IB - Management Consulting (B.A.)

Study language English Intake Spring + Fall Duration 6 semesters
ECTS 180 Type of study Full Time Qualification Bachelor of Arts
Semester abroad Integrated Internship Integrated Campus Cologne
Tuition (Cologne) 5.310 €* Financing More info >>
*The displayed prices are semester fees. For non-EU students' fees please check the tuition fees information page. Status: Jan 2020.

Study Course Plan

Semester 1 Semester 2 Semester 3 Semester 4 Semester Abroad Semester 6

Business Operations
3 ECTS

  • Introduction: Basic business, economic, and market principles and key terms
  • External Business Environment
  • Global Markets
  • Competitive Environment
  • Internal Environment
  • Management, Leadership & Motivation
  • Business Function: HR
  • Business Function: Operations
  • Business Function: Marketing
  • Business Function: Finance and Accounting
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Business Ethics and CSR
  • Emerging Business Trends

Business Law
3 ECTS

  • Survey on different legal systems and the harmonizing effect of EU Law
  • Concluding a contract
  • Different types of contracts and their typical features
  • Performance and obligations
  • Solving problems (e.g. failure to perform, liabilities)
  • Safeguarding creditors’ rights
  • Forms of business organizations

Mathematics
3 ECTS

  • Introduction to functions, graphs and interpretations
  • Understanding Derivatives
  • Applications of Derivatives
  • Understanding Differential Equations
  • Applications of Differential Equations
  • Understanding Logarithms
  • Applications of Logarithms

Statistics
3 ECTS

  • Introducing data and statistics
  • Descriptive statistics and exploratory data analysis
  • Introduction to probability theory
  • Discrete and continuous probability distributions
  • Sampling and sampling distributions
  • Interval estimations
  • Hypothesis development and testing
  • Simple linear regressions

Financial Accounting
3 ECTS

  • The purpose of accounting
  • Formal rules and assumptions, national law, IFRS, US-GAAP
  • The system of financial statements and accounts
  • Accounting for services and merchandising
  • Inventory valuation
  • Receivables
  • Plant, natural and intangible assets
  • Liabilities
  • Owner’s equity of corporations
  • Value-added tax
  • Accrual accounting
  • Basic ratio analysis

Applied Financial Accounting
3 ECTS

Marketing
3 ECTS

  • Marketing Definition and Process
  • Marketing in Context of Corporate Strategies
  • Internal Analysis and Marketing Environment (Micro)
  • Marketing Environment (Macro)
  • Consumer Buying Behaviour
  • Market Segmentation
  • Strategic Brand Management
  • Marketing Instruments (Product, Price Place, Promotion)
  • Marketing and Sustainability

Human Resource Management
3 ECTS

  • Recruitment and Attraction
  • HR Planning, Controlling & Instruments
  • Training and Employee Development
  • Motivation and Leadership
  • Compensation and Benefits
  • Performance Appraisal and Management
  • Certificate of employment
  • HR Ethics
  • Trends in HRM

Foreign Language
2 ECTS

Depending on the student‘s choice, language courses are offered, for example, in English, Spanish or French. If you choose the English­-Only track, the lessons will focus on the intensive development of your English skills. 

Business English
2 ECTS

The aim of this course is to solidify the students’ existing language competencies, as independent users of English, and to enable them to apply this to their studies, focusing on educational and business domains. Since English is the medium of instruction in their respective study programmes, students are expected to reach a proficient user level in English within the first year.

Personal Skills
2 ECTS

In courses such as Rhetoric and Presentation or Business and Society your social and leadership skills are trained. In addition to various compulsory courses, there are optional subjects where you can choose which of your competences should be particularly strengthened.

