Business Management, Supply Chain and Logistics with Placement Year

• There's never been a better time to make supply chain and logistics an integral part of your business management degree. As the business world grapples with the growth of e-commerce, the aftermath of Brexit, and the complexity of international supply chains, these skills are now in high demand.
• This degree is accredited by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), which means you gain an extra professional qualification for no extra work, get access to experienced business mentors, and move one step closer to Chartered Manager status.
• Your learning will be practical and regularly bring you into contact with employers, through work placements and internships, consultancy projects and fieldtrips.
• Your tutors are also conducting ground-breaking research into areas such as lean-green logistics, artificial intelligence, and sustainable business, and will bring this latest thinking into their teaching.
• Take a placement year between years two and three, to build your experience and boost your career prospects.

This BA (Hons) Business Management, Supply Chain and Logistics will put you on the fast track to career success. Ensuring the right goods get to the right place at the right time and in the right condition is vital to any organisation, as recent crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the HGV driver shortage have underlined. The logistics and supply chain management industry is undergoing massive expansion and graduates who can demonstrate both business management and logistics skills, will be in high demand.

You will gain a solid business management education, covering all the key areas such as economics, finance, HR and marketing, and then dive deeper into supply chain and logistics from the second year onwards. You will cover topics such as the importance of managing a business' assets and creating value from them, how to create and manage sustainable supply chains, and the principles and practices of the international supply chain. 

Boost your employability with a placement year

You’ll have the opportunity to take a placement year to put the skills you’ve learned into practice in a real-world environment. We'll support you to find your placement and throughout your year in industry. Placements allow you to gain valuable experience to add to your CV, make industry contacts and help you to narrow down what kind of role you may be interested in after graduation. 

Professionally accredited

This course is accredited by the premier professional body for managers, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), and it's one of the few degrees in the country where you can graduate with the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership alongside your degree. 

You won’t need to do extra work to achieve the Diploma, thanks to our combined module and CMI assessments. This professonally-recognised Diploma is the benchmark qualification for full CMI membership and takes you a step towards Chartered Manager status, signalling to prospective employers that you’re suited for senior leadership roles and rapid promotion. 

While you're studying, you will become an affiliate member of the CMI at no extra cost. This membership brings a host of benefits that can enhance your employability, such as access to the CMI's networking events and online resources.

The BA (Hons) Business Management, Supply Chain and Logistics is also accredited by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT).

Experienced mentors

Thanks to the CMI accreditation, we can introduce you to an exclusive network of business mentors. You’ll have the opportunity to be supported by a CMI mentor at every stage of your degree. Your mentor would be a senior business person — either a Chartered Manager or Fellow of the CMI — with a wealth of experience and insights to share with you. From day one, they will advise and coach you, showing how the management and supply chain theory you are learning can be applied directly to the workplace.

Hands-on learning

Derby has a reputation for providing hands-on learning. Thanks to our excellent industry links and relatively small class sizes, you will get the chance to work with employers at every stage of this course; employers such as DHL, JCB and Clipper.

We'll bring the theories to life, asking you to put them into practice in real-world scenarios, using business simulations, topical case studies and employer-led projects. For instance, there is a live consultancy project, where you will help an employer improve business performance. This will build your specialist skills in logistics and supply chain, as well as your research, project management, problem-solving and decision-making skills.

You could also benefit from fieldtrips to see businesses in action; for instance, students recently visited Sony's manufacturing and customer service base in Wales.

Global thinking

You will hear international perspectives on business throughout this programme. This BA attracts students from all over the world and is also delivered at educational institutions across Europe and Asia. You may get an opportunity to take part in inter-country debates, seminars and guest lectures delivered online, as well as international case studies and joint projects.

In your second year, you’ll have the option to spend an exchange week in Barcelona studying at the EU Business School. This School is our partner and runs the same degree, taught in English. You could also take advantage of other optional overseas visits: for instance, a recent trip to Copenhagen saw our students investigating issues such as art fraud.  

