MSc in Economics and Business Administration – Strategic Value Chain Management

Management extends beyond a single company. A company is dependent on money, supplies, services, and knowledge from a range of suppliers and customers, often spread out over the global business landscape. Unlike most other MSc specialisations, which focus on management within the individual company, the MSc in Strategic Value Chain Management (SVCM) deals with managing the global value chains that the company is part of. The SVCM programme enables graduates to manage the exchanges and relationships with these suppliers and customers, thereby gaining access to external resources required for realising corporate strategy.

Companies often refer to this MSc programme as industrial or B2B procurement/purchasing and sales/marketing. But this management task is not just about buying and selling or marketing products, services, and knowledge of global markets. The SVCM manager becomes responsible for managing, developing, and coordinating a complex range of exchanges with customers and suppliers. The cornerstones of this MSc programme are learning about the management of the economic and social exchange between the company and other companies in its value chain. Students also become familiar with understanding and managing legal and technological exchanges, although the former is not a primary focus of education.

Moreover, the SVCM programme enables candidates to become boundary spanners. Boundary spanners manage these exchanges through relationships with customers and suppliers by building bridges across organisational boundaries, essentially linking their own company with complex chains and networks of suppliers and customers across the world. The boundary spanner must establish and develop relationships with other boundary spanners representing various customers and suppliers, but at the same time also maintain a strategic perspective of how one buyer-supplier exchange is dependent on the surrounding network. Strategic decision-making is therefore an essential part of value chain management.

Social and Academic Activities

Aarhus BSS hosts a rich and varied programme of activities for you as a student, both study-related and social. Our many student associations host events ranging from lectures and company events to career days and sports days, Friday bars, and celebrations, so there is plenty of scope for meeting and networking with like-minded people, discovering new areas of academic interest, and socialising with fellow students.

Aarhus BSS

Aarhus BSS (School of Business and Social Sciences) is one of the five faculties at Aarhus University. Aarhus BSS ranks among the largest business schools in Europe, encompassing both traditional business and social science disciplines in its broad academic portfolio. Aarhus BSS holds the distinguished AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS accreditations and is thus a Triple Crown School.