IEMB5

INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE MASTERS IN BUSINESS

Foundation of Marketing

Course outline

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Professor: Deva Rangarajan

E-mail drangarajan@bsu.edu
Phone 001 765 7024510

INTRODUCTION

In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, organizations need to move away from a very “inside-
out”, product centric mindset to more of an “outside-in”, customer centric mindset. Firms that are
more successful in this journey place a lot of emphasis on marketing concepts to help them become
more customer centric. In this course, we will outline some key marketing concepts that are
essential for firms to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

COURSE OBJECTIVE

The marketing course’s key goals, in terms of learning, will be mainly related to aspects of B2B
marketing (Transitioning from a Product focused approach to a Solutions oriented approach,
Marketing and Sales Alignment to help generate demand, Understanding the Basics of Sales force
management, managing service delivery to ensure excellence in customer experience
management)

It is crucial to focus on both strategic and operating marketing as, nowadays, companies are more I
and more interested in managers commanding exhaustively over the discipline of marketing.
Overall, participants will be exposed to most recent, globally known and used, “marketing best
theories and practices”
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This course’s take away, in terms of managerial ability, are:
1. the capacity to make marketing decisions under a dynamic, proactive, effective logic
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encompassing customers and competitors at the same time; full command of “marketing best
theories and practices”;
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2. development of a mindset according to which marketing is anything but the operating strategy
of the company, put into practice.
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COURSE CONTENT

Contents will be developed in class according to a sequential logic. This module will be devoted
to topics, where we will focus on aspects of B2B marketing strategy and execution. In general, all
topics will be discussed via concrete examples, emblematic case-histories, group assignments,
and individual self-reflections.

COURSE METHODOLOGY
As for methodology, the most key distinguishing traits will be: coincidence between excellence in
theoretical thinking and excellence in decision making; exposure of class to some advanced and
innovative operating models in marketing; intense use of case-histories, in order to facilitate brain
storming and team working.

In general, the teaching methodology will be designed according to an ideal sequence: exposure
to the logic/tool; analysis of related best theories and practices; case-history for discussion.

LEARNING EVALUATION

I will split the 100% into a) an individual end of term paper (topic will be discussed in class) that will
account for 50% of the overall course grade, b) 30% will be for the two assigned cases which will
be a group assignment, and c) 20% will be for the summary of the two assigned articles- which will
also be a group effort.

COURSE ETIQUETTE
In your own interest and of your colleagues, please try to observe the following courtesy rules:

• Arrive in class on time; do not leave early.

• Keep your mobiles and laptops off; do not use wireless network emailing in class.
• Minimize wandering in and out of the classroom.
• Participate fully in class.
• Pull your weight in group/joint work. Do not free-ride on your colleagues!
• Hand in assignments on time. Late submissions will be heavily penalized.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Prof. Deva Rangarajan, is an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Director of the Center for
Professional Selling at Ball State University, USA. He has a Bachelors in Mechanical engineering
from India and a PhD in Marketing from the University of Houston, USA. He spent 14 years as a
professor at Vlerick Business School in Belgium. He also has taught at University of Cologne,
SDA Bocconi –Italy and India, Gordon Institute of Business Studies in South Africa. He has worked
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closely with many companies to consult and deliver, customized programs. The list of multinational
companies he has worked with include Iveco, Yanmar, Epiroc, Atlas Copco, Schneider Electric,
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Siemens, Philips, Johnson and Johnson, Medtronic, Aliaxis, Etex, Bostik, ING, BNP Paribas
Fortis, Johnson Controls, Tosoh Bioscience, Doosan, Bekaert, Atlas Copco, AGC, SWIFT,
Cummins, Vesuvius, etc.
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DETAILED SYLLABUS

Move towards Customer Centric Solutions

This lecture focuses on how organizations transition from an “inside-out” to

an “outside-in” approach towards becoming customer centric. More
specifically we focus on understanding how organizations need to develop
customer centric value propositions based on understanding the needs of
Lecture 1 (part the members of the customer’s decision making unit (DMU). The importance
1) of creating value added services to differentiate your offering will be
addressed and the value of the brand to the overall customer experience will
be discussed.

READINGS
• Harrington R, J. and Tjan, A. K., “Transforming Strategy One Customer
At a Time”, Harvard Business Review

Article: analysis, discussion and presentation

YOUR TASK.
Lecture 1 (part
2)
You will analyze and discuss the key learning aspects of the assigned article
for this session- along with your classmates, in small groups. Each individual
in each group will have to reflect on how the learnings from this article is
relevant to their own organization and this has to be documented in a
powerpoint file that will then be used as part of your class evaluation.
Discussion of key takeaways will be conducted in plenary.

The Operational Role of Marketing

Article: analysis, discussion and presentation

YOUR TASK.
You will analyze and discuss the key learning aspects of the assigned article
for this session- along with your classmates, in small groups. Each individual
Lecture 2 (part in each group will have to reflect on how the learnings from this article is
1)
relevant to their own organization and this has to be documented in a
powerpoint file that will then be used as part of your class evaluation.
Discussion of key takeaways will be conducted in plenary..

READINGS
• Adamson, B., Dixon, M., and Toman, N., “The End of Solution Sales”,
Harvard Business Review I
The Operational Role of Marketing
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Lecture 2 (part
In this section we will discuss the concept of the demand unit waterfall and M
how the role of marketing is evolving to enable sales organizations to be
2)
more efficient. In this section, we will discuss concepts of marketing
automation, account based marketing, sales enablement, and customer B
success.
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Sales Force Management

In this session we will introduce the sales effectiveness framework and

identify five drivers of sales force effectiveness that sales managers can use
to drive the performance of the sales organization. Concepts such as Go-to-
Lecture 3 (part
Market Strategies, Sales force sizing, Sales force compensation, and
1)
performance management will be discussed here.

READINGS
• Dolan, R. J. and Shapiro, B. P. Milford Industries (A). Harvard Business
School Case

Article: case analysis, discussion, and presentation

Lecture 3 (part YOUR TASK.

2) You will analyze and discuss the key questions from the assigned article
for this session- along with your classmates, in small groups. Each group
will have to answer the questions and this has to be documented in a
powerpoint file that will then be used as part of your class evaluation.
Discussion of key takeaways will be conducted in plenary.
Customer Experience Management

In this session, we will discuss the key aspect of customer centricity-

delivering on the promises made to the customer. We will talk about the five
steps of customer experience management and specifically focus on key
Session 4 (part aspects of service delivery. We will also then do a wrap up of theentire
1) module.

READINGS
• Rangarajan, D. and Lubner, G. Delivering Exceptional Service: The Belron
Experience.

Article: case analysis, discussion, and presentation

YOUR TASK.
Session 4 (part
You will analyze and discuss the key questions from the assigned article for
2)
this session- along with your classmates, in small groups. Each group will
have to answer the questions and this has to be documented in a powerpoint
file that will then be used as part of your class evaluation. Discussion of key
takeaways will be conducted in plenary.

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