from the academics as well and so if you just try to do 10 discussion activities in two weeks and then if you don't go back later you probably will not benefit from doing that because you don't see the feedback you don't see other people's idea and that sort of thing. Then also it is crucial for you to come into the digital campus because there are essential informations and additional resources announcement message in those other places so you know the UDO, University of Derby Online and the course resources area and some other areas you also will be given this unimail address which is Outlook email address for the University and all the essential information will be sent to that email address so it is quite important that you actually use the app or from the browser you regularly check email on your unimail account and then as I say little and often engagement is much better than block engagement and if you try to block some time to focus on studying, do it early rather than at the end of the period. Don't leave the assignments to the last minute because you might underestimate the workloads or you might completely misunderstand the assessment task. It's a lot better if you start engaging early and ask questions to the tutors and then see what other classmates, your peers are saying about the assessments then there is some opportunity to do so. And then start at least thinking about it and planning early enough.
So as I say you have interaction opportunities and then there are many channels to do so and as I keep mentioning discussion forums is probably the main platform because it is good place to talk to each other but at the same time without thinking about time zone so you can just respond to this main activity question and then maybe for a day or two come back to see how many other people have posted and then you can actually comment on your peers and you're encouraged to do so in fact and that's the main platform for the learning activities although it's not the only platform. But you also can ask questions, you also can also socialize with your peers so there are three discussion forums created on each module. So one's Cafe Forum which is more a socialization purpose so you kind of introduce yourself or if you want to start some sort of conversation with your peer you can use the forum and then learning activities which is all set by the tutor and then you can respond to those weekly activities and then comment on each other and then receive feedback. And then another one is FAQ thread Frequently Asked Questions thread and so you can ask any questions about the module in general or report problems for example, this link doesn't seem to work, can you tell me what website it is, that sort of thing. And also ask the question about the assessment or something you don't understand by reading the assessment brief or you know attending some kind of live sessions which I'm going to explain in a minute. And it is a good place to use the FAQ threads because you may be tempted to send emails and then we have a policy to respond to the emails within two working days and so you might have to wait for up to two days to receive the email and on the other side if I'm your module tutor I may receive the same question from five different people and I have to get back to each person but if you used FAQ threads you can actually check through the threads to see the similar questions already been asked and then there is a good chance actually you already have the question and then the tutor has already responded and so you don't have to send the email or don't post and then if you don't find the similar question you can post it and then by doing that you actually help everyone else who may have the similar question really and then and there are sometimes you might actually find the questions you actually didn't think about it but by seeing that you almost think like oh yeah I never really thought about it but that's a good point actually, you know that sort of thing. And so please use the FAQ threads and to ask the question obviously if you have more personal matters you can email and ask the tutor or the program leader so the emails are more appropriate from personal confidential matters but when you do so you are encouraged to use unimail email address as a University of Derby student then you should be using University of Derby email address just like you don't use your Gmail or the Hotmail address and when you communicate with your colleague for the work purpose it's the same thing. And then we usually respond within two working days and another platform we quite often use is what we call the Blackboard Collaborate and this is more like the webinar live session type of platform. Some modules may have a live session per week but we normally don't do that on this program and the information you're seeing is just generic information, we normally do three live sessions usually just focusing on the giving advice on the assessment work really and then they're all recorded. So if you can't attend because of a time zone because of work commitment or family commitment that's absolutely fine you can just go through the recording later and then post your question in the FAQ thread if you have any and then in addition to the three sessions we also run about two drop-in sessions. So this is a session with no kind of formal structure you can just come in and ask questions just to say hello or just give us some general feedback, I'm really enjoying this one, or I'm actually having quite a difficulty can you give me some support, that sort of thing. So it is just a platform because some people always prefer face-to-face live interactions while the other people are better with written communications so depending on your preference and style you can also use those drop-in sessions for the communication although there will be probably only two or three per module so there will be about five live interactive sessions per module across 10 weeks so you have more or less every other week something's happening and so you will not feel alone and you will feel the tutor is there and then a for more personal issues and if you want to have more like live communication and then you can call us or we can arrange the virtual meeting so you can just drop an email either to me as a program leader or your tutor and say oh can I ask you some question and or I'm having a bit of personal issue can I discuss about my option of the study and we can arrange the virtual meetings and to go through your issue or question or feedback live. So it is online study but it's not lonely journey and there are lots of opportunities but the thing is you also have to make an effort to use these tools so it needs level of obviously motivation and then skill to use those digital tools and then that's a good development opportunity as well because especially after the pandemic these communication tools are something everyone's using before then people never really kind of thought about it but now everyone uses at least one or two of them.
So and as I said online learning may sound quite a lonely journey but it is not because you have the entire support network provided by the University. So I'm here as your program leader and then you will have the module leader or module tutor who supports you on each module. You will also be assigned to the personal academic tutor who may or may not be teaching you and I may be your personal academic tutor without teaching you on any of the modules because I only teach on the optional modules at the moment but you can discuss your academic development journey and then how you can use your learning onto your career or you know and how you can actually improve your grade for the next module and you can have a wider academic discussion with the academic personal tutor.
