This is a capstone course. It helps the participants to integrate their learning in earlier courses – including those in marketing discipline as well as other discipline courses – in making strategic marketing decisions. It allows the participants to explore the influence of marketing knowledge on the performance of the business and vice versa. It highlights the impact of marketing decisions on formulation and implementation of corporate-level & business-level strategies and vice versa. It provides a comprehensive approach and an effective way of thinking for timely addressing opportunities and challenges.
It is imperative to understand the likely influence of your actions or practices on the larger scale in the organization or business units. It guides the participants pursuing careers in the functional / product / brand domain to look beyond their silos. It is most helpful to participants pursuing careers in which they need to make decisions that influences the entire organization. By applying the strategic marketing tools and frameworks, participants can maximize value for the customer, the company, and its collaborators.
The course comprises of analyzing strategy and business environment, developing marketing plan, identifying markets and competitive position of the players, analyzing strategy implementation and marketing performance.
| Session No. | Topics / Activities |
Readings / Cases / In-class exercise
|
| 1. | Marketing’s influence on strategic thinking | |
| 2 | Corporate strategy decisions, business strategy decisions and their marketing implications |
|
| 3. | Developing market plan | In-class exercise |
| 4. | Assessing context:
PESTEL analysis | R: In the ecosystem economy: What is your strategy? (HBR 2019)
In-class exercise |
| 5. | Analyzing competition:
Industry perspective – Porter’s five forces
Market perspective | R: Managing our hub economy: Strategy, ethics, and network (HBR 2017)
In-class exercise |
| 6. | Analyzing competition by formulating marketing strategy:
Pioneer, market leader | R: Competing in the age of AI (HBR 2020)
In-class exercise |
| 7. | Analyzing competition by formulating defensive and offensive marketing strategy:
Challenger, follower, nicher | Case: Pulse candy: Sustaining the brand differentiation
Reading: |
| 8. | Creating company value and measuring marketing performance:
Internal analysis
Marketing metrics | R: Put purpose at the core of your strategy (HBR 2019)
In-class exercise |
| 9. | Creating company value:
Value chain concept | R: How to get an ecosystem buy-in? (HBR 2017)
In-class exercise |
| 10. | Creating company value:
SWOT analysis
Confrontation matrix | In-class exercise |
| 11. | Identifying target customers:
Segmentation, targeting and positioning | In-class exercise |
| 12. | Creating customer value: Developing a value proposition | Case: Saregama India Ltd.: Repositioning the value proposition |
| 13. | Developing new business model:
From product to platform | R: Products to platforms: Making the leap (HBR 2016)
R: Why some platforms thrive… and others don’t (HBR 2019) |
| 14. | Developing new business model:
Business canvas model | In-class exercise |
| 15. | Formulating business strategies in diverse markets | R: An essential marketing tool in a downturn: Spend Management (McKinsey 2020)
In-class exercise |
| 16. | Linking marketing mix decisions to mission | R: What does your corporate brand stand for? (HBR 2019)
R: Marketing meets mission (HBR 2020) |
| 17. | Linking marketing mix decisions to mission | R: Purpose shifting from why to how (McKinsey 2020)
Case: Super Milk Products Pvt. Ltd. |
| 18. | Developing strategy implementation:
7s Model | R: Stop doubling down on your failing strategy (HBR 2017) |
| 19. | Guest faculty session |  |
| 20. | Emerging trends
Course wrap up | R: Building a transparent supply chain: Blockchain (HBR 2020)
R: The new-market conundrum (HBR 2020)
R: Modern marketing: What is it, what it isn’t and how to do it (McKinsey 2020) |
Participants must study the assigned readings and analyze the cases before the class.
Students should form a group, not more than four (4) students, before the second session.
For the final project, the group can select an existing organization or create a pseudo organization. The report must contain the topics cover in the course. The group must identify the industry before third session and (pseudo) company before sixth session. Final project submission requires attachment of plagiarism check report (Turnitin software). This software is available with the Librarian. Final project (soft copy) is due within a week of the last session. Faculty would inform the exact date and modality of submission.
End-term examination would be a closed-book exam.