UNIVERSITY OF WALES, NEWPORT PROGRAMME SPECIFICATION1 Chartered Institute of Marketing Postgraduate Diploma

Newport Business School Programme Overview

Newport Business School has offered the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) programmes for many years. It is regarded by CIM as a best practice centre. This means achieving results that are consistently above the national average. As such the School has recently been accredited as one of 25 centres in the UK to be allowed to run the new postgraduate level programmes.

Programme Aims
The overall key aims of this programme are Display mastery of a complex and specialist area of knowledge and skills Demonstrate expertise in highly specialised and advanced technical, professional and or/research skills Develop new skills to a high level, including novel and emerging techniques Take significant responsibility for the work of other professional staff, lead and initiate activity Accept accountability in related decision making including the use of Supervision
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Learning Outcomes
Stage 1 60 credits Unit 1 Emerging Themes By the end of the unit, students should be able to: critically evaluate a range of key emerging macro-environmental themes and make a critical assessment of their significance for a specific sector or industry propose strategic marketing responses to the key emerging themes judged to have the greatest potential impact on a specific sector. Responses should reflect contemporary marketing practice (ie marketings new ground) and demonstrate creativity. Unit 2 Analysis and Decision By the end of the unit, students should be able to: First they will undertake a sophisticated strategic audit which will help to prioritise the key issues, opportunities and risks facing an organisation in meeting its future objectives. This will be based on a clear and detailed assessment of an organisation and its performance, and the issues and challenges it faces in creating and delivering best value. They will use their strategic audit of an organisation to generate strategic options and critically evaluate those options in respect of the key issues faced by the organisation. Finally, after exploring the wide range of strategic options available to an organisation to meet its corporate and business strategy, students will need to recommend an option based on, and justified by, a critical evaluation of its suitability in the specific situation. Unit 3 Marketing Leadership & Planning By the end of this unit students should be able to: critically evaluate the links from the corporate strategy to the marketing strategy and ways of delivering an organisations corporate mission and vision effectively develop marketing strategies to establish an organisations competitive and sustainable marketing and relationship strategies to achieve the organisations strategic intent and deliver its value proposition develop strategic but operational marketing plans at organisational level (not just functional) using synergistic planning processes, taking account of different planning frameworks (cross-functional and board level contribution) and ensuring they are within the resource capabilities of an organisation determine the most appropriate organisational structures for market-oriented

organisations and changing organisations, whilst evaluating the resource implications and requirements develop sustainable competitive advantage through suitable approaches to leadership and innovation assess the link between change programmes, marketing activities and shareholder value, show how these can contribute to an organisations ongoing success, and evaluate the concepts of power, trust and commitment in the context of negotiating change with key stakeholders. Unit 4 Managing Corporate Reputation By the end of this unit the students will be able to Critically evaluate the way organisations develop their identities and some organisations use these to form images and assign reputational status Critically analyse the elements that contribute to the identity that an organisation projects to its stakeholders, sometimes through a corporate brand Critically evaluate linkage between how an organisation wants to be seen and how it is seen, namely corporate communications Stage 2 Leading Marketing 60 Credits

By the end of Stage 2 candidates should be able to: Demonstrate a critical awareness of current and emerging issues in marketing that is informed by leading edge research and practice in the field Propose a strategic response to an emerging marketing theme that considers the impact on marketing and its interaction with other parts of the organisation Critically evaluate the skills, behaviours and attitudes required to lead strategic marketing projects Critically assess published research to determine methods of designing, implementing, measuring and monitoring the success of a project and marketing performance Design and conduct research into marketing and business issues using a range of business data, research sources and appropriate research methods Demonstrate the relationship between theory and professional practice through the application of a range of appropriate assessment tools and techniques to measure project success

Benchmarks and Reference Points

The programmes are developed by CIM consequently the School has no control over the design of the programme and is only able to deliver the programme as it stands. This includes all structures, levels, credits, content, assessment process and grading.

Learning and Teaching Strategies

The School has developed a blended learning approach and has a great deal of experience with part time students and the pressures that exist in juggling busy lives. As such we offer a structured learning programme which blends face to face workshop sessions with on line support and activities. During the first session of every unit students receive a module implementation plan (MIP). This outlines in a structured manner, the learning plan for the course. Each unit breaks down into 10 sessions. Each session will include the key learning outcomes, a syllabus reference, specific readings and activities. This will help students to plan their workload and to read around the subject.

