1. Objectives

Marketing is the set of activities that aims at creating value for a set of targeted customers, giving them access to this value, and making them transfer value back (usually in the form of payment of the price) to the company. This course will enable you to analyze a business situation from a marketing perspective, develop a marketing strategy, and implement the marketing strategy with concrete actions.

More particularly, you will be introduced to the major concepts, frameworks and methods required for:
(1) the analytical process of assessing the marketing environment, market opportunities, competitive situation, and research needs of an organization,
(2) the formulation of a marketing strategy based on the components of segmentation, targeting, and positioning,
(3) the implementation of this strategy through product planning, pricing, distribution, and promotional activities (this set of activities is known as the marketing mix).

The marketing views on strategy is based on the fact that corporate success ultimately depends on customers willing to choose the products and services of your company and willing to pay the right price. In the past decade, Western companies have understood that all members of an organization have to understand what it means to be marketing oriented. Marketing is not only a specialized function or discipline. It is also a culture that has to be shared by the entire organization and it is the responsibility of senior management to promote this culture.

2. Description of the Module Contents

This module consists of an intertwined set of lecture sessions and application sessions:
(1) Session lectures will be given alternatively by Professor Marc Vanhuele and Frédéric Dalsace. These sessions will explain in detail the concepts and frameworks involved in a marketing analysis and the development of a marketing strategy and plan. Theory will always be illustrated with concrete examples and we will specifically focus on best practices among international companies. In addition, links will always be made to your own experiences.
(2) Application sessions will follow the lecture sessions. They focus on a detailed case study or an applied exercise. The goal of these sessions is to make sure that you have assimilated and appropriated the concepts taught in each lecture session.

3. Faculty Biography

Marc Vanhuele is Associate Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, where he also serves as Associate Dean for Research and Director of the research center GREGHEC of the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research). He has a Masters Degree in Communication Sciences and an MBA from KULeuven, Belgium, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

He joined HEC in 1993 and has since had visiting positions and teaching assignments at the London Business School, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary. His teaching currently is focused on executive programs, but he has taught in MBA, undergraduate and doctoral programs on the topics of marketing orientation, consumer behavior, and communication.

He also served as consultant to consumer goods and market research companies. As an expert in consumer information processing, Professor Vanhuele's research focuses on studying the reactions of consumers to the offers and messages of the marketplace, and evaluating and improving the effectiveness of marketing actions. He also is active in analytical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) research (modeling of data on transactions with consumers. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, The Journal of Consumer Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesMarketing Letters, etc. ,

Frédéric Dalsace is an Associate Professor in Marketing at HEC School of Management, Paris, where he teaches New Product Development and B2B Marketing, mainly at the MBA and Executive levels. He is an alumnus from this school, and holds an MBA with honors from the Harvard Business School, and both a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Management from INSEAD.

Most of his research concentrates on inter-organizational (B2B) issues such as outsourcing, product development, and buyer-seller relationships, but Frédéric is also working on non-traditional branding strategies. His thesis work has been awarded the Canon Foundation