Who is it for?
You are a curious, persistent, problem-solving, team-oriented and ambitious graduate interested in launching your own business, leading initiatives within large corporations or taking your family business to the next level.
You relish the challenge of learning in a fast-paced, hands-on programme, created and taught by leading academics and entrepreneurs.
You’re looking for an academically rigorous and professionally relevant qualification that will serve your ultimate needs as an entrepreneur or business owner.
Objectives
You begin your MSc in Entrepreneurship by plunging straight into the world of entrepreneurship as we kick off with New Venture Creation. During this four-day module, you and your fellow students come together to share ideas, form teams and build prototypes.
You’ll quickly realise that your studies put strong emphasis on balancing research-led teaching with experiential learning such as consulting for small-business owners, preparation for joining an accelerator and field trips.
It’s your fast-track guide through the intricate process of starting your own venture/initiative.
The overarching aim is to help nurture innovative and prosperous new ventures with responsible leaders who appreciate the demands of multiple stakeholders.
The MSc in Entrepreneurship places emphasis on learning through experience, and in our classes you will be encouraged to use reflection on doing as a form of learning. This experiential learning is supported throughout the master programme by a reach and diverse ecosystem which include
Structure
What will you learn
On the Entrepreneurship master’s programme, you will:
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Develop your knowledge and understanding of the unique processes involved in creating and launching your own business.
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Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the factors behind successful entrepreneurship, from creativity to start-up financing.
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Understand and critically evaluate current issues affecting establishing new businesses from the ground up.
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Develop team-working abilities crucial to the launch of a successful business.
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Sharpen your commercial skills and learn how to apply them to the challenges of starting a successful small business.
Induction weeks
All of our MSc courses start with two compulsory induction weeks which include relevant refresher courses, an introduction to the careers services and the annual careers fair.
Term 1
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New Venture Creation
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15 credits
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30 hours, over one week, in lectures, practical classes and workshops
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120 hours self directed study
The aim of this module is to provide you with an understanding of the basic and essential issues in entrepreneurship and to provide some of the skills you will need to become an entrepreneur or to act entrepreneurially within existing organisational settings.
After a general overview of the latest theoretical approach to entrepreneurship, you will explore the more practical issues in entrepreneurship, including identifying the opportunity, gathering the resources and managing the team.
You will be invited to develop a business idea using the business model canvas, identify your ideal investors as well as learn how to pitch to them. The module will additionally focus on decisions regarding the management of a new venture.
Using one of the latest tools, a business simulation, you will learn how to analyse and act in every-day business situations after setting up a startup.
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Managing Innovation
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10 credits
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18 hours, over eleven weeks, in lectures, practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over eleven weeks, self directed study
There is increased recognition that the competitive advantage of organisations depends heavily on their ability to capitalise on their employees’ ideas.
The aim of this module is to empower you to develop your creative and entrepreneurial capacities, understand how to apply these skills to various problems, and ultimately create both a commercial product and a social problem solution.
Delivered as a series of product/service design activities, you will work in teams to apply different creativity techniques and artifacts in product/service design, framed with different creativity theories and models.
Reflective learning will be encouraged after each product/service design activity.
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Accounting for Entrepreneurs
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10 credits
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21 hours, over eleven weeks, in lectures and workshops
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82 hours, over eleven weeks, self directed study
A sound understanding of monetary flows and financials within a start-up is critical. This module will equip you with an understanding of the most common accounting and finance techniques and practices necessary to prepare and interpret financial reports.
It will also provide you with an understanding of the uses of management accounting techniques in evaluating cost behaviour for decision making purposes and financial management techniques to evaluate short-term decisions and management of working capital.
You will be introduced to the key concepts and frameworks via a series of in-class lectures, and learn to apply this knowledge to realistic accounting issues and financial statements.
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Marketing Innovations
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10 credits
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18 hours, over eleven weeks, in lectures, practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over eleven weeks, self directed study
Marketing is one of the most fundamental, most complex, and possibly also most misunderstood function of the firm.
To put it in the words of the famous Peter Drucker: “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two-and only two-basic functions: marketing and innovation.”
The aim of this module is to provide you with a sound understanding of marketing theory, concepts and tools used to market a new product offering, applicable in an entrepreneurial setting.
Emphasis is placed on the special requirements for creating and executing marketing plans and programmes in a setting of rapid technological change.
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Entrepreneurship Mentoring
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10 credits
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18 hours, over eleven weeks, in lectures practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over eleven weeks, self directed study
City, University of London and Bayes Business School have an excellent reputation in promoting the employability of their students at all levels: undergraduate and postgraduate. We, at Bayes Entrepreneurship, commit to provide you with a unique module to support your professional growth within the entrepreneurship journey.
The aim is to encourage personal and professional growth. We aim to provide you with tools and resources to identify a business idea that suits you, to develop that idea into a viable business project and above all to make you fit to enter the business start-up world by working on your professional skills with practitioners.
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New Product Development
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10 credits
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18 hours, over eleven weeks, in lectures practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over eleven weeks, self directed study
What is innovation and why does it matter? This module aims at helping you understand the process and management of developing new products.
You will learn how to identify and select opportunities, generate concepts, design product protocols, evaluate concepts/projects, understand key aspects of development and plan and implement new product launches.
Covering both the analytical and practical management aspects of new product development, you will be drawing from a variety of theoretical frameworks, tools and practices to build insights that are theoretically driven, yet practice focused.
Term 2
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Funding the New Venture
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in lectures practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
This module aims to provide you with an understanding of funding for new ventures. You will discover the various funding sources available, including angel investment, crowdfunding, and venture capital.