The teaching and learning philosophy adopted at Newport has produced assessment results that have generated consistently above average pass rates for some 20 years. We are seen by CIM as a Centre of Best Practice and that is why we have been accredited to be one of the few centres to offer the Chartered Postgraduate Diploma. It is based on offering the latest application in terms of industry best practice from staff expertise as practioners. This is enhanced by the resources that are available via the University library. In addition, as part of their membership of CIM each student will receive access to the CIM marketing library. Here there is a wealth of journals and databases that offer access to the most up to date articles. For example this includes the weekly journals such as Marketing, Harvard Business Review and McKinsey. For each unit the student will be directed to a relevant set of articles to illustrate specific points and case studies.

Assessment Strategies
Unit 1 Emerging Themes This assessment will be the writing of a journal article in the context of either micro, meso or macro themes arising from the emerging, contemporary issues, which will be annually updated. Candidates will also prepare a discussion paper on chosen themes within the context of the micro, meso or macro environment and discuss the impact on their business and industry in the future. Unit 2 Analysis & Decision This unit is a pre-seen case study examination. The case study is comprehensive (in the region of 30 pages in length), allowing candidates to undertake a detailed analysis of the case material in advance of the examination. Marks will be awarded for how the candidate uses the analysis in the examination, not for the analysis itself. The case study paper will comprise three examination questions.

Unit 3 Marketing Leadership & Planning This unit focuses on developing and delivering strategic marketing plans in support of the organisations value proposition. It builds on the knowledge and skills developed in Unit 2. This assessment is an integrative work-based project, which will include a range of strategic organisational challenges in a workplace setting and will require candidates to demonstrate strong and relevant leadership in their resolution. The scenario and problem-based tasks will vary for each assessment and therefore weighting of tasks will also vary. All tasks will be mandatory. Unit 4 Managing Corporate Reputation This is a work-related assignment comprising: a. Compulsory core task (weighting 60%) b. One Elective chosen from three options (weighting 40%) The tasks will examine different aspects of corporate reputation in the context of a students own organisation, or one they know well. It will include a range of assessment approaches including the writing of articles, case studies, white papers and reports utilising a range of new and innovative technologies.

Programme Structure and Requirements, Levels, Modules, Credits and Awards

To achieve the Award, each of the 4 units of the programme will need to be successfully completed. Therefore students must pass all four units to achieve Professional Diploma. Time Sept Oct Nov Postgrad Dip Unit 1 Themes

Dec

Assignment

Unit 2 A&D Case Study Jan

Feb

Unit 4 Corp Coms

March

April May June Assignment Unit 3 Leadership

July August Sept Assignment

Criteria for Admission to the Programme

As a minimum, the following qualifications and experience are recommended as a prerequisite for entry onto the CIM Chartered Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing: CIM Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing AND A range of experience working at Senior Marketing Management level that has provided potential students with ability to evidence competence in managing marketing resources and contributing to business decisions from a marketing perspective ADDITIONALLY Students should be in a position (preferably working) to plan, agree and implement a work-based project that is relevant to their business context.

Date at Which the Programme Specification Was Written or Revised

September 2009

Student Contract
All students will be required, as a condition of enrolment, to abide by and submit to the policies, regulations and procedures of the University, as amended from time to time. A copy of all the relevant documents can be found at www.newport.ac.uk or is available, on request, from the University Information Centre. The University will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver courses in accordance with the descriptions set out in this programme specification. However, the University does not provide education to UK undergraduates on a commercial basis. It is also very largely dependent upon charitable and public funds, which the University has to manage in a way that is efficient and costeffective, in the context of the provision of a diverse range of courses to a large number of students. The University therefore: Reserves the right to make variations to the contents or methods of delivery of courses, to discontinue courses and to merge or combine courses, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. If the University discontinues any course, it will use its reasonable endeavours to provide a suitable alternative course. Cannot accept responsibility and expressly excludes liability, for damage to students property, transfer of computer viruses to students equipment or liability for breach of contract.