Fall 2005 MBA Course Descriptions
Here is a list of the BA 381T, IB 395 and MKT 382 courses. This list is intended to make elective course selections easier by giving a description of the content of MBA elective courses offered by the Marketing Department.
BA 381T
Core:
Marketing Management
IB 391
Directed Study Global Management –
Southeast Asia
IB 395
Global Strategy and Marketing
MKT 382
Advanced Mkt. Mgmt: The Invisible Global
Market
Brand
Management
Corporate
Governance
Customer
Insights
Customer
Strategy
Marketing & Customer Insights Practicum
Marketing Analysis/Decision Making in
Info Age
Pricing Channels
Service
Management
Strategic
Marketing
B A 381T
Marketing Management
Unique No.: 01920 Instructor: Jain Class Times: MW 12:30-2:00 GSB 3.106
Unique No.: 01925 Instructor: Jain Class Times: MW 2:00-3:30 GSB 3.106
Marketing Management is the introductory course for the marketing curriculum. It is a survey course that examines the nature of product, price, place, and promotion decisions, and investigates how organizations blend these inter-related components to create, capture, and sustain value. The course is designed to provide an overview of the relevant concepts and principles regarding the development of marketing strategy, and illustrate how marketing can assist the firm in arriving at a competitive advantage.
The desired objective is to provide the student with not only an introduction to marketing, but also an opportunity to apply that understanding. To that end, a framework for examining modern day marketing practices is presented. The framework can be used as a tool for systematically evaluating the factors that can influence an organization’s marketing strategy as well as generating well-grounded recommendations that can assist the firm in its value creation and management activity. see course website.
IB 391
Directed Study Global Management –
Southeast Asia
Unique No.: 04350 Instructor: Freund Class
Times: W 6:00-9:00 GSB 3.106
This course is designed to provide the student
with a rich understanding of business practices
in a world region of great significance in
global commerce – particularly for the future.
The student will gain background knowledge
of the history, culture, politics, and economics
of South East Asia, followed by direct experience
through a study tour to important business
centers in the area.
IB 395
Global Strategy and Marketing
Unique No.: 04355 Instructor: Gillespie Class
Times: MW 11:00-12:30 UTC 1.116
This course is designed to give students
an understanding of the traditional challenges
to business in the emerging markets of the
developing world as well as the new challenges
of market liberalization. It will stress
commonalties of different countries and regions
while highlighting certain differences. Cases
and readings are drawn from Asia, Latin America,
the Middle East, and the former East Bloc.
Students do country-specific research for
a paper and class presentation.
MKT 382
Advance Marketing Management: The
Invisible Global Market
Unique No.: 04580 Instructor: Mahajan Class
Times: MW 11:00 - 12:30 GSB 3.104
This course will focus on the unique characteristics
of the developing markets and the relevant
market strategies.
Developing markets, which are home to 86
percent of the world’s population, not only
represent the future of global commerce but
present rich opportunities today. These opportunities
can be seen in growing markets for luxury
goods among a newly minted luxury class,
entry-level automobiles and appliances for
a burgeoning middle class and low-cost products
for poor and rural customers. Today about
half of the estimated 1.7 billion members
of the “consumer class” live in the developing
world and this percentage is increasing year
by year.
But companies won’t realize these opportunities
through the market strategies that work in
the markets of the developed world. In developing
markets, there are no smooth superhighways,
no distribution networks, and, in many cases,
no electricity. These markets are younger,
behind in technology (but rapidly catching
up) and inexperienced as consumers. These
characteristics, which can present obstacles,
also create opportunities for companies with
the right strategies.
Among these strategies are: designing products
to meet demanding local environments, utilizing
immigrant social networks, leveraging the
power of global brands, appealing to the
youthfulness of these markets, offering small
packages and payments, supplying missing
infrastructure, looking for leapfrogs in
technology, creating distribution networks
and continuing to develop with the market.
With these and other creative strategies
companies can recognize and realize this
“86 percent opportunity.”
