Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Business

Purpose

The purpose of this Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Business is to enable individuals involved in business operations, finance, marketing, or business development to understand, assess and select appropriate business technologies for growth and effectiveness. This qualification focuses on four areas in business to leverage technology for growth:

• Business process transformation: efficiency and effectiveness.
• Business model development: profitability and sustainability.
• Business operating domain: new markets.
• Business organisational culture.

This qualification will equip learners with the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to

• Assess existing business systems to identify opportunities for digital transformation.
• Analyse business models to identify digitisation possibilities.
• Combine an understanding of process and model competencies to identify new markets and domains.
• Recommend and design effective business systems for existing or emerging digital businesses.
• Lead an organisation to accept and implement digital transformation.

Rationale

Digital business focuses on enhancing organisational competitiveness by utilising innovative digital technologies to achieve business sustainability and growth (Chaffey, Hemphill, Edmundson- Bird, 2019). In a data-driven world, it becomes imperative for businesses to employ individuals who can conceptualise digital technologies and apply these meaningfully (Harvard Business Review, 2019). In Africa specifically, there is room and a need for more digitally-driven innovations across varied sectors (Harvard Business Review on the Rapid Growth of Digital Business, 2019). This growing demand for digitalisation in business and varied sectors supports the need for suitable learning qualifications that will equip graduate learners with the theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to design robust, sustainable solutions.

This qualification is suited for the learning and development needs of Bachelor's degree or Advanced Diploma graduates seeking a new skill set to promote the digitalisation of businesses.

The career opportunities available include, among others

• Digital Business Analyst.
• Digital Sales Manager.
• Business Operations Manager.
• Brand Manager.
• Digital Marketing Manager.
• Digital Marketer.
• Business Development Consultant.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

The institution's Recognition of Prior Learning and Qualification Completion Policy distinguishes between RPL for access, which provides an alternative access route into a programme of learning, and RPL for credit, which provides for the awarding of credits for, or towards a qualification or part qualification registered on the NQF.

The RPL processes are followed to recognise and assess prior knowledge and skills gained through informal, non-formal or experiential learning. RPL applications are evaluated against the entry requirements to a qualification.

How the candidates' prior knowledge and skills will enable them to gain credits and admissions to the qualification and/or how they will be awarded credits for such learning is explained below:

• To be awarded a qualification, a candidate must complete the requisite academic modules resulting in the completion of sufficient approved credits in the approved period. Some of the credits for these modules can be granted in recognition of formal learning from another qualification or approved short learning programme.
• For a module or course to be recognised for academic credit there needs to be sufficient equivalence between the module or course completed and the outcomes and level of the module for which credit is sought.
• All credits for an incomplete qualification may be recognised as meeting part of the requirements for a different qualification.

Entry Requirements

The minimum entry requirement for this qualification is

• An appropriate Bachelor's degree in a cognate field, NQF Level 7

or

• An appropriate Advanced Diploma in a cognate field, NQF Level 7.

This qualification consists of the following compulsory modules at National Qualifications Framework Level 8 totalling 120 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, Level 8,120 Credits

• Digital Business Technologies, 20 Credits.
• Digital Business Process Transformation, 20 Credits.
• Digital Business Models and Finance, 20 Credits.
• Digital Marketing and Analytics, 20 Credits.
• Business Management in Digital Transformation, 20 Credits.
• Research Methodology, 20 Credits.

1. Evaluate the usefulness and appropriateness of business technologies for specific business needs.
2. Apply regulatory rules that impact digital business, to the selection and implementation of digital business solutions.
3. Analyse business processes to determine how technologies can improve processes.
4. Evaluate business models and the opportunities and constraints they impose and make informed decisions about how to leverage technology to change business models.
5. Design and implement an organisational change process to support digital business development.
6. Report on data collected through primary and secondary research to inform digital business change and development.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 1

• Appropriately apply business technologies to resolve business problems.
• Effectively determine areas within the business that require technological advancement and ensure that these technologies are appropriate to fill the identified gap.
• Accurately compare different business technologies and select the most suitable for business goals and objectives.
• Appropriately create new approaches that serve emerging economies' markets.
• Effectively identify emerging trends and the impact of these trends on business transformation.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 2

• Critically compare different approaches to corporate social responsibility and legislation and recommend the most suitable approach for the current business context.
• Effectively distinguish between the statutory and voluntary approaches to corporate governance.
• Conduct an ethical analysis beyond the examination and justification of individual and group decisions.
• Conduct an analysis of the impact of regulation on digital businesses.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 3

• Critically evaluate the cost impact of unresolved problems relating to existing business processes.
• Appropriately design good measures that evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a business process and how technology can be utilised to obtain process feedback.
• Create a business system that can effectively assess the value and time of process tasks and the waste created by process production.
• Accurately establish process control elements such as value proposition, performance measure, feedback from the customer and corrective action.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 4

• Successfully design a business concept that responds to market circumstances.
• Appropriately determine the financial structure of a business model, such as internal funding and venture capital.
• Successfully evaluate the execution of a business model into a business structure, business process, and related aspects.
• Effectively conduct a customer and competitor analysis on multiple levels to evaluate the reality of demand for the product or service.
• Appropriately use technological tools to make changes to business models.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 5

• Appropriately identify the internal and external variables that compel organisations to implement changes required for digital business development.
• Critically analyse situational factors that influence the strategic choices of managers when planning a change effort for digital business development.
• Successfully plan and execute models to implement changes effectively.
• Effectively communicate to relevant stakeholders, the change strategies appropriate for digital business development.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 6

• Successfully identify the criteria for meaningful digital business change and stakeholder research.
• Accurately articulate a research problem and its purpose, questions, and goals.
• Effectively assess the limitations and delimitations to a digital business change and development research study.
• Appropriately develop and implement a relevant research design.
• Successfully report on secondary research by means of a literature study that argues the research problem.
• Critically analyse primary research data to interpret research findings and insights.
• Successfully generate a report that reflects on the research design, providing meaningful recommendations for further research.