Master of Science in Business Engineering (Data Analytics)
A business engineer has a thorough knowledge of the discipline of business administration and technology, i.e. technological products and processes. In this respect, a business engineer may act as a mediator between technical and business economic positions to conduct data analysis, modelling and decision-making. He/she is trained to develop and implement business solutions starting from a model to a business process and to develop and implement solutions for business problems. Also, he/she models the real business situation in an (abstract) presentation, takes relevant decisions based on the model and translates these decisions into business processes.
What
The Master of Science in Business Engineering is a programme in business administration that focuses on (data-driven) management science, business processes and technology. These three disciplines are educated throughout the two-year master programme in different manners through theoretical lectures, practical case studies and business games as well as guest speakers and company projects. The master's programme teaches these disciplines both in a theoretical and a practice-oriented way.
The specific content of the study that links business analytics and business processes with technology helps to translate processes into business models and organisational structures into information systems. Business transactions within a single company and between companies in a supply chain, that include processes and the logistical flow of products, services and/or information, are studied thoroughly by data analysis techniques, conceptual or mathematical modelling techniques and techniques of decision making. These tools support the efficient organisation of resources in companies towards its common goals and objectives.
Where the Bachelor of Science in Business Engineering mainly lays the (quantitative) foundation, the master programme studies different aspects of these subdisciplines in a more applied manner. The specific content of the study that links business analytics and business processes with technology helps to translate processes into business models and organisational structures into information systems. Business operations within a single company and between companies in a supply chain, that encompass processes and the logistical flow of products, services and/or information, are studied thoroughly by data analysis techniques, conceptual or mathematical modelling techniques and techniques of decision making. These tools support the efficient organisation of resources in companies towards its common goals and objectives.
Students can specialise and choose one of three main subjects: Data Analytics - Finance - Operations Management. The discipline Data Analytics mainly emphasises ‘Business Intelligence’ and refers to the analysis of business data to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations and other useful information that can be used to make better business decisions. McKinsey and Gartner claim that there is an enormous shortage of graduates in this field. Due to the more quantitative schooling of business engineers, emphasis is placed on price-fixing, analytical customer management systems (analytical Customer Relationship Management = aCRM), predictive and prescriptive analytics as well as more recent evolutions in Big Data, social media and web analysis.
For whom
The admission requirements depend on previous degrees (type of degree, country of issue etc ...) or additonal experience.
Structure
The link between management science, business processes and technology returns throughout the master’s programme. In this perspective, attention is spent to the management of an organisation, its resources and its business processes by means of courses like Strategic Management, Human Resource Management, Business Process Management, etc.
The technology component in the course is further widened by the topics of Technology for the Circular Economy and System Dynamics and the link between these technology courses and business management is further treated in the courses in Financing High Tech Entrepreneurial Companies, Technology Entrepreneurship, Innovation Management and Enterprise Architecture.
Different management science principles are discussed and maintained throughout these courses including mathematical modelling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organisation’s ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions.
If you want to combine your master’s degree with a teacher’s degree, then there is the option of following an ‘Educatieve master’ instead of the above described master. The ‘Educatieve master’ however is a Dutch taught programme. More information can be found on www.ugent.be/educatievemaster.
Labour Market
With a degree in Business Engineering you can follow different career paths. With their strong foundation in business economics, their broad knowledge of new technologies and their strong focus on quantitative analytics in production, services, logistics, marketing and finance, business engineers understand better than anyone else how to improve the efficiency in the various parts of a company’s logistic chain.
Their job deals with managing production processes and services, with analytical and quantitative tasks to improve its overall efficiency. As a bridge builder between business economists and engineers, they are able to optimise the decision making process at various levels of the company, ranging from operational decisions on the work floor to strategic decisions at the top level of the company. As an economic agent, they are familiar with the company processes in order to perform cost price calculations, but as an engineer they also have a much wider overview on the company’s logistic processes and their potential for improvements. With their essential knowledge of the latest technologies and their strong background in business analytics, business engineers rely on the state-of-the-art ICT concepts to optimise the business processes. This essential skill is embedded in almost every course of Business Engineering curriculum and will be key to today’s modern international business strategy.