Brand Management
Unique No.: 04585 Instructor: Walls Class
Times: MW 8:00 - 9:30 GSB 3.138
Branding is a fundamental element of competitive
strategy. This course will address the strategic
importance of branding, provide theories
and strategies for building, leveraging,
and defending strong brands, and discuss
current opportunities and challenges facing
brand managers. Particular emphasis is placed
on understanding psychological principles
at the consumer level that will improve managerial
decision-making with respect to brands.
The textbook for the course will be Strategic
Brand Management by Kevin Lane Keller. The
course will also incorporate cases, supplementary
readings, and guest speakers. The principles
learned in the course will be applied in
a brand audit group project.
Corporate
Governance
Unique No.: 04595 Instructor: Cunningham
Class Times: TH 3:30 – 6:30 GSB 3.138
Senior executives - CEO's and their business
unit, functional and regional direct reports
- must consistently balance their time
between achieving quarterly performance
targets and building strong companies that
can sustain above market financial performance
in the future. As the business environment
grows more complex, senior executives have
to simultaneously manage business and political
relationships, initiate and integrate acquisitions,
create/change corporate culture, continually
align the organization structure to the
business strategy, deal with issues of
corporate governance and succession planning,
and learn to navigate through potential
PR disasters. In addition, regardless of
the size of a company, the senior management
team must continually grapple with the
question of how to allocate resources to
competing programs and disciplines in support
of the corporate strategy.
This course will examine the roles and responsibilities
of corporate leadership in a wide variety
of settings - large and small companies,
startups and established century old companies,
global and single country/region companies
- as all companies face slightly different
versions of the issues discussed above.
The normal format of the class will be to
invite one or more guest speakers to address
the students for the first half of the class
period. The guests will be encouraged to
provide ample opportunity for questions during
their presentations. The second half of the
class will focus on in-class discussion of
assigned reading material. The individuals
that will be invited to class will include
senior executives from major corporations
and entrepreneurs, elected officials, corporate
lawyers and venture capitalists.
Students' performance will be evaluated based
on a combination of in-class participation
and a term paper.
Customer
Insights
Unique No.: 04600 Instructor:
Walls Class Times: TTH
5:00 - 6:30 UTC 1.116
Customer Insights is the foundation course
in the Center for Customer Insight (CCI)
specialization. The focus of course will
be on honing the ability to discover novel
aspects of consumer decision-making and to
develop these insights into profitable marketing
propositions. Tools and techniques for developing
Customer Insights and for becoming more customer-focused
will be provided in the context of recent
advances in technology, especially with regard
to the internet. A combination of lectures,
guest speakers and assignments will be used
to achieve the course objectives.
Customer Strategy
Unique No.: 04605 Instructor:
Hoyer Class Times: F 8:00
- 12:30 GSB 3.104
Today’s business environment is replete with uncertainty and threatened customer loss. Hyper-competition fills the environment, making a firm’s competitive ability more important than ever. A large part of competitive ability resides in the firm’s ability to manage customer relationships in a way that maximizes both retention and recapture of lost customers. In fact, it is less costly to retain a customer or to recapture a lost customer that it is to recruit a new customer. The implications for the “bottom line” are obvious.
This course focuses on both aspects of customer relationship management: building and retaining customer loyalty as well as winning back lost customers. In so doing, the course structure includes readings about industry case examples around customer loyalty and win-back, readings and discussions on techniques and market information applicable to the goals of loyalty and win-back, and an industry project application. The course coverage is applicable to both consumer (end-use, non-business) and business-to-business settings.
Marketing and Customer Insights Practicum
Unique No.: 04620 Instructor:
Jain Class Times: MW 9:30
- 11:00 UTC 1.102
Marketing and Customer Insight Practicum
is a projects-based course. Students are
assigned to teams and work on projects sponsored
by businesses. The projects can be focused
on a wide-range of marketing topics. Each
semester the projects available will be advertised
via e-mail to all MBA students in the week
before the semester begins. Students who
wish to participate in a practicum must apply
for one or more of the projects offered for
the relevant semester. Applications require
submission of a resume and a statement about
reasons for interest in and suitability for
the project. Students may apply for more
than one project, but may only participate
in one for each semester, although it is
possible to participate in different projects
in different semesters. Student selections
are made during the first week of the semester
and "accepted" students are permitted to
enroll in the Practicum course. Every attempt
will be made to accommodate all students
who wish to participate in a practicum.
