MSc Business Analysis and Consulting

What you'll study

The core Becoming an Effective Business Analysis class runs over both semesters and provides you with a practical environment to apply business analysis and consulting tools from other classes to challenging real problems offered by industrial clients.

Semester 1 is designed to provide you with the fundamental technical and soft knowledge required for a business analyst/consultant. This includes key skills to structure client problems, analyse hard/soft data, build forecasting models and manage operations.

Semester 2 is designed to extend your core skills and provide you with opportunities through a broad range of electives to help you have specialised knowledge in areas such as risk analysis, strategy modelling, big data analytics and business simulation. You also have the opportunity to study a business class offered by other departments in Strathclyde Business School during the Spring School.

Becoming an Effective Business Analyst

This class takes place over both semesters and also involves the ‘apprenticeship scheme’. Every year, case studies and challenging projects are presented to you by organisations such as Accenture, British Airways, RBS and Simul8, NHS, Diageo, Valentia Partners.

Summer project

Many MSc projects are carried out for an external organisation. You'll spend three months from June to September working on a project of importance to their clients. The aim is to gain direct experience in applying the concepts and theories studied on the course. Project clients include many major companies, in fields ranging from aerospace to whisky distilling. These projects will usually be unpaid, however, all costs such as travel and accommodation will normally be covered by the host organisation if out of town.

Distance learning

We also offer the course via online distance learning so you can study when it suits you. This is a flexible degree and the duration can vary.

Course content

Core classes

• Becoming an Effective Business Analyst
• Foundations of Operational Research & Business Analysis
• Managing Business Operations
• Quantitative Business Analysis
• Spreadsheet Modelling & Demand Forecasting
• Strategy Modelling & Management

Elective classes

Choose three

• Business Analytics
• Business Information Systems
• Business Simulation Methods
• Performance Measurement & Management
• Risk Analysis & Management
• SBS Spring School Module

Dissertation (MSc only)

The MSc project is the most substantial and independent piece of work you'll carry out during the course. You will contact your client and your supervisors and manage the whole relationship with them. The projects vary but they typically involve understanding the real-life problem through problem structuring, identifying the data requirements, review of the relevant domain literature, making methodological choices based on arguments from the methodology literature, data collection, appropriate data analysis and modelling, developing and presentation of findings and recommendations.

Learning & teaching

Core and elective classes will be taught across two semesters running from September to December and January to March. Classes will be taught through a combination of lectures and hands-on software sessions, alongside online material, with a variety of group and individual studies and assignments. The project/dissertation is undertaken during the summer months.

Assessment

Classes are assessed by various methods, including written assignments, exams, practical team projects, presentations and individual projects. Exams will take place at the end of each semester in December and April/May.

The combination of the quantitative and qualitative skills learned, along with the real experience of working with various clients' problems throughout the course, will make you attractive to employers. By the end of the programme, you'll be well placed for a client focused career by providing model-based decision support to management at a strategic and operational level. For the last decade, our graduates have been able to find jobs across different sectors from the oil and gas industry, and hospitality to junior and senior consultancy roles.

Examples of graduate employers include:

• NHS
• PWC
• SYSTRA
• Scottish Enterprise
• British Petroleum
• Hilton Worldwide
• Mabbett
• Valentia Partners
• RBS
• North Highland