So you have a range of people on the Academic Teams to support you and in addition to that we have an Online Learner Advisors team who gives you some support and information for non-academic support for for example enrolment, how to pay the fee, if you're having a bit of an issue so you want to apply for the assessment extension, that sort of thing and then outside that we also have the range of student service departments so one of them is student well-being if you have a diagnosed disability and then you definitely need to contact them because they can provide you with a support plan which will be distributed to the academic team for example if you're dyslexic or have visual impairments or have mobility problems that stop you typing quite quickly and then you may have the automatic authorized extension based on your official diagnosis and of your disability so it is definitely worth contacting them or if you have if you're experiencing any sort of mental health issue you know you start feeling a bit low because it doesn't have to be related to the study and it can be just, overall you start feeling that everything is a bit too much and I'm not quite sure I need someone to speak to I could do with a bit of help and then they also have some advice service referral scheme so you may be able to benefit from them and then they also deal with the financial hardship. If you're living in the UK they may advise you to contact some organization, internationally it might be a little bit more difficult but again if you are experiencing any sort of financial difficulties and you're struggling to pay the fee or just to feed your family and that sort of thing, they may be able to give you some sort of money advice as well. So you don't lose anything by just contacting them and then it's probably worth trying and then obviously quite importantly you have the library which has thousands and thousands of ebooks so you do not have to purchase physical books because we understand the same book may or may not be available in your country but all the books and the core readings we do on each module on our program is all available in our library and as ebook or journal articles. Then we also have the career office who may be able to help you with for example some interview skills or CV clinics and getting a bit more insight about job applications and going through the selection process. And lastly but not least you will be a member of the Union of Students so they are there to support you so if you feel for example you have been treated unfairly because of whatever the reason and they should be able to help you and then support you if you want to for example form a complaint to the university and then you can actually ask for their support. So you are provided with the support from the different areas, the specialists so academic admin, general well-being and library resources, careers and then student support.
So don't worry about trying to cope everything by yourself during your study. Then you will also have access to the full Office 365 suite so you have Word, PowerPoint, Excel, forms and all those things and you have a whopping one terabyte of cloud storage so you don't have to worry about where to store all those articles you downloaded when you're doing research or draft assignments or anything really. Everything is there and secure and then as I said you have flexibility in relation to time and space of study because you can have 24 7 access to the student portal and a virtual learning environment and you know enquiry service. You may not have the telephone answered if you call us outside office hours but at least IT service actually have the 24 7 service now so you can actually get some support but you know there's wealth of information, a vast range of information available on the student portal.
And as I mentioned we have this Library. Everything is available to you. There are only some books that's not available as ebooks but you know especially during the pandemic we realized even when you enrol on campus you probably quite often need to access the books electronically and so the University Library is making their best effort to have everything available online. They also do in addition to just having those books and journal articles and those publications, they also provide you with the range of materials and now it's called Develop at Derby so you can get lots of guidance on, for example, study skills, resource skills, research skills and then how to make references and critical thinking and how to plan your study and all those things and there are some static materials and some activities to do for you as well as some live sessions you can attend online. So the library is not just in the building with thousands of books but it is more about helping you with the general research and study skills so you can have the resources available there but you can also develop your skills using the resources.
So hopefully you now understand what to expect and what you study and then thinking about what you want to study and then after this hard work of two to three years that's the kind of standard duration it takes, then you'll be invited to the graduation. We call the 'Award Ceremony in Derby' so this is quite often the only occasion I can see you in person and it's nice for you to meet all the academics who've been tutoring you or supervising you on your dissertation or your peers who you have been interacting with in the last 2 or 3 years.
And then as you can see our graduates are quite often mature students with family and with children. Sometimes they even have the grandchildren and it's always quite nice to see people traveling from all over the world with their entire family and celebrating the special day and I very much enjoy this day and now I look forward to meeting you there.
So this is the end of the explanation of the program itself so it's up to you now to take action so I suggest you go back and think about whether you want to study and whether this is the right program and then check the entry criteria and obviously money is quite important, the course fees and payment plans and we have some flexible payment options as well and then obviously you need to plan the time so you can also find the next start date as well as the application deadline everything is on the website which is derby.ac.uk/online and then if you have any questions then you can contact us as well so for the general enquiry or any specific enquiry about the online courses please email us udolenquiries@derby.ac.uk or you can also call us 01332 if you're in the UK or the country code is 44 and 1332 594000 if you have any specific question that you would like to ask me you can still use the email address and then say that I have a question for the course leader but those enquiry teams will know whether your question is the right one for the academic team or admission team or the finance team, all those different teams and then they can direct your question to the right team. So I suggest you just contact the enquiries team to start with. So this is the end of the webinar thank you very much for your attention and I hope it helps you to make important decisions for your future career and as I say if you have any questions please feel free to contact us and I'll very much look forward to meeting you and welcoming you on board onto the program thank you.
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