Some examples of jobs in which Business Engineering graduates start: production manager, logistics director, production planning expert, business consultant, business analyst, process engineer, research & development manager and customer relationship manager.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
www.ugent.be/nl/univgent/waarvoor-staat-ugent/onderwijsbeleid
www.ugent.be/en/ghentuniv/principles/educational-strategy/qualityassurance.htm
Unique Selling Points
Business engineers are experts at planning, designing and managing the inflow of goods, services and information in and between companies, and apply their unique knowledge and competences in analysing, integrating and optimising those inflows. This ensures business engineers to bridge the company’s aspects of business economics on the one hand, with attention for effectivity, efficiency, and economic viability; and business functions oriented towards technology, production, research, and development on the other hand, with attention for quality, productivity, and sustainable innovation.
- Multiperspectivism: The interdisciplinary nature forms a large part of the business engineer programme (HIR). A business engineer needs to have a good understanding of the possibilities and limitations of technological products and processes which are the foundations of the value chain, and of the context of business economics in which the value chain issues are situated. Therefore, the programme consists of a unique combination of (business-)economic, scientific-technological, and domain specific components, complemented with a general educational component and special attention for innovation and entrepreneurship. The programme’s name reflects this well: “Engineering the business”.
- Talent development: The programme does not only strive to impart knowledge to the students, but also to apply that knowledge in different contexts. In the bachelor programme the students learn to apply scientific techniques (e.g. mathematics, statistics, informatics) to solve problems and to manage the inflow of products and information in and between companies. In the master programme the students learn to develop new evidence-based techniques which can be employed to solve those problems. This takes place individually or in a team.
- Knowledge creation: The educational philosophy ‘Creative Knowledge Creation’ serves as a basic principle. The programme considers knowledge the fundament of creativity. Knowledge construction is supported by the methodological learning pathway in which it is taught how to analyse relevant investigation and business problems. In that pathway a business engineer adopts a critical attitude towards (his own) knowledge and the unknown forms a challenge rather than a threat: the engineer’s technical-technological knowledge serves as point of departure. A business engineer has to be able to explore certain subdisciplines. In conclusion, communication also leads to knowledge development: by means of a firm basis of business economics, a broad knowledge of new technologies, and a clear focus on production, services and logistics the business engineers bridge the different disciplines in the business.
- Programme: The programme combines a domain specific education consisting of three HIR essential courses: 1) operational research and data science, 2) operational management, and 3) business informatics with a broad general education in business economics, a polyvalent technological-scientific education in basic sciences and engineering disciplines, and a general social education in various auxiliary and cognate sciences (including communicative competences, competence in foreign languages, and competence in collaboration in teamwork).
- From Research-led teaching to Research-based learning: First of all we target knowledge transfer of (recent) scientific insights from the teacher to the student (research-led teaching). In addition to that transfer scientific competences are taught, aimed at acquiring scientific competences and techniques and at gaining insight into the research process (research-based learning).
Strengths
- Preparation: The programme introduces the students of the joint first bachelor EW, TEW and TEW: HIR to the HIR essential courses. This has to support students in making a conscious choice at the start of the second bachelor year.
- Possibility of international experience: The programme provides a number of mobility windows which offers the students the chance to gain international experience. As a consequence 1 in 3 graduates has international student experience.
- Possibility of hands-on experience: During the programme the students can opt for a hands-on experience by work placement (non-compulsory). The faculty’s recently installed work placement service supports the students in their search of hands-on experience.
- Evaluation: During the programme’s last years the acquisition of intellectual competences is at the forefront. This is acquired by means of authentic evaluation through simulations and games, cases, research projects, work placements, and the master’s dissertation. In this evaluation the students are exposed to a concrete issue from the actual professional or investigation context. In this evaluation the knowledge competences, the intellectual competences, and collaboration and communication competences are central.
- Students’ satisfaction: The students are overall satisfied with the programme. It especially draws the attention that the programme scores with its structure, evaluation and cooperative learning.
Weaknesses
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Investigation competences: We want to focus more on the development of investigation competences throughout the complete study programme for all students. We want to achieve this by means of the following action points:
- Stimulate teachers to implement recent scientific literature in their programmes.
- Increase the share of the methodological learning pathway of the programme and fine-tune the various courses.
- Teaching methods: Gradual and controlled replacement of classical lectures by the implementation of new activating learning methods. These new methods create more opportunities concerning the application of knowledge and competences and stimulate critical insights into the theory.
- Feedback: The students are right to indicate that they receive too little feedback on their projects. That is why teachers confer more with each other on the assignments’ timing by means of the term conference, what the expectations are, and how the students will receive (interim) feedback.