Microeconomics
3 ECTS

  • Introduction into microeconomic models
  • Consumer theory
  • The theory of the firm
  • Competitive markets
  • Market failure
  • Market power and monopoly
  • Oligopoly and monopolistic competition
  • Externalities
  • Asymmetric information
  • Introduction to game theory

Applied Microeconomics
3 ECTS

Supply Management
3 ECTS

  • Industrial Buying Behaviour
  • New perception of supply management
  • The procurement marketing process
  • Situation Analysis: Defining critical supply problems, potentials, targets and strategies
  • Need Analysis: Defining the demand
  • Evaluating and Selecting Supply Markets
  • Supplier Evaluation: Find the ‘right supplier’
  • Supplier Relationship Management: Importance of supplier collaborations
  • Supplier Negotiation Process: Strategies and tools
  • Green procurement: Describing a sustainable procurement model
  • Creating a basis for sustainable procurement and integrating sustainable measures into procurement processes
  • Sustainable supplier management: Key theories and practices

Strategic Management
3 ECTS

  • Introduction to Strategy and Strategic Management
  • External Analysis: understanding opportunities and threats the environment offers
  • Internal Analysis: uncovering strengths and weaknesses of the organization
  • Generic business-level strategies for competitive advantage
  • Basic Corporate-level strategic choices for long-term profitability
  • Diversification strategy
  • Internationalization
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Strategic entrepreneurship
  • Strategic leadership
  • Social Responsibility and Ethics of Strategic Management
  • Basics of Corporate Governance

Market Research
3 ECTS

  • Introduction to Market Research
  • Defining the marketing research problem and developing an approach
  • Research design
  • Secondary Data
  • Qualitative research
  • Quantitative research
  • Scaling and sampling
  • Fieldwork and Data preparation
  • Basic data analysis (how to use it)
  • Report preparation and presentation

Cost Accounting
3 ECTS

  • Rationales of cost accounting
  • Simplistic methods of overhead allocation
  • Job costing
  • Process costing
  • Activity-based costing
  • Overcapacity costing
  • Joint product costing
  • Overhead analysis sheet
  • Concepts of relevant cost and revenue
  • Budgeting

Introduction To Finance
6 ECTS

  • Finance: Goals, Functions and Environment
  • Financial analysis and Financial Forecasting
  • Managing Working Capital
  • Sources of Short-Term Financing
  • Capital Markets and Investment Banking
  • External financing resources: Debt capital
  • External financing resources: Equity capital
  • Capital Budgeting: The Time Value of Money
  • Capital structure and the Cost of Capital

Business English
2 ECTS

The aim of this course is to solidify the students’ existing language competencies, as independent users of English, and to enable them to apply this to their studies, focusing on educational and business domains. Since English is the medium of instruction in their respective study programmes, students are expected to reach a proficient user level in English within the first year.

Foreign Language
2 ECTS

Depending on the student‘s choice, language courses are offered, for example, in English, Spanish or French. If you choose the English­-Only track, the lessons will focus on the intensive development of your English skills. 

Personal Skills
2 ECTS

In courses such as Rhetoric and Presentation or Business and Society your social and leadership skills are trained. In addition to various compulsory courses, there are optional subjects where you can choose which of your competences should be particularly strengthened.

Macroeconomics
3 ECTS

  • Indicators: Gross Domestic Product and its major components, Inflation
  • Labour Markets and unemployment
  • The classical AS-AD model
  • Keynes’ IS-LM Model
  • The basic RBC model
  • Monetary Policy
  • Fiscal Policy

Applied Macroeconomics
3 ECTS

International Management
3 ECTS

  • Determinants & dimensions of culture in business
  • Culture & styles of management
  • Culture & corporate structures
  • Culture & leadership
  • Culture & corporate strategy
  • Cultural change in organisations
  • Culture and international marketing management
  • Cultural diversity in organisations
  • Business communication across culture & barriers to intercultural communication
  • Working with international teams
  • Conflicts & cultural differences
  • Developing intercultural communicative competence

Digital Management
3 ECTS

  • Global competition and the transnational corporation in the global economy
  • Emerging markets
  • Institutions governing competition
  • Formal and informal institutions
  • Organizational designs for multinational companies
  • Location-based aspects: Competitive advantages of countries
  • Organization, local adaptation and the need for standardization
  • New approaches in International Management (Born Global, QRC, …)
  • Networks and innovation
  • Managing people in multinational enterprises
  • Managing expatriates
  • Leadership and management behaviour in multinational companies

Integrative Case Study
3 ECTS

Project Management
3 ECTS

Introduction To Management Consulting
3 ECTS

Consulting Tools & Methods
3 ECTS

Foreign Language
4 ECTS

Depending on the student‘s choice, language courses are offered, for example, in English, Spanish or French. If you choose the English­-Only track, the lessons will focus on the intensive development of your English skills. 

