Strategic Marketing & Servitisation | Courses & research

During your Master’s in Business Administration, you will collect a total of 60 EC within one year. In addition to four compulsory courses, you will follow additional courses within the specialisation in Strategic Marketing & Servitisation (SMS).

European Credit Transfer System

Student workload at Dutch universities is expressed in EC, also named ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System), which is widely used throughout the European Union. In the Netherlands, each credit represents 28 hours of work.

Structure

	Number of EC
Compulsory courses for the Master’s	15 EC	Entrepreneurial Leadership & Responsible Organisational Design Qualitative Research and Business Skills Quantitative Design Methods in Business Research Business Valuation & Corporate Governance
Specialisation courses You need to choose at least three out of five elective courses of the specialisation in SMS.	15 EC	Business-to-Business Marketing Smart Industry Advanced topics in Digital Marketing Global Strategy and Business Development Design Thinking for Service and Business Innovation
Elective courses You can choose one elective freely.	5 EC	Examples of electives you can choose from within the Master’s in BA can be found at the other specialisations. You can – of course – also choose another SMS specialisation course.
Master’s thesis	25 EC	You will finish your Master’s in BA with your master’s thesis. The choice of your graduation subject is largely up to you.
Total EC	60 EC

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Master’s thesis

You will complete your Master’s in Business Administration by writing your master’s thesis. The choice of your thesis topic is largely up to you. There’s a wide variety of topics you can choose from. Many students connect with ongoing research in areas such as Smart Industry, Prediction, Servitisation, Neuromarketing or e-Strategising and Digitalisation.

Your master's thesis could involve investigating questions such as:

How can VDL engage customers in defining new value propositions?
Why are some manufacturing organisations more successful in adopting service strategies than others?
How can suppliers and customers communicate effectively using digital technologies?

The majority of our students complete their graduation project at an external organisation. This is a great way for you to combine academic skills with hands-on experience. You might devote your graduation research to identifying the best strategy for developing new customer relations, partnerships, business opportunities, or for finding new ways of managing them. You may map out the implications of the servitisation trend for a specific type of firm, or in a specific market. Or you might research the best ways for certain companies to transition from traditional to digital, smart industry. The possibilities are endless!

Career perspectives