esade

Marketing Strategy (2235.YR.006495.1)

General information

Type:

OBL

Curs:

1

Period:

S semester

ECTS Credits:

3 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group Teacher Department Language
Year 1 Andrés Cuneo Zuñiga Marketing ENG

Prerequisites

Fundamentals of Marketing.

Workload distribution

Case discussions in class: 65%
Case discussions in mini-groups: 25%
Lectures: 10%

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

This skill-based marketing course will prepare you to tackle marketing problems in a way that is structured, analytically robust and down to earth. It will also provide you a common ground of knowledge, as we will review the elements and frameworks which are more used on the modern marketing practice. These frameworks will help you to easily integrate the content from the following courses.

Course Learning Objectives

Marketing is one of the most complex areas of a company, as it requires not only to master a set of conceptual and theoretical frameworks from different fields (psychology, sociology, economics, strategy, statistics, etc) but more importantly, it requires the development of a set of key managerial skills. Top marketers are strategic, analytical and business oriented but also open-minded, curious, and sensitive to human behavior and social trends. This is a mix really hard to find, unless you work hard and exercise marketing practice.

Marketing Strategy is an Advanced marketing course which focuses on the development of marketing skills through practice. At this point, participants are no doubt familiar with the fundamentals of marketing management, but the real challenge is to apply that knowledge to real business situations. Therefore, the main objective of this course is to make participants to confront with real marketing dilemmas that companies from different industries and geographies face. Assuming the role of marketing strategists participants will be challenged to clearly identify the "source of pain", define and analytically evaluate alternatives and select and defend their decisions with their team mates and with the whole class. This course will also give them the opportunity to critically evaluate their peers' points of view and to "publicly" defend recommendations.

CONTENT

1. Summary

Throughout the course we will review the marketing process that companies follow to establish their value propositions in the market, with a special focus on those decisions related to market segmentation, targeting, brand positioning and the marketing mix across different industries and market geographies.

2. Sessions planning

Day 1: Understanding the Marketing Framework: Markets, competition and customers

Day 2: Defining Market segmentation strategies and targeting

Day 3: Defining Competitive positioning

Day 4: Defining Customer value propositions

Day 5: Defining and implementing market access strategies

Methodology

For many years, the best business schools have been melting theory and practice, utilizing the Case Method as the tool of choice. Reality shows that hands-on classes utilizing business cases, where students can create their own hypothesis, discover opportunities and challenges for companies in different industries, is one of the greatest experiences you can have during a Master program.
There might not be a straight forward - right answer- to solve complex problems. However, a thorough and creative analysis can shed light on different paths towards the most profitable alternatives these companies can steer too.
Business life is full of small and big decisions. Some of them are difficult to contextualize while others are pretty much a straight forward answer. In any case, one of the best ways to quickly learn what to look for in a current business situation is to work business cases with the information at hand, and then clean the alternatives, in order to simplify and find answers to be worked on through more detailed analysis and implementation.


ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

Description %
Groupwork 30
Class participation 40
Individual assessment 30

Assessment criteria

Being a course that is heavily managerial in its orientation and therefore decision focused, a lot of emphasis will be placed in the thorough discussion of cases, taking both a strategic perspective and an in-depth one. Cases will be complemented by readings and wrap-up summary lectures where we will review some key marketing frameworks.
Whether for a case discussion or a mini-group debate, it is absolutely mandatory that participants commit and come to class well prepared. They are expected to contribute to the topic of the class and well-develop points of view about the cases and readings. Individual participation and within your group will be judged based on the quantity and quality of participation and the ability to facilitate a constructive discussion.
For the individual assessment participants will be evaluated based on how well they can analyze and apply the concepts that we are going to review through the course.
Class attendance is mandatory in order to ensure class dynamics. If the attendance rate is less than 80% the student will automatically fail the course.
The individual contribution to mini-group discussion will be based on peer-evaluations.

Bibliography

Cases and a reading packet.

Timetable and sections

Group Teacher Department
Year 1 Andrés Cuneo Zuñiga Marketing

Timetable Year 1

From 2023/9/26 to 2023/10/6:
Monday and Wednesday from 8:45 to 12:45.
Each Tuesday from 14:30 to 20:00. (Except: 2023/9/26)
Each Tuesday from 14:00 to 18:00. (Except: 2023/10/3)
Each Friday from 14:00 to 17:00. (Except: 2023/9/29)