LCF MBA

Course overview

The MBA is uniquely focused on the wider fashion sector, enabling participants to broaden their careers beyond their own specific experiences, developing a greater strategic approach, confidence and understanding that can equip them for more senior roles and greater responsibilities.

You will be taught by staff with significant fashion business experience and access to the fashion industry through consultancies and research. LCF maintains close relationships with industry leaders, which underpins the MBA’s curriculum, enabling participants to learn from industry case studies and from sector specialists. This engaging learning experience will provide you with the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and skills to succeed in a wide variety of fashion enterprises. During the course you will be able to enhance your evaluative, analytical and problem-solving skills by combining growing theoretical knowledge with applied fashion industry knowledge. The MBA also supports students in building important soft skills relevant to career development, including networking skills, communication skills and resilience.

Career paths

Through the curriculum and extra curricula opportunities, MBA Graduates will be well prepared to secure positions in the rapidly changing fashion sector. Research by OC&C (2016) identifies future growth in central office roles, significant shifts in required graduate skills and a “fight for talent” amongst recruiters. MBA graduates will be able to demonstrate “cross-functional awareness”, an understanding of end-to-end activities and contribute to the achievement of key performance indicators for the business on cost control and profit maximisation.

It is expected that these graduates will take ownership of their own career planning, demonstrate strong interpersonal skills and be able to work in flexible, multi-functional teams to innovate solutions to business problems. They will be exposed to the latest research, industry practice and the “seismic shifts” in technology and internationalisation that challenge the industry. MBA graduates will be analytical, able to ask the right questions of the abundance of Big Data available. Some employers show a preference for MBA graduates in their business, others favour MBA graduates on Graduate Management Trainee Schemes and retail consultancy.

Career choices can include retail management, international sourcing, logistics management, buying and merchandising, human resource management, consumer insight and digital marketing management and roles in implementing strategic transformation and roadmaps. Our MBA graduates will also elect to develop their own businesses or work in Social Enterprises related to the sector.

The standard entry requirements for this course are as follows: 2.1 degree at Undergraduate Level, or equivalent AND 3 years work experience, to include employment, self-employment, internships, work placements in fashion related sector.