Egyptian entrepreneurs learn the latest in digital marketing at Southampton Business School
An Egyptian couple who run a marketing consultancy in the port city of Alexandria have relocated to the UK for a year to study for postgraduate degrees at University of Southampton Business School. Ghadir and Wessam Aly have brought their three year old daughter Roro with them and she is already learning a few words of English in a local nursery.
“Digital marketing is still a new concept,” explains Ghadir. “We wanted to build on our experience and knowledge to grow our business and found the University of Southampton was the only place that offered a choice of courses in this subject. My husband and I are studying two different Masters degrees, so we can learn a range of topics that will benefit us back home,” says Ghadir.
Ghadir has enrolled on MSc Digital Marketing and Wessam is studying MSc Marketing Analytics. She explains: Outside the seminar room, the family are getting used to life in Southampton. “As a mother, preparing for this adventure I wanted to be sure our daughter would be happy and have a good experience here. Staff helped us to find a place in the University crèche and somewhere to live so we could concentrate on our studies, we are particularly grateful to Josie Love and Dr Shahnaz Ibrahim in the Business School who were very supportive.”
“In our classes there are people from Arab countries, from Europe and from Asia. There is a lot of group work and we are benefiting from working with other cultures. It is early days but everything is well planned and we are enjoying our modules. In media and marketing communications in the digital age, we start off with theories, then apply them to real-life problems involving a real client just as you would in an agency.”
Wessam is embarking on a module on marketing analytics and text mining, finding patterns in the data and researching what people are likely to buy from evidence in texting and social media. “In every company it’s essential to understand how customers think so you can win their business, it’s a challenging subject but very important.”
Ghadir and Wessam aim to build on their time at Southampton Business School by seeking internships to give them practical insights into digital marketing in the UK before they return home.