MSc Marketing / Course details

Marketing strategy is the means by which a company creates a sustainable competitive advantage by providing superior value to target markets. To this end, this course unit provides an overview of how a company formulates plans, optimizes the use of scarce resources to leverage its strengths, and implements strategies to take advantage of market opportunities. This course unit also looks at the impact of corporate social responsibility and ethics on competitive market strategies. A problem-solving approach is taken in the course, the module focuses on real-world applications to enable students to relate and apply theoretical insights to marketing strategy, to improve students’ ability in analysing business cases, brainstorming, and communicating ideas.

The course aims to enable students to acquire an in-depth knowledge of marketing strategy formulation and implementation related issues. It equips students with understanding of how organizations are "doing it" to achieve key performance objectives. Specifically, students will be able to understand how marketing strategy decisions are turned into a set of detailed marketing actions and how different organizations are competing for success and competitive advantage. Branding, Innovation and New Product Development, Relationship Marketing, and Service Excellence will be examined as alternative ways to achieving a sustainable advantage.

At the end of the course students should have developed a comprehensive understanding of marketing strategy implementation concepts and theories. In addition, they should have the ability to:

•  Demonstrate knowledge of how an integrated marketing strategy is designed and implemented
•  Develop a broader skill set including team-working and critical thinking
•  Understand how organizations compete for success and competitive advantage
•  Assess alternative ways for creating value to customers
•  Research, evaluate, and assess marketing strategies adopted by real-life organizations
•  Enhance their bibliographic and computing skills, by using the library and online resources in the course of their reading, seminar preparation and course work

 

Syllabus

•  Marketing Strategy: Developing & Implementing Plans
•  Developing & Implementing Plans in Practice: First Generation iphone
•  Competitive Dynamics & Ethics in Marketing
•  Achieving a Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA)
•  Competing for Success and achieving a SCA with Branding
•  Competing for Success and achieving a SCA with Innovation & NPD
•  Competing for Success and achieving a SCA with Relationship Marketing
•  Competing for Success and achieving a SCA with Service Excellence I
•  Competing for Success and achieving a SCA with Service Excellence II: Service Failure and the Dynamics of Service Recovery
•  Social Corporate Responsibility & Marketing

Formal Contact Methods

Minimum Contact hours: 20
Delivery format: Lecture and Workshops

Exam (60%)
Group presentation (40%) - peer review assessment

Peer Assessment for Group Work 
Please note we will use a formal peer assessment process for the group work assessment. Where deemed appropriate by the course unit leader(s), the peer assessment will be summative.
 

Written, verbally during class and via Blackboard.

• Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2016). Marketing Management, 15 edition, Pearson Education
• Palmatier, R. W., and Sridhar, S. (2017). Marketing strategy: Based on first principles and data analytics. Macmillan International Higher Education.