Personal Skills
2 ECTS

In courses such as Rhetoric and Presentation or Business and Society your social and leadership skills are trained. In addition to various compulsory courses, there are optional subjects where you can choose which of your competences should be particularly strengthened.

Corporate Tax
3 ECTS

The overall aim of this module is to introduce students to the basic concepts of corporate taxation, especially the different types of taxes, transparent and intransparent entities and the value added tax.

Management Information Systems
3 ECTS

  • IT and MIS as enablers of strategic decision making
  • E-business, networks, and mobile technology
  • Infrastructure, hardware and software
  • Databases and data warehouses
  • Business Intelligence
  • Networks and communications
  • Operations management and supply chain management
  • Enterprise resource planning
  • Limitations and risks of IT systems and applications
  • MIS market trends, major providers and IT solutions.
  • The role of social media in business
  • Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things

Business Elective 1
3 ECTS

These courses aim to enable the students to develop and/or strengthen relevant skills that are of particular interest to them. Electives allow students to expand their knowledge.

The following are examples of the types of courses on offer:

  • International Marketing
  • International Human Resource Management
  • Organisational Behaviour
  • Global Supply Chain Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Diversity in Business
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • International Accounting
  • Advanced Statistics
  • Design Thinking
  • Quantitative Social Media Research
  • SAP as Enterprise Resource Planning Software
  • Snack Content
  • Harvesting and analyzing social media data for business purposes
  • Industry 4.0

Business Elective 2
3 ECTS

These courses aim to enable the students to develop and/or strengthen relevant skills that are of particular interest to them. Electives allow students to expand their knowledge.

The following are examples of the types of courses on offer:

  • International Marketing
  • International Human Resource Management
  • Organisational Behaviour
  • Global Supply Chain Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Diversity in Business
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • International Accounting
  • Advanced Statistics
  • Design Thinking
  • Quantitative Social Media Research
  • SAP as Enterprise Resource Planning Software
  • Snack Content
  • Harvesting and analyzing social media data for business purposes
  • Industry 4.0

Business Project
6 ECTS

The overall objective of this course is to provide students with possibility of applying their business knowledge on concrete business situation (real or scenario-based), related to the field of their specialization.

By the end of the module students should be able to:

  • Define project goals for the “client”.
  • Work under the set timeframe and agreed project scope.
  • Cooperate in the international project teams.
  • Plan and conduct secondary and primary research to gather necessary information: understand which information is needed and where to look for it.
  • Conduct analysis of the “client business”: be able to understand the researched information in a wider context.
  • Evaluate markets/ industries/ competitive landscapes.
  • Develop possible strategic directions for the “client” business.
  • Formulate recommendations

Business & Financial Analysis
3 ECTS

Operations Management In The Digital Era
3 ECTS

Foreign Language
4 ECTS

Depending on the student‘s choice, language courses are offered, for example, in English, Spanish or French. If you choose the English­-Only track, the lessons will focus on the intensive development of your English skills. 

Personal Skills
2 ECTS

In courses such as Rhetoric and Presentation or Business and Society your social and leadership skills are trained. In addition to various compulsory courses, there are optional subjects where you can choose which of your competences should be particularly strengthened.

Semester Abroad
25 ECTS

You will spend the fifth semester at one of our numerous partner universities abroad. 

Our International Office supports you in the selection & application process and coordinates the courses to be taken abroad with you in advance. 

Bachelor Thesis
12 ECTS

During your 6th semester you are working on your Bachelor thesis. You have 12 weeks to complete your thesis and the subject is freely selectible. A supervisor from CBS will support you and you can write the thesis in collaboration with a company as well.

