BBA Data, AI & Management

Acquire a unique blend of expertise in Management and Data Engineering to meet new business needs.

The BBA Data, AI & Management* is a fully accredited four-year bachelor programme combining Management and Engineering to meet new company needs. Co-created by Centrale Nantes and Audencia, the BBA Data, AI & Management is a high quality academic programme with a strong international focus (minimum of 12 months abroad) and excellent employment prospects for its graduates.

Fully taught in English, the programme welcomes a mixed cohort of French and international students. The curriculum is structured into courses coordinated by each school in its field of expertise, followed by jointly run practical courses that link Management and Engineering.  

The synergy between the two schools offers a favourable environment and access to two strong alumni networks. The support provided by the Careers Services and close links with partner companies help each student to build his or her own career path. 

*previously entitled BBA Big Data & Management

• A fully accredited 4-year bachelor’s degree, 240 ECTS
• Mixed cohort of French and international students
• Open to applicants with a high school diploma or equivalent
• Fully taught in English
• 12 months minimum of international experience
• Location: Audencia Atlantic campus & Centrale Nantes
• Next intake: every year in September

Programme Overview

The BBA ‘Bachelor in Business Administration’ is a four-year post-secondary qualification at bachelor level with a strong international focus. It prepares students to successfully enter the workforce or, for those who wish to so, to pursue their studies with a Master’s or Advanced Master's degree. The BBA Data, AI & Management programme is fully accredited by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (diplôme visé bac+4).

Students will be prepared to take on cross-functional management positions. They will acquire both strong managerial skills (finance, management, marketing, strategy) and advanced technical skills in the collection, analysis and use of data for business performance.

Jointly developed by Audencia and Centrale Nantes, this course draws on the academic excellence of both institutions to offer a programme with a strong international and professional focus.

Contribution to sustainable development goals

 

► Learn more about Centrale Nantes' commitment to the 17 sustainable development goals

Course Content

Year 1: Acquire basic principles

The aim of the first year is to understand the basic principles in Management, AI and Data. Courses are jointly coordinated by the two institutions with each school delivering the courses within its field of expertise.

Semester 1

• Accounting / Finance
• Algorithmics
• Introduction to scientific computing
• Marketing Mix
• Mathematics I: analysis I
• Mathematics II: linear algebra I
• Principles of Microeconomics
• Sales techniques
• English / French
• Sport

Semester 2

• Cost analysis
• Data structures management
• Market study
• Mathematics III: analysis II
• Mathematics IV: linear algebra II
• Product innovation
• Sales communication
• Scientific programming
• Internship
• Chinese / French
• Sport

The year ends with an 8-week internship which can be undertaken in France or abroad. This is designed to develop students' openness and adaptability.

Examples of internships undertaken in 2021/22:

• Support for the deployment of Qlik Sense, a visual and interactive data analysis tool, SOCOMORE (USA)
• Support for the deployment of the RGPD in companies, PIXWAYS (France)
• Management of the various networks of the crypto - NFT platform, participate in the preparation of strategies related to the launch of new products YOH VIRAL LTD (Malta)
• Planning, coordinating and supervising the implementation of automatic reporting in the new business unit of UBIK, using data analysis tools UBIK LTD (Taiwan)

Year 2: Consolidate the basics and acquire advanced scientific knowledge

The first half of the year is designed to consolidate the basic principles covered in the first year in business and engineering. Courses continue to be jointly coordinated by the two institutions.

Semester 4 focuses on acquiring advanced scientific knowledge. These courses are taught exclusively by Centrale Nantes faculty on its Casablanca campus in Morocco.

Semester 3

• Business Ethics
• Consumer study
• Databases
• Information systems management I
• Information systems management II
• Mathematics V: probabilities and statistics
• Negotiation
• Operating systems
• Chinese / French
• Sport

Semester 4

• Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals
• AI and Data Mining for Digital Business
• Cloud Computing
• Data analysis
• Data cleansing and data quality
• Data mining
• Systems security information
• Machine and deep Learning
• Natural language processing
• Scientific visualization

Year 3: Acquire advanced management skills and apply knowledge

Semester 5 focuses on advanced management courses. These courses are taught exclusively by Audencia faculty and are held on its campus in Shenzhen, China.

