Business Administration (Graduate Diploma)

Required courses:

• BU601 Strategic Management: Explore how organizations set direction, lead change and coordinate across business functions using essential management tools.
• BU602 Marketing: Learn how to analyze markets, understand customer needs, and design strategies that create value across the organization.
• BU603 Financial Management: Gain a solid grounding in corporate finance—valuation, investment, financing decisions and managing risk—knowledge every leader needs.
• BU604 Organizational Behaviour: Understand how people and organizations interact and build the skills to lead teams and drive change effectively.
• BU605 Operations Management: Study the processes that drive efficient operations, from product design to quality management, and learn how to optimize systems that support organizational performance.
• BU607 Financial Reporting and Analysis: Build the accounting knowledge to interpret financial reports, evaluate performance and apply insights to both short- and long-term decisions.
• BU609 Business Analytics: Learn how to use data and analytical tools to make smarter business decisions and solve problems across every area of management.

Required course:

• BU602 Marketing: Learn how to analyze markets, understand customer needs, and design strategies that create value across the organization, or
• BU605 Operations Management: Study the processes that drive efficient operations, from product design to quality management, and learn how to optimize systems that support organizational performance.

Plus any three of the following courses (course offerings will vary by term):

• BU605 Operations Management: Study the processes that drive efficient operations, from product design to quality management, and learn how to optimize systems that support organizational performance.
• BU635 Global Operations and Logistics: Examine how companies compete globally by managing supply chains, logistics, and exchange rate risks while coordinating international operations.
• BU642 Marketing Strategy: Develop advanced marketing plans that respond to company goals, competition, and external environments.
• BU645 Supply Chain Management: Learn how to manage the flow of goods and information between firms, suppliers, and customers, with focus on drivers like inventory, transportation, and facilities.
• BU652 Consumer Behaviour: Study how consumers make decisions and how social, legal, and media forces shape their choices. Apply insights to solve marketing problems.
• BU662 Marketing Research: Master the research process to support management decisions. Gain skills in designing, analyzing, and presenting applied research projects.
• BU665 Advanced Business Analytics: Build on analytics concepts like simulation, optimization, and data mining to solve complex business challenges.

Required course:

• BU665 Advanced Business Analytics: Build on core analytics concepts like forecasting, optimization, and data mining to solve complex business challenges.

Plus any three of the following courses (course offerings will vary by term):

• BU609 Business Analytics: Learn how to use data and analytical tools to make smarter business decisions and solve problems across every area of management.
• BU618 Personnel Analytics for Managers: Learn how to analyze HR data to support decisions on turnover, pay equity, employee engagement, and workforce performance.
• BU655 Managing Innovation and Technology Transfer: Study the challenges of managing technology and innovation, and gain skills to lead successful innovation and technology transfer strategies.
• BU671 General Managers in Action: Explore how leaders put strategy into practice, integrating management concepts with real-world implementation challenges.
• BU702 Data-Driven Marketing: Turn marketing data into actionable insights. Develop analytics skills that add career value across consulting, brand management, and customer strategies.

Required course:

• BU611 Entrepreneurship: Learn the process of launching a new business, from identifying opportunities and assembling resources to building a business plan. Topics include franchising and ventures within established companies.

ny three of the following courses (course offerings will vary by term):

• BU601 Strategic Management: Explore how organizations set direction, lead change and coordinate across business functions using essential management tools.
• BU613 Entrepreneurial Finance: Explore financing challenges for fast-growing small and medium-sized firms. Study funding sources such as angel investors, venture capital, and equity markets, and learn how deals are structured.
• BU631 Social Entrepreneurship: Understand how to launch and grow ventures dedicated to solving social and environmental challenges. Develop skills in opportunity evaluation, planning, and resource mobilization.
• BU635 Global Operations and Logistics: Examine the strategic and operational issues of managing supply chains and logistics across borders, with focus on risks like exchange rates and global competition.
• BU661 International Strategy: Study how organizations expand globally, including foreign market entry, sustaining competitiveness, and managing globalization’s pressures.
• BU675 Project Management: Gain skills to manage complex projects effectively, covering scope, scheduling, resources, leadership, and cross-functional communication.
• BU699 Design Thinking: Learn how to apply design and innovation principles to tackle rapidly changing business challenges in competitive markets.

Required course:

• BU603 Financial Management: Gain a solid grounding in corporate finance—valuation, investment, financing decisions and managing risk—knowledge every leader needs.

Plus any three of the following courses (course offerings will vary by term):

• BU607 Financial Reporting and Analysis: Build the accounting knowledge to interpret financial reports, evaluate performance and apply insights to both short- and long-term decisions.
• BU620 Managerial Decision Making: Explore how management control systems ensure organizational strategies are carried out effectively. Focus on tools that align decision-making with performance goals.
• BU643 International Financial Management: Study corporate finance from the perspective of multinational firms. Learn about global capital structures, exchange rate risks, and financing strategies beyond domestic markets.
• BU647 Tax Essentials for Professionals: Gain practical knowledge of tax rules and how they apply to day-to-day decisions faced by managers and organizational leaders.
• BU663 Advanced Corporate Finance: Dive into advanced valuation methods, including discounted cash flow, relative valuation, and options theory. Apply these to mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, and capital structure decisions.
• BU673 Investment Management: Explore the theory and practice of portfolio management through simulated trading. Topics include security analysis, investment taxes, mutual funds, and equity and bond market strategies.