Bachelor Thesis Tutorial
1 ECTS

During the Bachelor Thesis Tutorial you will learn the fundamentals for your Bachelor thesis: Defining the topic as well as structuring the thesis and you will learn the theoretical knowledge for scientific working.

Organizational Behaviour
3 ECTS

Entre­preneur­ship
3 ECTS

Business Simulation Game
4 ECTS

In a business simulation game participants have to manage their own virtual company which operates in the same market as other participant-operated competitors. This involves making typical management decisions in realistic environments. Beside the deepening and active examination of subject-specific knowledge the simulation games also include the team environment, where interaction, communication and prioritization are of paramount importance. Participants learn how to manage risk and uncertainty while time is limited and information constrained. Group-reflections help to take over different perspectives and to discuss pros and cons of content- as well as behaviour-related actions.

Personal Skills
2 ECTS

In courses such as Rhetoric and Presentation or Business and Society your social and leadership skills are trained. In addition to various compulsory courses, there are optional subjects where you can choose which of your competences should be particularly strengthened.

General business teaching units
Programme specific teaching units
Interdisciplinary competencies
Elective area

During the summer semester break you complete a national or international internship (10 ECTS). Our Career Service department will help you to find a suitable company.

Melanie Düring

+49 (0) 221 93 18 09-31

Get in touch

Apply now

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Major in Management Consulting: Your consulting studies

McK, BCG, KPMG … successful companies are often recognized by the fact that they use the services of corporate consultancies. Especially in difficult situations. Consultants love exciting tasks and the change. The task is always to address the challenges faced by companies that have a direct impact on business success. With thought-out strategies and methods. The market for consulting services is booming, as globalization and digitization are causing huge changes and increasingly complex business processes. With your consulting studies at CBS, you will have the opportunity to become a management consultant at top international consultancies or at a specialized consultancy firm.

Your consulting programme at CBS is embedded in an International Business study as specializing in Management Consulting. Lectures are held in English – the language of consultants. In semesters 3 to 6 you acquire consulting knowledge and know-how. The foundations are consulting theories, tools, methods and, of course, project management. In the fourth semester, you put your knowledge to the test: You will work on a case study or a real case and present your solutions based on facts and using logical arguments. Just like in real life as a management consultant.

Analyze. Evaluate. Advise.

Anyone can have ideas. Sound strategies need a verifiable basis. And in business this is always numbers. You will learn how to analyse financial ratios, workflows and efficiency and develop measures accordingly. Not just with pure theory, but with case studies from the business world.

Awaken the entrepreneurial spirit

Many consultants switch over into the business world or go to work for themselves. Or they found a start-up or enter into a start-up right after graduating. Good, if you have a competitive edge through knowledge: How does strategic personnel management work? How do you deal with minimal resources? How to persuade investors? Which paths lead to growth? Important topics you learn a lot about when you study at CBS.

Travel around the world? Take off now in your course of studies

Some think expecting foreign experience from university graduates is too much to ask. But that’s exactly what our students can expect from their university. A semester abroad at a partner university is part of the CBS curriculum. Get to know the American way of business in California or the cultural differences in countries like South Korea or India. This intercultural competence will help you later on in your career when presenting strategies to international decision-makers so that you, too, are accepted. The compulsory internship gives you valuable insight into the real workplace. Perhaps with a business consultancy? Maybe abroad? Our network of cooperating companies and alumni is extensive.

A career in consulting? We will advise you

In Germany alone, there are more than 10,000 consulting firms. You decide which path you want to take. Do you prefer the big names, where huge career opportunities and extremely exciting projects await you just as much as an extremely performance-oriented environment? Or will you discover a subject that already fascinates you during your studies? Then you might be of interest for specialized consultancies. In any case, with your consulting studies at CBS, you show that you mean business.

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Counselling services for you

We would be glad to answer any questions you may have regarding personal study advice at our info evenings or study information days. You can also take advantage of the chance to get to know CBS International Business School during a trial lecture.

Information material
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