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Content

Our mission is to provide current and future wine industry practitioners with the leadership skills, market insight and management acumen necessary to confront the wine industry’s complex business environment

At the end of our curriculum, every student will:

  • thoroughly master management fundamentals and will be able to apply these systemically within wine organizations
  • demonstrate effective leadership skills and team building skills in a multicultural context
  • demonstrate oral and written communication skills
  • be able to solve complex business problems that are cross-functional
  • be able to apply critical research methods to a professional issue.

Learning method

The programme is divided into 500 contact hours of courses (6 sessions) and 900 hours of personal work during the "intersessions".

Teaching comprises a combination of formal taught sessions, workshops, case studies and vineyard visits, with both academics and wine industry practitioners. All courses and materials used in class or on line are related to management practices within the wine industry.

Contact hours are based on face-to-face sessions with professors and guest speakers, where information is exchanged with and between program participants.Contact hours are meant to be as interactive as possible, and include group and individual presentations.

During each session, visits to industry locations and businesses are organized and focus on specific wine business issues.

Inter sessions help participants actively prepare for the taught sessions (readings, literature review, assigned projects); they are also meant to provide the participants with continuous learning and assessment.

The BEM distance learning platform, E-Valoris, enables participants to work on individual projects or collaborate on team assignments, with permanent contact and advice from the Wine MBA academics.

Programme details

MANAGEMENT FUNDAMENTALS: 321 hours

The main management and strategic techniques are covered in 5 essential disciplines, to enable managers to apply these principles within the wine industry: Wine Marketing, Corporate Finance, Strategic Management, Supply Chain and Operations Management, Wine Economics.

  • WINE MARKETING: 96 HOURS - Adelaide and London

The Marketing module is predominant in the Wine MBA programme: when 260 million hectolitres of wine are produced worldwide and only 220 million are consumed, Marketing has a role to play to help wine actors deal with such a gap. Indeed, the aim of the Marketing process is to understand and act on the different markets. After having discovered the main aspects of consumer behaviour and the recent trends thanks to market surveys, we will develop and illustrate the different tools of a marketing policy: products, brands, services, packaging, pricing, advertising, distributing and retailing, sales force management.

  • CORPORATE FINANCE: 69 HOURS - Bordeaux

The Corporate Finance module prepares participants to become familiar with the main financial statements, with a focus on solvency and profitability issues. It helps them analyse cost price coming from wine businesses or their suppliers.

  • STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: 66 HOURS - Bordeaux

The Strategic Management module provides analytical and strategic decision-making skills for managers and entrepreneurs involved in the wine sector. This course provides a comprehensive approach to strategic management in the wine sector.

  • SUPPLY CHAIN AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: 48 HOURS - Bordeaux

The Supply Chain and Operations Management module provides participants with a detailed knowledge and understanding of the requirements for designing, building and managing a supply chain in the wine industry environment.

  • INFORMATION SYSTEM MANAGEMENT: 15 HOURS - Bordeaux
    • E-commerce in the wine industry
    • E-commerce concepts
    • Information Systems and Supply Chain
    • Databases
    • Datamining techniques
  • WINE ECONOMICS: 27 HOURS - Bordeaux

This course introduces participants to some current economic stakes for the world's wine markets. It outlines the economic trends in the wine sector and important contemporary challenges for wine markets. It is an introductory course to the wine markets module detailed by wine industry practitioners.

MANAGING PEOPLE: 60 hours - Bordeaux

The module covers 3 main areas: Organisational behaviour and management; Strategic Human Resources Management; Personal and Career development. All themes are illustrated by wine industry case studies.

WINE MARKETS: 96 hours - Bordeaux - Adelaide - London

After being introduced to the current economic situation of the global wine market and its evolution in the years to come, participants study the major wine-producing and consuming markets, thanks to visits of industrial sites and presentations by wine industry leaders: France, Spain, UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong-Kong, China, India, Taiwan, USA, Chile, Argentina, Brazil.

As part of the wine markets module, the participants are also required to work on a research project about a specific wine market, and present their results in front of a panel of wine industry leaders during the final session in Bordeaux.

WINE MBA DISSERTATION (RESEARCH METHODS): 30 hours (plus permanent personal implication of each participant) - Bordeaux

At the beginning of the school year, participants are required to choose a thesis topic. Researching for the Wine MBA dissertation throughout the year will help participants thoroughly explore a wine related issue, with a constant help from the Wine MBA academic team.

BEM will deliver the Wine MBA degree.
The Wine MBA program is accredited by the AMBA association.