Main Content

Information and Innovation Management

Short Profile of the Focus Area

In today's market environment, companies can only be successful in the long term if they develop new products and services and continuously improve their value-added processes within an ever-shorter period of time, using more and more resources. Data- and knowledge-based innovations are playing an increasingly important role in the age of digitisation. How can companies ensure their ability to innovate and compete in such a dynamic environment? The "innovation and information management" focus provides answers to this question from a resource-based perspective. Resource-based management concentrates on the question of how companies can take advantage of their resources to achieve competitive advantages in the market and generate value. This includes aspects of

• innovation management (how to organize product development projects);
• ideas management (how can I best exploit my employees' creative potential?);
• information management (collecting data in a strategic manner, converting it into information and using it to support management decisions); and
• knowledge management (how to collect and organize a company’s knowledge and distribute it in a task-oriented manner?).

Qualification Objective

Students concentrating on "Innovation and Information Management" learn the basics of corporate innovation and information management. At the same time, they acquire tools and techniques with which they can shape knowledge-based innovations in companies. Specifically, students are taught technical skills in the areas of business intelligence, technology and innovation management, organizational design and human resources, as well as project management. For example, students participate in case study seminars in which they model and design sample innovation processes, develop their own start-up ideas and analyze the factors leading to success and failure in corporate knowledge and idea management. The core area's combination of academic and practical perspectives is rounded by regular presentations by experts from major German corporations such as Bayer, BMW, Bosch, Daimler, Lufthansa, Fraport and SAP, international companies such as Google and CSL Behring, as well as innovative small and medium-sized enterprises such as Roth Industries, Viessmann, Hübner and Stihl.

Career Perspectives

With its focus on resource-based management and the emphasis on "Information and Innovation Management", the Bachelor's programme meets a growing demand in companies that is not offered in any comparable form at other German-speaking universities: not only large, but increasingly also small and medium-sized companies are implementing innovation and information management systems in their organisations. The specific fields of work which our graduates have entered later in their careers include innovation and idea management, product management and business intelligence. Of course, management consulting firms and other knowledge-intensive service providers are also discovering the field of information and innovation management.