18 education & business
Customised, practical, customer- facing – the changing landscape
of business education University business education often used to follow two principles: ‘one size fits all’ and ‘arm’s length’. Today, explains Dr Bill Nichols, senior lecturer at Bucks New University, it is engaged, practical and open to extensive customisation to meet both individual and corporate needs
Perhaps you’re planning to promote your HR or marketing manager to director/VP level? Or you want to bring a cross-section of managers up to speed on the latest in strategy and operations? You think a university postgraduate diploma or degree would help but which course, and where, offers the most sensible investment?
Popular wisdom divides UK universities in two. There are ‘research’ institutions – mostly ‘posher’ brands – and the rest: their vocational or ‘teaching’ siblings. It’s a debatable features- based distinction, which, from the perspective of this recent ex- employer, is also largely irrelevant.
Employers focus on a key benefit: employability. At the trainee level, that means graduates who both understand the components of their relevant ‘tool-kit’ (the qualification) and possess practical insights into its ‘real world’ application. Further up the organisation, if the employer is picking up the tab for mid-career managers to acquire new or ‘refresh’ postgraduate qualifications, it means specific, relevant and accountable ‘employability’ enhancement.
Reward versus investment
In response, the university ‘courseware’ landscape is evolving rapidly. Not so long ago, in the mid- 1990s, many cohort colleagues on a well-regarded MBA attended, by their own admission, as a corporate reward for ‘good behaviour’. To a man and woman, they loved it, found it intellectually stimulating and networked happily. But, back in the day-job, most reported that they left their newly-tailored MBA robes metaphorically at the office door. “Nobody,” they chorused, “wants any of that strategy stuff”. Worlds apart, worlds mutually incomprehensible.
Today, few companies, small or large, invest thousands of fee-
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Bill Nichols (second from right) with staff and students from Bucks New University and speakers at the University’s ‘New Secularism’ PR and marketing conference held at Missenden Abbey Conference Centre
pounds in such goodies. They want returns. And, for many, return means both wise procurement of practical cost-effective courses and active participation – even co-creation – in the design, development and delivery of courseware.
Practical orientation
Such practical involvement and customisation is no longer a pipedream. Long before the current changes, UK higher education institutions such as Bucks New University were responding to these drivers. There are outcomes at various levels.
First comes engagement. Like the author, most business staff at Bucks, for example, spent the majority of their careers in industry, which enables them to create ‘dynamic corridors’ between the two worlds. On the marketing degree courses, for example, that means regular inbound traffic of guest lecturers – six to eight a year per course. Such guests bring current ‘best practice’ and often supply live cases for workshops, seminars and assignments.
Outbound, Bucks business staff regularly visit local and national companies and agencies, deliver on-site ‘latest expertise’ to executives, facilitate student internships/work placements and lead knowledge transfer programmes with partner firms.
By extension, via full accreditation, we import the latest expertise from practitioner bodies such as the chartered institutes of marketing, public relations and personnel and development (CIM, CIPR and CIPD).
Second comes involvement. Not so long ago, universities created courses and assumed they’d find some punters. Today, like savvy marketers the world over, they go out, conduct research and tailor services accordingly. Bucks New University’s new MA in marketing communications, for example, was designed by course leader, Vic Davies, based around formal inputs from a dozen top consulting firms and agencies. It’s targeted at early career staff operating in a totally integrated, content-orientated and strongly digital environment, and it will be updated over time with regular inputs from an industry-led advisory panel.
Customisation and beyond
Such integration has successfully blurred the academic-industry boundary. Then add in the student manager’s ability to choose from a wide variety of full-time, part-time, evening and weekend formats, followed by the addition of a common option for them to select and utilise their own live projects. Finally, add the ability to deliver courseware in a wide range of formats both traditionally and flexibly distributed. Overall, this creates a highly customisable
them to prepare for higher-level international EMEA or APAC roles. So, certainly, you need a course which inculcates the key principles of global marketing operations, but you also need it tailored to a hi-tech context, and, say, to provide a real focus on the complexities of configuring distribution structures internationally.
Fulfilling such tailored requirements is increasingly common in the modern business school. Typically they mean taking a standard degree and replacing, in for example, a master’s qualification, between two and four out of the eight modules with customised offerings. At Bucks, for example, we created and continue to run such a special degree for Dreams, the leading UK bed supplier. We’ve also imported and delivered existing Microsoft and Cisco courses as part of wider offerings – and we’re talking about the hi-tech company option!
To find out more about how Bucks New University can help you create the higher educational service you need, see details below.
Details: 0800-056-5660
bill.nichols@
bucks.ac.uk advice@bucks.ac.uk www.bucks.ac.uk
approach to career-education integration. But Bucks New University and others can, and do, go much further.
To explain, imagine a group of mid- career country marketers in a hi-tech company. They’ve transitioned through all the essentials, know how to work effectively with product development, understand pricing and channels, and can orchestrate branding and communications via key agencies. Now you want
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MAY 2011
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