You will reflect on the evolution of funding for new ventures and will analyse developments that are shaping funding for entrepreneurs.
These include structural changes to the startup ecosystem and their impact on the range of resources and tools that are now freely available to founders, as well the re-shaping of the traditional venture capital model.
You will gain an understanding of the context and methods of valuing an entrepreneurial business, as well as where and how to raise capital and how to manage relationship with investors.
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High Growth Entrepreneurship
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in lectures, practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
Entrepreneurship is a multidisciplinary activity involving strategy, R&D, marketing and project management. In practice, entrepreneurs face a number of challenging issues simultaneously.
Bringing new products, services and technology from a mind or a lab to the market is a crucial economic yet complex process.
This case-based course will keep theory delivery in class to a minimum, but you will need to read a number of key papers.
The module aims to provide you with knowledge and practical tools for the creation of high-growth new ventures, as opposed to lifestyle small businesses.
You will learn how to change lives and “conquer the world” with innovative new products and services.
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Sales Management
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in practical classes and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
Almost every business plan assumes a certain amount of sales. Without sales, the entire business model is an exercise in frustration.
This module will provide you with the fundamentals of selling and sales management. It will demystify sales and help you understand how to sell. At the end of this module, you will be able to understand the role of sales in a new venture.
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Purpose Driven Entrepreneurship
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in lectures and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
Studies suggest that as many as 58% of Gen Y - individuals born 1980-2000 - were willing to take a 15% pay cut to work for a firm that mirrors their values. 45% were willing to take a 15% pay cut to work for a firm that makes a social or environmental difference (Net Impact, 2012). Gen Z (born after 1996) have similar views to Gen Y, are even more cynical towards corporate actors and are stronger digital natives (Pew 2020; CBS News, 2020).
Alongside the growth in resources for entrepreneurs and innovators interested in increasing clicks and profit, founders, investors and policy-makers have been exploring venture as a vehicle to achieve personally-meaningful goals.
This course has been designed to help you bridge the artificial division between the objectives of profit-oriented entrepreneurship, and the objectives that truly motivate innovators. Through practical and academic exercises, you will explore venture as an opportunity to create wide-spread societal change in a financially sustainable and even profitable way.
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Managing Operations for Scaling Up
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in lectures and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
The success of every venture depends on scaling. Yet the challenge is that scaling comes with inherent risk(s). Even the most prepared founders and teams face challenges, make errors, and must make progress through periods of confusion and uncertainty.
The module aims to provide you with a number of operational management techniques that can be applied to real world problems and stimulate an appreciation of the use of different types of operations management approaches to solving problems.
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Leading Entrepreneurial Teams
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10 credits
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18 hours, over ten weeks, in lectures and workshops
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82 hours, over ten weeks, self directed study
The success of new ventures heavily depends on the leader’s ability to locate and manage talent effectively. In this module, you will learn how to lead, build and maintain human assets in startup environments.
You will explore the issues associated with firm formation and how early decisions by founders can facilitate or inhibit growth. Then, you will focus on the next stage of the growing firms’ lifecycle, aiming to build the backbone of talent.
Finally, you will explore the dynamics specific to maintaining the organisation as rapid growth challenges the status quo and discover ways to effectively lead startup teams to their optimal performance
Term 3
You have the option of completing a Business Research Project in term three.
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The Entrepreneurial Adviser: Problem Solving for Early-stage Companies or new initiatives
Within the MSc in Entrepreneurship, you will be able to participate in a consulting project. You will study an actual problem of a given new venture or large organisation.
You will receive the necessary information from the cooperating firms and organisations’ staff and you will cooperate with them throughout the project. Following analysis of the problem, you will prepare and present concrete and practical solution(s).
The main target of this module is to provide you with the opportunity to handle real-world problems and suggest operational solutions that can actually be implemented by the cooperating firms.
Moreover, you will have the chance to develop close relationships with the cooperating companies and, thus, gain an appreciation of real business environments.
The final report will be critically reviewed by supervisors and presented to the firm/ organisation’s representatives.
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M&A and Other Exits for Entrepreneurs
Over the course of your career, you may participate (either actively or passively) in at most one major merger or acquisition, but over the same period you are likely to find yourself dealing with many smaller acquisitions.
This will certainly be the case if you join large organisations.
It is also likely that if you join or even found a small company you will find yourself as a target (or wanting to be one!), and if particularly fortunate, as an acquirer as well.
This module focuses on discussing the various exit options for startup companies, including M&A deals, IPOs and their relative advantages.
Preparing you for a world where M&A is an integral part of the strategic and financial business landscape, the module takes a global perspective and will help you familiarise yourself with the various aspects of M&A in the life of a corporation, how to apply valuation techniques and the various techniques used in the different stages of a merger or an acquisition (including post-merger issues).
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Business Research Project
The project will be of approximately 8,000 words. The project should be based on independent research either in the context of a single organisation or using third-party sources.
Students are encouraged from the start of the course to think about a topic for their project. A member of academic staff supervises the project, and the student may choose with whom they would like to work.
The project must be submitted by the end of August. Company sponsored projects are encouraged and a number of such projects may be available.
Electives offered in 2021
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Ethics, Society and the Finance Sector
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Intro to Python
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Corporate Entrepreneurship
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Driving Supply Chain Innovation through Technology
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Family Business
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Fashion Brand Management
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FinTech - Financial Services in the Digital Age
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Negotiation Skill for Multidiscipline Managers
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New Market Creation
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Retail Supply Chain Management.
International electives
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Corporate Open Innovation (taught in Italy)
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Creating Value with Suppliers (taught in Bologna, Italy)
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Luxury Marketing Strategy (taught in Paris, France).
Please note that electives are subject to change and availability.
