UCIL2201 and UCIL22002
Essential Enterprise
- Semester 1 or 2
- Face-to-face delivery
- 10 credits
About
Start to think like a business professional.
This unit, led by Dr Suneel Kunamaneni, aims to support your employability through improving awareness and understanding key business and enterprise principles applicable to many industries.
In many business situations, there is not a single 'right or wrong' answer but a range of potential options that need to be selected from. However, making that decision is becoming more complicated as businesses try to balance economic progress with positive environmental and social impact.
In this unit, you will explore the principles that are key to 'creative' enterprises looking to grow and innovate in a modern-day economy. Using case examples and individual as well as group-work, you will develop your own skills in terms of enterprise, innovation and creative problem-solving, generating a range of improvements and new product/service ideas. You will also be encouraged through class discussions and individual reflection to consider how enterprise and innovation impacts you and the wider community.
Together, we will explore some of the important issues that are of growing concern for responsible businesses and a society that is increasingly more interested in ethical values.
- This unit forms part of the Enterprise Challenge.
Unit details
What should I know about this unit?
UCIL22001 and UCIL2202
This unit will be delivered face-to-face in both semester 1 and 2 in 2024/5.
- Level 2
- 10 Credits
- Massood Entrepreneurship Centre (Alliance Business School)
This unit forms part of the Enterprise Challenge.
A commercial mindset is essential for anyone who aspires to succeed in the world of business, or who wishes to understand the importance of enterprise in societal development
This unit aims to support graduate employability through improving awareness and understanding of key business and enterprise principles including how to:
- Identify key principles and concepts that inform contemporary business practice
- Analyse elements of value creation across different organisations
- Evaluate how businesses innovate and develop new, improved products and services that meet customer needs and wants.
- Create a structured business report, using the evidence base to support your case
- Reflect on how the enterprise principles discussed in the unit will help with your own future learning and professional practice
On successful completion of the unit you will be able to:
- Understand the importance of enterprise in society
- Identify the different ways in which value can be created
- Analyse the competitive environment and market requirements for a product or service
- Evaluate key factors that contribute to successful enterprises
- Identify, select and critically evaluate relevant and reliable sources of information
- Evaluate how innovation may be used to develop new, improved products and services
- Create a structured business report, using the evidence base to support your case
- Reflect on how enterprise principles encountered in the unit will impact on your own learning and professional development
- Consumers and customers wants and needs
- Sustainable consumption
- Competition and competitive advantage
- Responsible business
- Developing a product or service for the value driven consumer or customer
- Basics of Intellectual Property
- Marketing and distributing your offerings
- Getting the costs right
- Generating revenues
- Financial accounting
The course unit's objectives will be achieved through a number of learning and teaching methods in order to maximise your learning experience:
- 10 x 2 hr lectures or workshops including at least one guest speaker.
- Student led class and online discussion will allow constructive and collaborative learning
- Teaching material and directed learning activity will introduce key concepts and principles to students as a basis for further work.
- Significant use of case studies /real world organisational analysis will be used to encourage integration and synthesis of theory with practice
- Learning resources will enrich the scope of the module content and introduce a broad number of examples and perspectives to the candidates.
- Students will be expected to engage in individual learning through research for their assessment and further develop their independent learning skills.
Reading widely and following current events is positively encouraged as this enables analysis of key events and the ability to predict the impact that they will have on business organisations, individuals, non-profit organisations and governments throughout the world.
- Business Proposal including critical reflection - this could be a new business idea or based on an existing business - 500 words (10%)
- Final Report - Report demonstrating understanding and application of key business principles and concepts to the chosen case - 2000 words (+/- 10%) (60%)
- Infographic - Infographic that visualises business data and summarises information for the chosen case (30%)
Dr. Suneel Kunamaneni
The Enterprise Challenge combines enterprise UCIL units with a community-based enterprise project.
Essential Enterprise is one of the 10 credit enterprise UCIL units you can study as part of completion of this challenge.
UCIL units are designed to be accessible to undergraduate students from all disciplines.
UCIL units are credit-bearing and it is not possible to audit UCIL units or take them for additional/extra credits. You must enrol following the standard procedure for your School when adding units outside of your home School.
If you are not sure if you are able to enrol on UCIL units you should contact your School Undergraduate office. You may wish to contact your programme director if your programme does not currently allow you to take a UCIL unit.
How to enrol
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Enrolment using the Course Selection System
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Enrolment via your School
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Please get in touch with the UCIL team at ucil@manchester.ac.uk if you have any questions.