Although there may be substantial variation
in the nature of projects from semester to
semester, most practicum projects require
an initial research phase - often requiring
a report of research findings, followed by
an implementation phase in which specific
business problems and solutions are addressed.
All projects will require a final group report
and/or the presentation of results to the
corporate sponsor. Evaluations are based
on the quality of the teamwork and assessment
of individual contributions to the project.
Recent projects have included new product
introductions, post-merger marketing systems
integration, brand positioning studies, product
feasibility studies, competitive positioning,
and benchmarking studies. Project sponsors
have ranged from small technology start-ups,
to major corporations such as 3M, Frito Lay,
Dell, Accenture, Verizon, and Nortel Networks.
Practicum assignments will be announced via
email in January.
Marketing Analysis/Decision Making in an
Information Age
Unique No.: 04625 Instructor:
Mahajan Class Times: MW
12:30 – 2:00 UTC 4.132
This course deals with concepts, methods,
and applications of decision modeling to
address such marketing issues as segmentation,
targeting and positioning, new product design
and development, advertising, and sales force
and promotion planning. The course is designed
for MBA students who have some background
in or understanding of marketing principles
and exposure to spreadsheet programs such
as EXCEL.
Unlike conventional capstone marketing courses
that focus on conceptual material, this course
will attempt to provide skills to translate
conceptual understanding into specific operational
plans – a skill in increasing demand in organizations
today. Using market simulations and related
exercises tied to PC-based computer software,
students will develop marketing plans in
various decision contexts.
Pricing Channels
Unique No.: 04627 Instructor:
Mackie Class Times: TTH
12:30 – 2:00 GSB 3.138
Some of the most difficult marketing decisions
revolve around pricing and distribution issues.
This course will examine concepts such as
determining what a product is worth to a
customer, price elasticity/sensitivity, psychological
issues in pricing, setting prices for new
products, and managing competitive pricing.
It will also examine topics such as price
discrimination, optimal pricing and revenue
management. The channels portion of
the course will focus on understanding what
customers need/want from channels and the
process of designing channels to meet those
needs. It will also examine a number
of challenges in day-to-day channel management
such as channel conflict, gray markets, the
Internet, and international distribution.
The course will also include readings and
discussions about legal and ethical issues
in pricing and channels.
Service Management
Unique No.: 04630 Instructor:
Fitzsimmons Class Times:
MW 2:00 – 3:30 CBA 3.202
This case course explores the dimensions of successful service firms. It prepares students for enlightened management and suggests creative entrepreneurial opportunities. Outstanding service organizations are managed differently than their "merely good" competitors. Actions are based on totally different assumptions about the way success is achieved. The results show not only in terms of conventional measures of performance but also in the enthusiasm of the employees and quality of customer satisfaction. Beginning with the service encounter, service managers must blend marketing, technology, people, and information to achieve a distinctive competitive advantage.
Strategic
Marketing
Unique No.: 04634 Instructor:
Williams Class Times: TH
5:00 – 8:00 UTC 1.102
Unique No.: 04635 Instructor:
Mackie Class
Times: TTH 2:00 – 3:30 GSB 3.138
The primary objective of this course is in
helping you develop skills and gain experience
in formulating and implementing marketing
strategy. This is an integrative course in
that we will frequently cover topics that
you have previously been exposed to in other
marketing classes. However, in this class,
we will integrate these topics into a comprehensive
marketing strategy. As part of the learning
experience, we will be using a simulation
program where each student team will take
charge of a company and compete against other
student run companies. Throughout the simulation,
you will be responsible for developing and
executing a marketing strategy. This process
will require you to make several strategic
and tactical decisions throughout the duration
of the game, such as setting price, forecasting
demand and production levels, managing channels,
etc. We will also devote significant time
to current events as they pertain to marketing
strategies pursued by companies in the news
as well as a few topical issues such as multi-channel
marketing, marketing ethics, etc. The format
of the class is half lecture and half cases.
