Brief description
Taking as its starting point the nature of business itself, the course first explores how and why business needs and uses information. The aim is then to develop a critical awareness of those sources which report on the commercial environment including knowledge of their origin, content, and role. Through practical work and seminars between the lectures, using a range of mainly electronimc resources, participants gain practical business information retrieval and interpretation skills.

Aims
To gain the knowledge and skills necessary to provide a business with the information it needs on its external commercial environment.

Objectives
At the end of the module students should be able to:

• Demonstrate understanding of the relationship between a business and its commercial environment.
• Describe and explain the nature, role, and bibliographical control, of sources of information on that environment.
• Describe and explain the nature and role of sources of information on: companies; the City; markets; products; and the economy.
• Translate information needs into solutions; applying the skills acquired in the module to exploit effectively the above sources.