The focus in semester 6 turns towards more applied learning. Students will undertake project-based work and put their knowledge into practice. Faculty from both institutions run and teach these courses jointly.

Students complete the year with a further 16-week internship period. During this internship students will be tasked with undertaking in-depth analysis of an issue linked to their responsibilities within their company and to formulating recommendations.

Semester 5

Core Courses:

• Finance
• Corporate Finance
• Introduction to Fin Tech
• Chinese

Electives (choose 2):

• Financial decision making with Excel
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Big Data and Finance
• Business game I
• Derivatives
• International Marketing
• Data Analysis and Business Intelligence
• Blockchain and Business Analytics
• Internet of Things

Semester 6

• Quantum Computing
• Digital marketing
• Blockchain
• Customer Relationship Management / Enterprise Resource Planning
• Crypto and online currencies
• Data and business strategy
• Strategy and Innovation
• Responsible AI - Ethics
• Research methodology 
• Internship

Examples of internships undertaken in 2023/24:

 

• Implementation of a cybersecurity monitoring solution using Power BI (SYD CLOUD AI & AZURE)
• Building a prototype for the use of generative AI in a SaaS application (Kshuttle)
• Modelling of passenger forecasts for the Charles de Gaulle Express rail line (Hello Paris Service)
• Management of data collected over the last 2 years on the site of the new university hospital in Nantes (SAS SOGEA ATLANTIQUE BTP)
• Development of tools to translate between different programming languages with the help of Large Language Models (Keyrus NV) 
• Marketing analysis to develop a new business development activity (HPROBE)

Year 4: Continue to apply knowledge and build up professional skills

Semester 7 gives students the opportunity to work on tangible new projects, thereby applying the skills acquired throughout the first three years. Faculty from both institutions again run and teach these courses jointly.

The final year internship takes place over a period of 24 weeks during semester 8. It is a project-based internship, whereby students are required to undertake and manage a project independently. At the end of the internship, students produce an internship report, which must include a research approach through problem definition, a methodology for dealing with the problem and a literature review.

Semester 7

• Big Data & energy
• Research methodology II
• Responsible AI II - Energy and sustainable business
• Fintech
• Supply chain management and Big Data
• Operations management and Big Data
• Personalisation and recommendation systems
• Entreprise 4.0
• Management of international trade operations
• Business intelligence
• AI and decision making

Hear from John Hanna, professor, about the Data Mining course

Video transcript

"My name is John Hanna. I am a PhD candidate at Centrale Nantes. I work on merging machine learning techniques with physics in order to apply them to composite manufacturing. This year I have been teaching in the BBA Big Data & Management class in Casablanca. I taught the Data Mining class."
What is Data Mining?
"Data Mining is basically where you have big data sets ... these data sets can be created if you are working ... In a supermarket it can be like big shopping lists from all the customers or in a company, From this big data we want to collect information and then build knowledge and rules from this data in order to use it for future predictions. So, nowadays in all industries, in big companies, and even small and mid-size companies, they use big data in order to collect information and build rules and now use it in order to make predictions. I can give one example, if you are online shopping you will see always that you get recommendations - if you buy this, also buy this -, if you are living in a specific area and are of a specific age you will get a recommendation that is specifically tailored for you. So, basically, in the back of the computer there is a data mining algorithm that collects data from a lot of customers living around you and also from yourself and then it tries to fit the items you will buy according to the data. "
What did this class involve?
"So, the class had some lectures. Lectures in order to understand what data mining is and the different methods to use it. And it also had some assignments in order for them to understand the different methods and to practise. And, finally, there was one big project for them to code an algorithm in Python of one of the methods to use it on a big data set and a real-life application. Mostly they will be designing the algorithms and the data collection process. They will learn about how to collect the data, how to organise it, the different methods to use the data in order to build the rules for predictions for the future."

International experience

Students are required to acquire a minimum of 12 months of international experience during the programme

All students will undertake at least one of their internships abroad and spend two academic semesters abroad in:
 

• The second semester of year 2, at Ecole Centrale Casablanca, Morroco
• The first semester of year 3, at Shenzen Audencia Business School, China

Students have the opportunity to spend as much as 24 months abroad via academic and professional experience, as follows:
 

	Duration	International
First-year internship	8 weeks	optional (at least one of the three internships abroad)
Semester 4	6 months	mandatory
Semester 5	6 months	mandatory
Third-year internship	16 weeks	optional (at least one of the three internships abroad)
Final-year internship	24 weeks	optional (at least one of the three internships abroad)

Semester 4 - Ecole Centrale de Casablanca, Morocco

Semester 4 of the BBA Data, AI & Management is taught on the Ecoles Centrale Group offshore campus in Casablanca.

The Casablanca site is located on a new campus in Bouskoura, close to a large eucalyptus forest. It is a quiet environment with classrooms, auditoriums, laboratories, library, student accommodation, administration offices, canteen and gymnasium. Students will be offered accommodation in a residence located on campus. In addition to the faculty team in Casablanca, visiting faculty from the Ecoles Centrale Group also teach on site.

Hear from Pyrahn, class of 2025, on his semester in Casablanca:

 

Video transcript

"My name is Pyrahn. I’m a second-year student from the BBA Big Data and Management. I just came back from a semester abroad at the Ecole Centrale Casablanca."
What was the most interesting course you took this semester?
"The most interesting course in my opinion would be AI for Digital Business. We had a start-upper guide us through launching our own start-ups into how AI could better facilitate the operations of companies. We were all given different sectors and mine was temporary work agencies. We had to find a way of implementing AI into streamlining the workflow and just overall generating a better turnover for them. This gave us a better idea of, let’s say, our purpose in our professional careers since many of us weren’t really sure of what to do – are we more engineers or are we more business-side people? But having to think of both at the same time – how do we make money but also how do we answer this problem – really gave us a better idea of where our purpose and our position would be in our professional careers."
What were the working conditions like on campus?
"The working conditions were pretty nice I’d say. We had our own designated classroom, but our favourite place to work would be in what they called the penthouse. So, it was an apartment complex, an apartment building next to our dorms that was turned into different floors of collaborative work areas. We could just come in, have a meeting and then just spend time with other classmates and just relax in the same area."
What was the advantage of spending this semester in Casablanca?
"It’s a country that’s very different from France. We live in a country that is transitioning from, let's say, 3rd to 1st world. They're using a lot of technologies - it could be data mining or AI - to help develop different aspects of the country. Living there and experiencing, for example, the rebuilding of the public transport system and seeing the kind of issues that they're facing, combined with what we're learning in class, being able to say how I could fix this or improve this, gave us a better understanding of our purpose and what we can bring to the table in terms of our future careers."
What will be your lasting memories of this semester?
"Since we had to live on campus in dorms, it really gave a unique experience for us of having to deal with other for five months. The campus also provided a great way to socialize with other students outside of our own programme. They had a lot of sport facilities, we spent a lot of time on the volleyball court, playing around, but also the forest next door to our school allowed us to go out, have a picnic, run around,…We really didn't know just how much we would get to experience in Casablanca! ... In the end, we got to be with the locals, we got to go the market, have breakfast the traditional way, we got to spend time with other classmates, a lot of time discovering the country ... All of this wasn’t planned, but in the end, it’s all these extra little cultural things, the geography, the scenery, the people of Morocco that led us to have these lasting memories."

Semester 5 - Shenzen Audencia Business School

Semester 5 of the BBA Data, AI & Management is taught on Audencia's Shenzen campus in China.
Shenzhen is one of the most dynamic and innovative cities in the world, to the extent that it is now widely considered to be a Silicon Valley in the making, as evidenced by the 20% growth recorded in 2019 in the following sectors: biotechnology, internet, new energies, new materials, information technology and cultural activities. 14 permanent faculty teach on the campus and are part of Audencia's faculty.

NB

Extra costs associated with transport, food, accommodation, books, miscellaneous expenses and medical/repatriation insurance, etc., are at the student’s expense.
For some international destinations, tuition fees at the host universities may be payable by the student.
There are mobility support schemes in place to facilitate international study semesters (admission/tuition fees and funding).

After the BBA

At the end of the programme, students can choose between entering working life or continuing their studies. Students benefit from individual careers guidance from the Careers Services at Centrale Nantes and Audencia. Face-to-face or online careers sessions, mentoring sessions with graduates, webinars, online forums, etc. help future graduates to find their path.

Pursue your studies

The opportunities for further study are numerous in France or abroad on a one- or two-year Master's programme. At Audencia, for example, students are ideally placed to pursue their studies with the MSc in Data Management in Corporate Finance: Learn more

Career Prospects

The BBA Data, AI & Management fully prepares its students for entry into the workforce. Companies are looking to recruit graduates with cross-functional skills to meet their needs in an increasingly digital environment. Partner companies contribute to programme workshops in order to provide students with hands-on training. Here are a few examples of career paths that students can pursue after the BBA:

Image description

Business/management focused
PROJECT MANAGER - Use data-driven business to plan, budget and oversee projects
MARKET RESEARCH ANALYST - Use data analysis to evaluate market intelligence
FINANCIAL ANALYST - Advice to businesses and individuals in investment decisions
OPERATIONS RESEARCH ANALYST - Solve business problems and improve business processes through data

Dual business/management and engineering focused
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE ANALYST - Develop strategies based on data analysis and data-informed decision making
DECISION SCIENTIST - Solve business problems with massive data analysis
CHIEF DATA OFFICER - High level view of the company's data and improve business through high-tech solutions
DATA PRODUCT MANAGER - Develop best product using data analysis

Engineering focused
DATA ARCHITECT - Design secure data frameworks and ensure relevant, accurate and accessible data
DATA ANALYST - Analyze raw data and derive insights to improve business
DATA SCIENTIST - Data impact in company and build predictive models for business
DATA ENGINEER - Collect, store, analyze, visualize data for business

► Learn more about the careers accessible after the BBA Data, AI & Management

Meet Eneric Lopez, AI National Initiative & Social Impact Director at Microsoft

Patron of the BBA Class of 2026

As an Engineer by training, I have accumulated 25 years of diverse experience in the digital world, tackling technical, commercial, marketing and strategic roles. Today, my mission is to support businesses and contribute to national challenges in the responsible adoption of AI in France, with a focus on skills, ethics and positive impact. I see that the key to this success lies in a solid grasp of business and data issues.

As class patron of Audencia and Centrale Nantes' 'BBA Data, AI & Management', I see this program as a bridge to a future where Artificial Intelligence and strategic management converge to create value responsibly and sustainably.

Why choose the BBA?

Five reasons to choose the BBA:

01 - Hybrid teaching
Engineering and business courses are taught in parallel throughout the programme

02 - International focus
100% in English
At least 15 months abroad
Mixed cohort of French and international students

03 - Strong links to industry
12 months work experience
Practical workshops, lectures and Master Classes run by BBA partner companies

04 - Unique facilities
Centrale-Audencia-ensa Incubator for researchers, students and graduates to encourage the creation of innovative start-ups
Access to a supercomputer - one of France's most powerful regional computing centres in its category

05 - Combined expertise and networks of two schools
A joint degree from two highly ranked schools
Shared resources: access to both campuses, e-learning, media libraries, laboratories, etc.
Two alumni networks and two career centres for individual support

Take advantage of two alumni networks

Centrale Nantes Alumni | > 20,000 alumni in 44 countries
Your future career is probably not the one you imagine today. The sheer diversity of careers amongst Centrale Nantes graduates clearly demonstrates what it means to be an alumnus of Centrale Nantes, a general engineering school, with a multi-specialist focus. So how do you build your career plan, and achieve the right balance between professional and personal ambitions and values?
By getting to know yourself, interacting with others, building relationships with Centrale Nantes graduates and discovering the diversity in their positions whether they work in large or small companies, in start-ups or research centres. All of this will contribute to shaping your career plan and finding the right contacts to trigger exciting opportunities.

Learn more: https://www.centraliens-nantes.org

Audencia AIumni | 36,000 alumni and 170 communities
When you join Audencia, you're not just joining a school, you're joining a large network of 36,000 alumni and over 7,000 students, from a hundred different nationalities.
A dynamic network with its ambassadors who offer you numerous exchanges, discussions and meetings wherever you are in the world (internship, travel or expatriation).

Learn more: https://www.audencia.com/en/our-business-school/about-audencia/audencia-alumni

Admission

How to apply for the BBA Data, AI & Management

French students:

French students pursuing or holding a French baccalauréat must apply via Parcoursup. Please refer to the French pages for information on eligibility and how to apply: https://www.ec-nantes.fr/version-francaise/formation/bba-big-data-management

International students:

 

Eligibility

• Open to students preparing a high school diploma or equivalent, or having obtained this qualification within the last 12 months.
• Applicants must be under 26 years of age on 1 January of the year of entry to the programme.

Selection criteria

Basic criteria:
 

• Academic results - based on a GPA conversion (60%). NB academic records must show courses in mathematics and/or sciences
• Mathematics grades (20%)
• Proficiency in English (20%) with a minimum score of:
  • TOEFL: 78
  • TOEIC: 800
  • IELTS: 6.0

Additional bonuses may be awarded based on international experience and proficiency in other languages.

Applicants are selected based on their application form, and take account of the applicant’s academic performance, his/her attitude and progress in class, his/her motivation, the relevance of his/her career plans, extra-curricular activities, and his/her level of proficiency in English.

Application procedure

Application deadline: 31 May
Apply here: https://apply.audencia.com

To complete the online application form, you will need to submit the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae and cover letter in English
• A certified copy in English or French of your secondary school diploma; or failing that, the current year's enrolment certificate for the final year of high school studies and academic transcripts
• Copy of an identity document (e.g. passport)
• Photo
• English test score (TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS). NB Not required for native speakers of English.

Selected applicants will be invited for an interview via videoconference.

The purpose of the interview is to confirm information provided in the application and to assess:

• Motivation to follow the programme;
• extra-curricular activities;
• Intellectual curiosity;
• Potential and ability to adapt to a new environment;
• Language proficiency in English. 

Admissions contact

admissionf794259f-264d-415b-aba7-b81c32a2ef97@ec-nantes.fr

Tuition Fees and Financing

Tuition Fees

Four-year bachelor programme: €12,000 per year
Tuition fees are guaranteed for the duration of the programmes and for both schools (including membership of alumni networks)

Scholarship opportunities

• An early application partial tuition fee waiver of € 4,500 for the first year of the programme may be awarded to international applicants who submit their complete application by 31 January 2025. ► Learn more
• International applicants may be eligible for Audencia's solidarity scholarships (based on financial need) and excellence scholarships (based on academic merit), also in the form of partial tuition fee waivers. ► Learn more 
• Scholarship opportunities within the framework of certain international agreements, may be available for periods of international mobility within the programme.

Focus on unique resources

Supercomputer

Since the end of 2015, Centrale Nantes has been responsible for one of France's most powerful regional computing centers in its category (Tier2 class), which houses the new Nautilus supercomputer installed in 2023. Giving access to unprecedented levels of precision, this state-of-the-art equipment is a real game changer which will release new potential for innovation.
Intensive numerical calculation is an indispensable tool for both research and industry: it reduces the cost of testing, facilitates optimization and promotes creativity and the search for new solutions. The means of calculation are also an indicator of the research and development of a region, or a nation.

High Performance Computing (HPC) consists of using software for acquisition, modeling or analysis on supercomputers of several thousand processors capable of executing several billion operations per second to model complex phenomena, process or characterise large volumes of data. It is also a set of servers designed to run long-term processes to massively and intensively calculate programs. These supercomputers can be seen as a large number of machines (computing servers) linked together by very high-speed networks.

Centrale Nantes is the only higher education establishment in France to have such a powerful supercomputer which is open to different users.

► Learn more: Supercomputer

Centrale-Audencia-Ensa incubator

The Centrale-Audencia-Ensa incubator is an entrepreneurship support programme which aims to boost the creation of innovative companies in the Pays de la Loire region. The incubator is open to students and graduates of the three schools with a mature project (solution, market, team) to develop.

The unique collaboration between three nationally and internationally recognised educational and research establishments, in the fields of engineering, management, communication, design and architecture, provides exceptional conditions for the development of incubated projects. The Centrale-Audencia-Ensa incubator is fully in tune with the dynamics of the Nantes and Loire region thanks to its strong involvement in a particularly innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
 

► Learn more: Incubator

Shared campus facilities

Audencia and Centrale Nantes have pooled their material and learning resources for the purposes of this programme. Students have access to all of the schools' campuses in France and abroad, to their media libraries, laboratories, company and alumni networks.

Just a two-minute walk separates the Audencia Atlantic Campus and the Centrale Nantes campus, which are located at the heart of the city's main university campus and just fifteen minutes from Nantes city centre.

Centrale Nantes

 

Video transcript

"Welcome to one of France's most prestigious engineering schools.
This is where we prepare the world of tomorrow, a sustainable world; where research and teaching inspire each other; where we contribute each and every day to meeting the challenges of energy transition, the factory of the future and healthcare.
Welcome to a school that offers more than 400 course combinations; a school where students play an active role in decision making; a diverse school with over 70
nationalities on campus.
Welcome to Centrale Nantes."

Centrale Nantes houses 17 buildings on a 40-acre green campus. In addition to the standard facilities of a university campus (classrooms, media library, computer rooms, etc.), it is home to 13 research platforms, some of which are unique in France, and modern and varied sports facilities, the Centrale-Audencia-Ensa incubator and vibrant student life.

Facilities on the Centrale Nantes campus:
 

• 45 classrooms
• 6 lecture theatres 
• 13 computer rooms (with nearly 180 fully equipped PCs and extended opening hours)
• 1 media library
• 5 research institutes
• Sports and cultural facilities: 1 gymnasium, 1 multisport/dojo hall, squash courts, 1 piano room
• 1 student house

• Student residence - a limited number of places are available for our first-year international bachelor-level students in the Max Schmitt halls of residence on campus
• 1 online platform for students, Onboard, with timetables, grades, attendance management, distance learning and teaching resources,
• 1 Moodle platform (Hippocampus) with collaborative functionality available to faculty and students (additional resources, working groups, forum, online assessments, etc.).
• Students also have access to meeting rooms / learning innovation / videoboxes equipped with video projectors, cameras, interactive whiteboards, etc., for their classes, presentation preparation, project work, etc.
• 1 lifelong email address and an individual digital workspace and storage space, with remote 24H access.

Virtual Tour

Explore the campus with its classrooms, research platforms, student life and sports activities: Take the virtual tour Audencia

Audencia

Audencia boasts 18,000 m2 of diverse and modular teaching facilities. Each classroom is equipped for different teaching methods and group work (video projector, audio speakers). The school also has mobile audiovisual and computer resources (digital camcorders, TV, DVD players, tablets). Facilities on the Audencia Atlantic Campus:
 

• 38 modular classrooms
• 9 lecture theatres
• 3 computer rooms
• 1 Knowledge Hub
• 3 Student Hubs
• 1 Fab Lab
• 1 Learning Lab

• 8 connected collaborative work rooms (equipped with internet and digital screens)
• 24 association offices (student, arts, sports etc.)
• Sports and cultural facilities: gymnasium, weights room, fitness room and music room
• 1 web portal, Tomorrow, with remote access for students and teachers
• 1 collaborative platform, Blackboard, used by faculty to enhance the learning experience (additional resources, working groups, chat, forum etc.)

Watch the video to find out from Karen what it's like to be a BBA student

Watch the Campus Channel replay (in French)