This description is based on a previous semester’s version of the course. We will update it when we receive a new one.

COURSE NUMBER: MBA264.1

This course is cross-listed with the Evening and Weekend MBA Program

COURSE TITLE: Marketing Strategy for High Technology Organizations

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 units

INSTRUCTOR: Peter Wilton

E-MAIL ADDRESS: wilton@haas.berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: http://www.study.net

MEETING DAYS/TIME: Thursdays, 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

PREREQUISITES: Core Marketing Management

CLASS FORMAT: The class includes a wide variety of learning approaches, including lectures, guest speakers, case studies, strategy planning templates, and software tools for assessing the effectiveness of marketing strategies for high technology products and services.

REQUIRED READINGS: Textbook + course reader + case studies. Soft copies of class lecture notes and planning templates will be made available to enrolled students

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Individual participation, based upon in-class participation, completion of class assignments, and extra-curricular contributions. A wide variety of individual participation formats is encouraged. Final paper and presentation of team-based marketing strategy assignment

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
The universe of technology products and services continues to change in ways that put new pressures on product marketers:

· traditionally profitable (and differentiated) products and market sectors face increasing competitive pressure both from commoditization at the low end and alternative disruptive technology platforms at the high-end;

· the scope and nature of competing and substitute products/service offerings continue to morph, blurring market boundaries and increasing the complexity of the R&D and product management tasks;

· new pricing and ownership models for technology products and services (especially software, utility computing, etc.) pose significant market education and product integration challenges;

· technology vendors continue to migrate higher up in the customer value chain, focusing upon business-level issues and deliverables, and engaging decision-makers and influencers beyond the IT function;

Collectively, these and other developments are placing new demands on the marketing of high-technology products and services. In particular, technology marketers are being challenged to find and articulate clear differentiation opportunities, to integrate more effectively across product lines, and to develop new definitions and ways of demonstrating customer value. Product-level value propositions, crafted at the generic level, without meaningful customer input, are unlikely to yield significant returns on marketing investments.

"High-Technology Marketing Management" is intended to address many of these challenges, equipping technology marketers with a set of tools and frameworks for more effectively executing the key tasks of managing, messaging, and positioning the high-technology product.

FOCUS:
"Marketing Strategy for High-Technology Organizations" structures the technology marketing task into three layers. At the conceptual level, the course presents a framework for innovation management, outlining the process for developing market-relevant innovation (balancing engineering-lead against customer-lead product development), comparing the development trajectories of sustaining (incremental) versus reframing (disruptive) innovation, and drawing implications for how the marketing program needs to be adapted for each type of innovation, often referred to as contingency marketing.

This section of the course will also introduce alternative organizational designs for managing the technology development and marketing process.

At the strategic decision-making level, the course introduces a set of interrelated decisions comprising the 'technology marketing hierarchy'. This hierarchy guides the technology marketer through decisions concerning:

· technology development strategy (managing the technology portfolio);

· technology commercialization strategy (technology valuation and value-recapture strategy: the end-products/sale/license decision);

· market timing and market-entry strategies (first-mover versus follower strategies);

· the technology growth objectives (mix of revenue, market share, and profitability);

· the market growth focus (mix of target markets and customer segments, including differences between B2B and B2C technology markets);

· the customer growth focus (mix of new customer acquisition versus penetration of the current installed base);

· competitive product differentiation and uniqueness;

· alternative customer value-creation platforms (the alternative strategic platforms through which the firm intends to create value for the customer and position the technology);

· nested customer value propositions;

· the go-to-market strategy, including partnering and alliancing strategy;

· managing the technology life cycle, highlighting the tasks, benefits, and risks associated with each stage of technology life cycle, and the appropriate strategic and tactical responses for managing the transitions between stages, with the ultimate aim of maintaining the industry marketer leadership position throughout the innovation life cycle.

At the tactical level, the course provides technology marketers with practical tools for market definition, market sizing, technology substitution analysis, new product design (determining customer-utility-maximizing product attribute trade-offs), estimating new product adoption rates, and estimating product ROI. The course also introduces a customer ROI model for quantifying both the economic value and intangible benefits created for the customer, and from this, determining the appropriate pricing and value recapture strategy for the technology.

OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

· Understand and manage the sequence of decisions required to enable effective technology product marketing

· Understand and measure the economic value of alternative technology growth strategies

· Assess the strategic impact of specific product initiatives on market and competitor behavior, and be able to manage the risks inherent in high impact innovation

· Articulate effective value propositions that clearly differentiate the firm from its competitors in both the immediate- and the long-term

· Understand and measure customer ROI for technology products & services

· Understand and measure the customer utility for specific combinations of product attributes and performance levels, enabling the design of optimally configured market offerings

· Estimate market shares and adoption rates for alternative technology offerings within a given market segment

· Understand and manage value-based pricing decisions for technology products

· Understand and manage the key industry marketing tasks associated with effective technology commercialization, from launch through to market saturation

· Understand and mitigate the risks of stalled product adoption

· Understand and measure product ROI to the firm

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Dr. Peter Wilton teaches strategy, marketing, and international management in the Haas School of Business at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and on the faculties of Duke and Purdue Universities in the United States, the University of Melbourne, and the Australian Graduate School of Management in Australia, as well as the executive programs of the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Wilton has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships for his work in management, including several from the prestigious National Science Foundation, as well as the Marketing Science Institute. He has been the recipient of the Australian Overseas Fellowship in Management and the Market Research Society of Australia Prize. In the US, he has been recognized by Business Week magazine as one of the country's leading business instructors. In addition, he has been recognized in the "Who's Who" Registry of Leading American Executives.

Most recently, Dr. Wilton received recognition from the International Society for Performance Improvement for "outstanding instructional intervention" Dr. Wilton has published widely, his articles on management appearing in numerous leading journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, European Research, and elsewhere.

In addition to his teaching activities, through his private consulting company known as ORBIS Associates, Dr. Wilton also provides a range of strategic management and executive development services to a list of clients representing diverse industries and regions of the world. As a specialist focus, Dr. Wilton actively assists organizations to develop more effective customer loyalty strategies and profitability through the design and deployment of integrated customer experience architectures.