CIM Chartered Postgraduate Diploma

Joining CIM and attaining our internationally renowned qualification gives you professional credibility – and a major advantage over your competitors in the job market.

You will have the weight of the world’s largest professional recognised marketing organisation behind you.

You’ll also have access to a variety of valuable support for your professional life, such as business intelligence, careers advice on tap, plus industry news and views.

In all, you will be armed with the knowledge and business intelligence to keep improving and sharpening your skills as a marketer, no matter where in your career you may be. 

The strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand.  It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits.  By operating customer-centrically, marketing brings positive return on investment, satisfies shareholders and stakeholders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future.
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Marketing is one of the important knowledge/skills needed within today’s Business World and being qualified and professionally recognised is an important part of that process.

Staffordshire University is an accredited centre for the teaching of Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) courses. 

Staffordshire University delivers a family of CIM courses:

• Professional Certificate
• Professional Diploma
• Chartered Postgraduate Diploma.

These awards dovetail with both the needs of students and local business

The Professional Postgraduate Diploma is designed to benefit a range of marketers from:

• Managers and executives
• Marketing Managers, Directors with marketing experience 

The focus of the Postgraduate award is to view marketing in a more holistic and strategic way.  Students taking this award should be aspiring to higher management levels and see the need to benefit from using marketing as a vital tool in making whole company decisions.  The award is split into four discrete units covering the aspects of evaluation, decision making, marketing, management and finally how these apply to a specified case study provided by CIM. 

All the units focus on the many consequential strategic outcomes to the topic being discussed and analysed, thus providing the students with a rounded view of how marketing interlocks with business progress and profit.  Students at Staffordshire have the added advantage of studying with their peers drawn from other local businesses and are able to also network with other CIM students taking the Professional Certificate and Diploma on the same evenings.

The award is designed in four progressive modular units to appreciate the importance of a marketing environment and the ability to create customer value.

The units will be taught within the University year, on Monday and Thursday from 6 until 9 p.m. at the University Business School, Leek Road, Stoke.

STAGE 1

Semester 1 September-December.

Unit 1: Emerging Themes (10 credits)

The purpose of introducing emerging themes at the very beginning of the course is to challenge students’ assumption that by the time they reach Level 7 they know everything there is to know about marketing. This unit should challenge their conceptual thinking and encourage them to consider how businesses need to respond to emerging themes from a marketing perspective. As well as establishing academic robustness from the onset, the unit will give students an insight into the latest issues that are impacting upon marketing in both today’s and tomorrow’s dynamic and changeable business environment. A unique feature of this unit is that the emerging themes covered will be updated annually, ensuring that students have exposure to current thinking from a variety of disciplines.

Unit 2: Analysis & Decision (20 credits)

This unit prepares students to undertake a strategic audit of the organisation in order to assess its ability to deliver its business and marketing strategy, and to make strategic choices and decisions based on that audit within the context of a dynamic global market place. The unit focuses on the tools for strategic decision making of this type, including financial and risk analysis for each decision.

Semester 2 January - May.

Unit 3: Marketing Leadership & Planning (20 credits)

The purpose of this unit is to develop the skills to evaluate options, make strategic decisions and develop strategic plans based on a clear understanding of the organisation’s need for change and how best to manage it, providing clear and strong leadership. This unit should address one of the major criticisms of employers that the existing syllabus does not adequately prepare students to justify, lead and implement the changes that their strategic marketing decisions require. Employers felt that marketers should be able to view the organisation from a strategic perspective, and through strong leadership represent marketing at senior/board level.

Unit 4: Managing Corporate Reputation (10 credits)

This unit sees the return of marketing communications to the postgraduate diploma in marketing, but this time looking closely at the strategic role of marketing communications in managing the organisation’s reputation, including the corporate brand and corporate positioning. This unit has a significant amount of new content, which moves CIM forward in its coverage of marketing communications, making it more dynamic, relevant and leading edge. The unit looks at the nature and characteristics of reputational management, and at managing the dimensions of an organisation’s reputation. In the third part, it examines closely the methods of developing effective corporate communication.

Whilst studying, you will be a University student of Staffordshire University, with all the benefits of other students. At the same time you are also a CIM student member, benefiting from one of the world’s most comprehensive “marketing portals” to having the opportunity in being involved in local, regional and national events.

The CIM award is recognised both nationally and across the world and is a “passport” to an accredited standard of qualification

For more information about CIM Chartered Postgraduate Diploma please contact: