Mini MBA in Digital Transformation
Course Overview
Our Mini MBA in Digital Transformation is a five-day immersive experience that will guide you through the evolving world of digital transformation and innovation, with a special emphasis on the role of Artificial Intelligence’, data and emerging technologies in shaping the future of business. You’ll explore, understand, and engage with the latest digital trends and technologies, while learning how to harness and fuel innovation and growth.
Throughout the course, you will not only identify where your business currently stands within the digital ecosystem, but you will also gain the tools to map out your own digital innovation journey. Our expert tutors will equip you with practical knowledge, cultural awareness, leadership skills, and digital technology to craft a future-forward strategy that aligns with your business goals.
With real-world case studies and industry insights, you'll learn how to cultivate an agile, digitally enabled workforce, ready to embrace change and lead innovation. The course is highly interactive, encouraging peer collaboration and shared learning.
By the end of the five days, you’ll have developed a tangible digital strategy that outlines a clear path for continuous innovation, along with being equipped with the leadership skills, cultural understanding, and practical tools to drive your business forward in the digital era.
This course is being delivered in collaboration with the Greater Manchester Institute of Technology (GMIoT). The GMIoT are a regional network of education providers and leading industry employers, working in partnership to deliver world-class technical education and training, of which the University of Salford is a partner.
At a glance
The Mini MBA in Digital Transformation will increase your understanding of how digital transformation can help identify new markets, bring increased competitiveness and improve the customer experience while reducing costs.
The programme is specifically designed to provide face-to-face teaching in a thought-provoking environment that encourages interaction, is heavily solution-oriented and gives an opportunity to fast-track through learning by using practical, real-life examples and case studies to ensure your invested time and money will return the best possible insights and take-away messages.
The Mini MBA in Digital Transformation course features a perfectly balanced agenda, delivered by trainers from both academic and business backgrounds, in collaboration with relevant industry speakers reinforcing the themes of the course. The course will lead you through the digital transformation process by a detailed exploration of current top-trend topics such as data analysis and technology tools, but also human factors such as change management and leadership qualities.
By the end of the Mini MBA in Digital Transformation, you will:
Deepen your understanding of Digital Transformation: You will learn how digital technologies can identify new markets, enhance competitiveness, improve customer experience, and reduce operational costs. This knowledge will help you leverage digital opportunities to drive growth in your organisation.
Develop an agile, digitally enabled workforce: With practical industry insights, you will understand how to cultivate a flexible and innovative workforce capable of adapting to the ever-evolving digital landscape, including the responsible and ethical use of Generative AI in the organisation. You will also gain strategies to foster a culture of innovation, essential for long-term success.
Create your own digital transformation strategy: Through case studies, collaborative learning, and interactive discussions, you will work on developing a tailored digital transformation roadmap for your business. By the end of the course, you will have a clear, actionable strategy that outlines your business's innovation journey.
Gain practical insights from industry experts: You will have the opportunity to hear from guest speakers who have led or consulted on successful digital transformation initiatives. Their firsthand experiences will provide you with real-world lessons on how to navigate and manage complex transformation projects.
Peer to Peer Learning: Sharing ideas and best practice between others in the cohort is valuable and essential to the successful design and implementation of your Digital Transformation Strategy.
Comprehensive Approach: Ensure you leave the programme equipped with the skills, insights, and strategies needed to lead digital innovation within your own organisation.
Tutor: John Palfreyman
On this day you will begin to map out your digital innovation journey - where are you now and where do you want to be? The day introduces key concepts, technologies and tools for reflecting on your business's current situation in relation to competitors, how to change and what to aim for.
Through structured sessions, facilitated discussions and workshops you will:
- Demystify the terminology around Digital Transformation and understand the relationship between strategic planning and effective change.
- Understand the relationship between strategy, digital transformation and how they interact to drive organisational excellence
- Understand and apply the principles of industry 4.0 to drive your organisation efficiency using digital technology
- Understand the importance of process mapping and governance and apply the techniques to drive competitive advantage in your own practice
- Apply the principals from the day to drive your digital change
Tutor: Dawn Holmes
On this day you will learn the importance of data in finding new customers and markets. We look at the importance of people with change agent roles in the business, techniques for creating new products or services and ways of changing markets and using data for evidence-based decision making.
Through structured sessions, individual and group tasks you will:
- Reimagine your business: What is big data? What can it do for your business?
- Maximise your business: Learn how to use your data and develop a working framework for contextualising your businesses data projects
- Optimise your business: Using case studies to learn how to use your data to tell the best story to the right audience
Tutor: John Palfreyman
On this day our tutor will unveil the power of technology that will help drive transformation and innovation in your business.
