Concentrations
Concentrations provide you with intensive study either within a discipline or in a unified theme across disciplines.
In consultation with Silicon Valley employers, Santa Clara University business faculty has developed several concentrations to enhance your understanding of current topics, preparing you for careers in demand throughout our dynamic economy.
These concentrations build on foundational business knowledge by offering advanced coursework and integrating current business topics. As a result, you'll develop expertise and connections in particular functions or industries. Evening MBA students may choose to complete one concentration unit comprising a minimum of 12 units within a specific subject area as part of the degree.
This concentration is interdisciplinary. It meets a growing need for knowledge workers in the Valley who employ quantitative methods, economic paradigms, and technology to business processes and decision making. The student who specializes in this concentration will have strong analytical and data skills combined with business knowledge that will be applied to solving problems where business intelligence is a fundamental driver of corporate value.
Learning Objectives
- Develop critical thinking skills for strategic evaluation and implementation of current data science (and big data) paradigms.
- Understand and acquire technical expertise in various quantitative fields such as statistics, econometrics, calculus, optimization, and software paradigms, that underlie various analyses undertaken by corporations.
- Learn how to build models (theoretical, statistical and econometric) to characterize business situations, develop strategies, and analyze these models, while collecting, verifying, and using data to achieve enhanced business decisions.
Leveraging SCU's location and strong alumni presence in Silicon Valley, this concentration examines the tools needed to develop ideas into businesses and to stimulate entrepreneurial activities in existing mature businesses.
Learning Objectives
- To develop an analytical framework for evaluating new business opportunities.
- To review some of the special operating problems of new enterprises including the problems of survival in the early years, maintaining growth in an orderly fashion, and maintaining momentum as the firm approaches maturity. This involves developing and integrating an understanding of the accounting, finance, marketing, operations and management issues that start-ups face.
- To identify the unique entrepreneurial challenges faced by start-ups in high-technology sectors of the economy – these include infotech, biotech and cleantech. This involves reviewing the salient characteristics of these sectors, identifying the key strategic issues associated with them and then providing tools/frameworks to address these challenges.
- To provide an opportunity for students to evaluate their own abilities and goals in regard to small business opportunities. A career in one's own business has both advantages and disadvantages.
The finance concentration provides extensive and deep knowledge of finance, assisting students to transition from technical functions or advance in financial leadership.
Learning Objectives
Students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Analyze the valuation effects of investment and financial policies
- Interpret and analyze financial information and develop financial models for decision-making
- Explain the role of markets and financial institutions on the economy
The food entrepreneurship concentration provides extensive and deep knowledge of food and agricultural industries, with a focus on entrepreneurship.
Learning Objectives
Students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Explain the unique characteristics of the food and agricultural industries
- Demonstrate an understanding of the basic food industry segments and value chains,
- Identify how socio-economic trends and technological progress provide emerging food industry opportunities
- Survey the institutions, policies, laws, and regulations that are relevant to the operation of food and agribusiness firms
- Explain food branding strategies and the foundational principles of new product development as applied to food products
- Demonstrate an understanding of the techniques and practices used by successful food industry innovators and entrepreneurs to discover and develop new opportunities
- Apply innovation strategies to the analysis of firms and segments in the food industry.
Learning Objectives
- Demonstrate how to create, organize and sustain systems and processes necessary for success in rapidly changing and turbulent environments.
- Give examples of how one can lead in complex systems with grace and competence, and how one can leverage the strengths of other people, partners, and organizations.
- Describe the impact of systems on people and people on systems.
- Delineate interpersonal competencies and awareness of the social and moral dimensions of decisions.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to describe and apply current and evolving marketing frameworks to both high tech and non-high tech environments, integrate marketing processes with other traditional business elements to develop creative strategies and plans, and utilize marketing concepts and approaches to optimize customer satisfaction and contribute to societal well-being.
Students may propose an individual studies concentration, subject to the approval of a faculty advisor. The proposal must show why the planned coursework will enhance a student's career objectives or intensify an area of inquiry not offered by the existing concentrations.