MSc Management in a Digital Service Economy

Course outline

The MSc Management in a Digital Service Economy aims to equip graduates with the ability to create and deliver reliable customer centred service – a key differentiator for business today. In many industries, profit margins on product sales have shrunk enormously, leading to an increased focus on generating profits through value-added services. Thus, the best firms now bundle customer-centred service with a manufactured product and create service centred solutions. Some, like IBM have moved completely to service and solutions.

Service Management as a body of knowledge has made immense progress in the last decade. Economies are more and more service-focused and it has become imperative to study all aspects of managing service. Buckingham is among the very few universities in the world to have responded to the demand for the creation of expertise in this area and to have established a track-record of success.

Teaching methods

Teaching across our postgraduate programmes is through a combination of formal lectures, tutorials and seminars. Our lectures aim to encourage healthy dialogue between faculty and students, and between students themselves, while our small tutorial groups ensure that students can engage even more closely with their teachers. Members of the Business School faculty also make a point of being available to students outside the scheduled teaching sessions – something which our postgraduate students find particularly valuable.

We frequently use case studies to examine business decisions taken in real situations, and business simulations and games give you first-hand experience of decision making in the world of work. Role-play and group problem-solving exercises help you to apply some of the theoretical concepts delivered in lectures and you will have the opportunity to undertake individual or group projects with local companies on topical business issues.

Assessment methods

The assessment of individual modules within each course varies according to the subject. Assessment is usually by examination, assessed coursework, or a combination of the two.

What might my career look like?

This degree is designed for students who intend to pursue a career in any global service sector, ranging from healthcare, consulting, hospitality and retail. You will learn and develop a unique skill set in an area that is becoming increasingly important to all business models today. Students from the Service master’s programme have gone on to work for Thames Water, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Yahoo, IBM, KPMG and Deloitte to name just a few!