Through facilitated discussions and workshops, you will:
- Understand and apply the agile approach to maximising the strategic value from your digital transformation journey.
- Discover the value from using emerging technologies illustrated by real life case studies
- Explore the fundamentals of automation and understand how the application of the techniques can drive a sustained competitive advantage.
- Understand the background and organisational application of Generative AI, including the ethical and responsible use of the technology.
- Using the tools form the previous days teachings look at AI and the benefits to your business.
Tutor: Joanne Clare
With the tools to bring change to an organisation, we consider the people and the skills that are needed. This day examines the focal points for change within the organisation, the types of leadership and control required to enable this change, and the attributes required for new roles.
- Leading in the context of digital innovation using theory, models and approaches from different areas of industry.
- Sharing experience, challenges and learning from each other.
- Develop practical tools to form the basis of your digital transformation strategy.
- Creating and developing a culture of change within a digital workforce
Tutor: Peter Bulkley
On this final day, we bring together all the learning to consider existing business models for innovative products and services and then develop some individual innovative business modelling - drawing in the ideas and concepts of the course to consider the 'as is' situation for our own organisations and the future possibilities.
- Discover additional tools to build your digital model. From Idea to implementation discover your organisations digital journey.
- Testing your ideas, how will you go from planning to implementation to change.
- Create your Digital Transformation action plan to realise to implement on your return!
JOHN PALFREYMAN
John is Associate Professor of Digital Strategy at the University of Leeds. He also runs his own consultancy, acting as board advisor to a range of organisations.
John’s full-time career with IBM - which concluded in mid-2017 – was a mixture of leveraging digital technologies into government and public sector organisations around the world with the commercial exploitation of emerging technologies for business benefit, across all industries and geographies.
Before IBM, John enjoyed a number of business leadership roles in professional information technology services in the UK and Germany. John’s current interests include the application of blockchain technologies for business benefit, strategic agility, digital transformation and the cultural enablers of organisational transformation. John is passionate about the appropriate application of technology to drive long-term competitive advantage in the context of a long-term strategic plan.
Joanne Clare
Jo Clare is a Leadership Development Consultant and Executive Coach, specialising in supporting organisations, teams and individuals to lead in times of transformation and change. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and an accredited Executive Coach (ILM L7 Diploma), Jo has over 20 years of experience in senior and strategic Organisational Development, Change Management and HR engagements, within a complex and highly regulated multi-national organisation that was embedding significant digital transformation.
Recent consultancy work has focused on developing authentic, strengths-based leadership approaches to support delivering change and transformation through culture and engagement within the University sector, Aviation and Tourism sector, the NHS and the Motor industry.
Jo is passionate about developing people and teams to identify, implement and deliver transformational change effectively. She champions engaging people to make a positive difference to organisational culture through aligned people, business and digital strategies.
Dawn Holmes
Dr Dawn Holmes (DBA, MBA, BEng, FHEA, FCIM, Chartered Marketer) is an academic and practitioner in the field of Marketing. She is a Vising Fellow at Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) where she delivers marketing and management courses on Global MBA and executive education programmes. She also delivers on Executive Education programmes for Salford University Professional Development.
She received her Doctorate in Business Administration from AMBS in 2022. Her passion lies in business relationships, focusing on understanding customers and enabling the creation of customer value by harnessing big data and digital tools, particularly in Business to Business contexts.
With senior management roles covering Marketing Management, Insight Development & Deployment, Corporate Planning, and Business Intelligence, Dawn brings a broad range of experience to her teaching.
She has a DBA and MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School and an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from Staffordshire University. Since moving into her academic career, she has also become a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Peter Bulkley
Peter is a Mechanical Engineer by training and is an experienced business leader with a strong commercial bias, having worked across differing ownership structures, including PE backed, family owned and global corporate businesses.
Peter has a track record in driving performance through successfully leading growth strategies in manufacturing and engineering businesses, with considerable channel knowledge across global emerging and developed markets. Along with experience in building collaborative teams to deliver growth and transferable expertise and skills across multiple sectors.
On-campus Training
Salford Professional Development training facilities is located in Greater Manchester, just outside the city centre on The University of Salford campus at Adelphi House.
If you prefer face-to-face learning methods, receive personal one-to-one support from expert tutors and enjoy networking with like-minded professionals, our on-campus training cohorts may be the best option for you.
Online Classroom
This programme offers virtual classroom learning dates to best suit those who have busy work/life schedule, are located outside of the United Kingdom or outside of the Northwest of the UK area and prefer online learning methods and networking.
In-House and Tailored Training
Our in-house and bespoke training options are perfect for organisations who are looking to upskill a group of professionals and prefer to have the training delivered on site from their location. We also offer the option to tailor course content to match the groups real life experiences they will face in their role and industry.