Expert teaching

You’ll be taught by a highly qualified team with industry experience, an impressive track record for research, and a national reputation for excellence. They have extensive contacts in the business, logistics and supply chain community, and you can draw on those connections for advice and inspiration.

There are regular guest lectures which bring an extra dimension to our teaching and bring a variety of perspectives. You’ll have the chance to take part in high-profile events like our annual Logistics Week, where some of the sector’s major names showcase the latest developments and technology. In the past, speakers have covered topics such as supply chain management at John Lewis, the development of the Eurotunnel, and the future of the rail industry.

Your learning will also be enriched by our research expertise. Our Centre for Supply Chain Improvement and Centre for Business Improvement devise business solutions for clients large and small, and work at the cutting edge of the profession in areas including green-lean logistics, artificial intelligence, the low carbon economy, accountability and ethics. 

Please note that our modules are subject to change - we review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects.

We take a ‘scaffolded’ approach to learning, which means that you’ll have full support in the early stages of the degree but will gradually move towards greater independence as your knowledge deepens and you start to immerse yourself in the wider business community. By stage three, you will be able to take greater charge of your own learning, with module tutors advising and directing your studies.

Thanks to your contact with personal tutors, engagement with CMI mentors and participation in University events, you’ll become more attuned to professional behaviour and build your skills in critical thinking, creativity and self-reliance.

We're also committed to helping you become a responsible business leader with a strong moral compass. Therefore throughout the course, you will look at the role of business in wider society, exploring issues ranging from environmental sustainability to child labour, ethical governance and responsible innovation.

You’ll learn through different methods including:

• formal lectures, sometimes involving guest speakers
• tutor-led and student-led seminars
• one-to-one and small group tutorials
• work experience projects
• work-related learning
• self-directed study
• optional placement and internship opportunities
• video discussions with overseas partner institutions. 

How you are assessed

You will mainly be assessed by coursework, which could include:

• traditional essays and reports
• group project work
• research and consultancy projects
• presentations
• posters
• design of digital materials
• in-class tests
• computer-based assessments. 

This degree — and the extra CMI qualification it provides — will prepare you for a rewarding leadership career in any area of business and management, but especially in the field of supply chain and logistics. Employers will appreciate you have the potential for rapid promotion to senior positions, and are someone who can work competently and ethically in global and cross-cultural environments.

Previous students have secured graduate-level jobs with a wide range of companies, including major international names such as HSBC, Enterprise, Gleneagles and Pattonair. Some also used the skills and entrepreneurial spirit they developed during this degree to set up their own businesses.

Our Careers and Employment Service will provide you with support from day one of your course to ensure you leave Derby as a ‘work-ready’ graduate – industry aware, motivated and enterprising. Throughout your studies, you’ll also benefit from our Personal Development Planning (PDP) scheme which enables you to reflect on your learning and develop your career ambitions.

The support continues once you’ve completed your course too: you are entitled to further help and guidance from the Careers and Employment Service for up to three years after leaving the University.

Further study

You can choose to continue your studies at Derby with one of our far-reaching masters programmes, including the MBA Global, MSc International Business, or MSc Global Operations and Supply Chain Management. You may be entitled to an alumni discount on your fees if you decide to stay at Derby for postgraduate study.

2025 entry

These are the typical qualification requirements for September 2025 entry.

Contextual offers may apply to students who meet certain criteria.

2025/26

Further information about our fees and support you may be entitled to.

Additional information about your studies

Teaching hours

Like most universities, we operate extended teaching hours at the University of Derby, so contact time with your lecturers and tutors could be anytime between 9am and 9pm. Your timetable will usually be available on the website 24 hours after enrolment on to your course.

Course updates

The information provided on this page is correct at the time of publication but course content, costs and other individual course details do change from time to time and are updated as often as possible, so please do check these pages again when making your final decision to apply for a course. Any updated course details will also be confirmed to you at application, enrolment and in your offer letter.

If you are thinking about transferring onto this course (into the second year for example), you should contact the programme leader for the relevant course information as modules may vary from those shown on this page.

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