Required course:

• BU601 Strategic Management: Explore how organizations set direction, lead change and coordinate across business functions using essential management tools, or
• BU741 Corporate Strategy: Examine strategy and decision-making in multi-business enterprises. Topics include diversification, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, outsourcing, and portfolio management.

Plus any three of the following courses (course offerings will vary by term):

• BU604 Organizational Behaviour: Understand how people and organizations interact, and build the skills to lead teams and drive change effectively.
• BU614 Negotiation and Conflict Management: Learn negotiation strategies from theoretical, practical, ethical, and strategic perspectives, with practice through role-playing and case studies.
• BU628 Leadership: Study the nature of effective organizational leadership and how it contributes to better management of people and organizations.
• BU678 Human Resources Management: Examine HR strategies including workforce planning, employee development, evaluation, and compensation to manage talent effectively.
• BU701 Competitive Strategy for a Sustainable World: Explore how organizations deliver economic, social, and environmental performance simultaneously. Learn strategy tools that integrate sustainability and competitiveness.
• BU703 ESG Finance: Study the financial implications of climate change and the low-carbon transition. Gain skills in ESG investing, analytics, corporate finance, and climate risk assessment.
• BU731 Corporate Governance: Analyze governance frameworks, board roles, and fiduciary responsibilities in corporate and nonprofit contexts. Discuss current governance issues across industries.
• BU741 Corporate Strategy: Examine strategy and decision-making in multi-business enterprises. Topics include diversification, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, outsourcing, and portfolio management.

Our admissions process is designed to be accessible and supportive, encouraging domestic professionals, or those with open work permits, from diverse backgrounds to apply.

• A three- or four-year bachelor’s degree from a recognized institution.
• Minimum B average (second-class honours) in the final year of study.
• Two references, including at least one academic reference.
• English language proficiency scores (IELTS 7.0, TOEFL iBT 100) if your undergraduate degree was not in English.
• An alternate admission pathway is available for candidates who do not meet the standard entry requirements, including a bachelor’s degree and academic references but who demonstrate substantial professional experience, leadership potential, and a strong commitment to advancing their business acumen through graduate studies. 

Note: The Business Administration Graduate Diplomas are not available to international applicants who require a Canadian study permit.

After you have submitted your OUAC application, paid the non-refundable application fee, and Laurier has received your application, you'll receive an email from gradadmissions@wlu.ca advising you to upload the additional required documentation to Laurier's Online Registration and Information System (LORIS).

Please note, the application process and the uploading of supplemental documentation, which includes references, typically takes two weeks.

To apply to one of the Lazaridis Business Administration graduate diplomas, you must include:

• The OUAC Application Summary, which is generated after you complete your OUAC application (log into OUAC to retrieve it).
• All postsecondary education institutions including Laurier (if applicable) must be declared on your OUAC application. This includes transcripts of all past and current degree(s), diploma(s), postsecondary studies for which academic credit was earned (including on letter of permission or exchange), in-progress courses, incomplete post-secondary education and transfer credit courses.
• A completed statement of intent.
• A resume.
• Completed letters of reference. Normally, one academic and one professional reference is required. Reference forms are electronically submitted to Laurier by the referee and do not need to be uploaded.
• English proficiency (if your native language is not English and you did not complete your most recent degree in English).
• A completed Authorization of Information Release (AIR) form is required if you have engaged the services of an education agent/agency. Upload it to your application checklist when you identify your agent in the OUAC application. Visit Step 2 for more information about the AIR.

Visit our Graduate Admissions Toolkit for more information about applying.

Business Foundations:

• Start: January, May and September
• Duration: 3-4 terms
• Application deadlines:
  • January start: apply by Nov. 1
  • May start: apply by March 1
  • September start: apply by July 1

Demand-Supply Dynamics and Customer Insights:

• Start: May
• Duration: 2-4 terms
• This program is not offered for 2026-2027

Data-Driven Business Intelligence:

• Start: May
• Duration: 2-4 terms
• This program is not offered for 2026-27

Entrepreneurship and Innovation:

• Start: January
• Duration: 2-4 terms
• This program is not offered for 2026-27

Financial Management for Professionals:

• Start: January
• Duration: 2-4 terms
• Application deadline: apply by Nov. 1

Strategic Leadership and Foresight:

• Start: September
• Duration: 2-4 terms
• Application deadline: apply by July 1

Proficiency in written and spoken English is essential to graduate studies at Laurier. Applicants whose language of instruction during their previous postsecondary education was not in English must submit evidence of proficiency in English. If applicable, results from accepted testing services must be uploaded to LORIS.