Course Outline

Marketing as a Value Creator

• The motives and composition of key stakeholder groups, particularly shareholders and managers as their agents, in influencing the values, direction and strategy of an organisation
• The dominant values found in different types of organisations
• The nature of strategic decisions
• The concept of shareholder value and its importance for the long term survival and success of the organisation
• The two main ways of generating profits to create shareholder value in commercial organisations: increasing value and reducing cost
• The role of marketing in creating and increasing value for customers and in capturing a share of the value it creates for customers as profit for shareholders (NB Including marketing assets and value creators)
• Other roles for marketing and its role in not-for-profit organisations

Market orientation and the strategic planning process

• The concept of business orientation and how market orientation differs from other business orientations
• The contribution of marketing at the heart of the business through its relationships with finance and HR who together communicate with the main groups of stakeholders
• Strategy making and planning process
• Influences on the strategy making and planning process
• The 'models' of marketing and criteria for success used in organisations with different orientations
• The contribution of marketing to strategy making and planning in different organisations
• Obstacles that marketing faces in delivering shareholder value

Approaches to evaluating performance

• Characteristics of an effective strategic audit
• Causes of strategic uncertainty facing organisations and examples of strategic decisions to be supported when evaluating performance
• Stages and key principles in conducting an effective strategic audit
• The use of questions to focus outcomes
• Sources of data and information for evaluating performance
• Groups of the main techniques available for evaluating performance
• Importance of using quantitative as well as qualitative data

Evaluation techniques: business and marketing metrics

• Purpose and structure of the balanced scorecard
• Measures for the customer's perspective
• Measures for the innovation and learning perspective and use of an innovation audit
• Measures for the internal business perspective
• Measures for the financial perspective
• Evaluating the effectiveness of the balanced scorecard as a technique for evaluating business performance
• Extending the use of balanced scorecard to strategic management control

Techniques for evaluating performance

• Ratio analysis and its limitations and the constraints they may impose on the use of ratios in certain circumstances
• Shareholder value analysis and calculation of economic profit and total shareholder return
• Constituents, data requirements and outcomes produced by financial ratios, including profit, solvency, liquidity and investment ratios
• Other quantitative techniques, including trend analysis and benchmarking
• Evaluating historical financial decisions concerning tangible assets

Techniques for evaluating marketing performance

• The marketing audit and the contribution of financial and quantitative analysis
• Evaluation of marketing results and the effectiveness of use of an organisation's marketing assets using financial techniques
• Other quantitative techniques, including trend analysis and benchmarking to evaluate marketing effectiveness
• Evaluating historical financial decisions concerning marketing assets and activities
• Other techniques for evaluating specific aspects of marketing performance, including the service quality gaps model

Organisations and organisational culture

• Organisation structures as frameworks for the exchange of information and decision making; the main types of organisation structure
• The organisation as a portfolio and consequences for internal analysis
• The resource-based view of the firm and the consequences of its legacy for competitive positioning
• Concepts of culture (national and organisational); components and types of organisational culture
• Assessing the current culture of an organisation using the cultural web
• What guides or drives the organisation - the fit between strategy, culture and leadership, and the consequences for analysis and strategy making

Techniques for internal analysis

• Description of tools and techniques available for internal analysis
• Selecting tools and techniques appropriate to a specific context
• Applying appropriate tools and techniques to draw appropriate conclusions from an internal analysis
• Critical evaluation of the tools & techniques available for internal analysis
• Summarising facts and insights from the internal phase of the analysis
• Identifying implications from the strategic analysis for decision making

The external environment and information needs

• The organisation as an 'open system' and the dependency of its performance on the environment and markets it operates in
• The expectations of an organisation's leaders for market research and the nature of their intelligence requirements
• The elements and types of macro environment
• Elements of an organisation's 'contexts' for marketing
• Developing an understanding of the structure of a market
• Planning intelligence and information collection, storage and using appropriate approaches

Developing customer insights

• Creating customer preference as a means of capturing greater value from the organisation's offer(s)
• The kinds of insights required from the analysis of customers
• Understanding customers' needs and buying behaviours in consumer and organisational markets, including buying models, influences on buying behaviours and the buying process
• The concept of segments and markets as 'structures' of customer needs which aid in analysis and identifying opportunities and planning activities
• Buyer profile variables in consumer and organisational markets

Evaluating competitive position

• Economic concepts of oligopoly, monopoly and pure competition
• The concepts of levels of competition and substitution in the immediate, short and long run
• Industry structure, forces and value chains and their consequences for the performance of firms
• Using and appraising techniques and processes for analysing an industry and competitive position within an industry
• Using and appraising techniques and processes for analysing competitors and profiling possible strategic responses
• Summarising insights into the organisation's competitive position

Characteristics of global/international markets

• Ways in which international markets differ from the domestic market
• The changing nature of global markets
• How companies 'go international' and factors for success in international markets
• Assessing the attractiveness of international markets: the process and techniques
• Overcoming the specific problems that organisations face in collecting and interpreting information on foreign markets

Analysis of foreign/global markets

• The SLEPT and 'C' factors for analysing international markets
• Identifying the business intelligence required and sources of information for an international market
• Factors to consider when assessing the capability of an organisation to expand in an international market
• Types of risk to consider in dealing in an international market
• ICT in cross-border marketing

Forecasting and developing scenarios

• Forecasting techniques for quantifying opportunities and threats, including individual and consensus forecasting, trend extrapolation, modelling and investment appraisal
• Scenario planning as a creative technique for conceiving, exploring and evaluating different possible futures for an organisation
• Critical appraisal of forecasting techniques and use of sensitivity analysis
• Using 'gap analysis' as an useful bridge between the current situation (where the firm is now) and the future (where it might want to be)

Synthesis and distillation of the analysis

• Consolidating the results and summarising the salient factors and insights emerging from an internal and external analysis
• A possible checklist of headings for consolidating the analysis
• Providing an insightful summary of the competitive position and performance of an organisation working in an international or global marketplace
• Impact and implications of the results from the analysis on strategic decisions for the future