COURSE NUMBER: MBA299M.1

COURSE TITLE: Marketing Strategy

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3.0

INSTRUCTOR: Miguel Villas-Boas

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

PREREQUISITE(S): MBA Core

CLASS FORMAT: Lecture + MARKSTRAT simulation + Cases + Guest Speakers

CLASS WEBSITE: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/villas/MBA299M/

REQUIRED READINGS: Case packet /Reader

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Class project + In-class participation + MARKSTRAT

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

This course provides the opportunity to sharpen strategic analytic skills by exploring in greater detail selected concepts covered only briefly in the core MBA functional courses, and by introducing additional frameworks specifically addressing strategic decisions; those decisions having a long-term impact on the organization and which are difficult or costly to reverse.  

One important component of the course is the MARKSTRAT simulation. MARKSTRAT is the ultimate strategic decisions simulation where each team manages all dimensions of a firm strategy decisions in a competitive market, with short and long-term implications, and is a lot of FUN. It shows how to use everything learned in different courses in running an actual company. The simulation involves the processing of rich amounts of market and competitive intelligence, and decisions on targeting of selected market segments, positioning of products, R&D decisions on the design and development of new products, launching, improving, or withdrawing existing products, interface with the production department and production planning, pricing, advertising message, expenditures, and allocation, management of distribution channels, decision of the size and priorities of the sales force, order market research, etc. Overall, you’ll feel like you are running an actual company, formulating and implementing its long-term strategy. Top managers that have gone through MARKSTRAT have felt that they are back at running their company. Students going through MARKSTRAT have found it to be one of their most vivid memories of the MBA experience.

Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

-                 strategic market planning frameworks

-                 causes of strategy underperformance: the “strategy-to-performance” gap

-                 causes of strategic decline

-                 strategic growth options and their relationship to profitability

-                 business context analysis and scenario planning

-                 managing evolutionary versus disruptive strategic change

-                 organizational responses to environmental uncertainty

-                 identifying and articulating unique customer value propositions

-                 aligning internal operations with external strategic vision

-                 understanding the process of strategy formulation and strategic thinking

-                 valuing and implementing strategies

-                 building strategic capability; the build/buy/ally decision

-                 managing strategic alliances

The course is cross-functional in its focus, attempting, where appropriate, to integrate marketing, financial, and operational strategy issues.

The course is designed to be essential for students interested in careers in strategic management consulting, in marketing or brand management, in technology markets, or in mergers & acquisitions, but has broad applications to a range of careers and industries.

CAREER FIELD: Strategic management consulting, marketing, technology, M&A, broad applications to a range of careers and industries

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Miguel Villas-Boas is the J.Gary Shansby Professor of Marketing Strategy at the Haas School of Business, UC-Berkeley. He obtained his Ph.D. at M.I.T. Before that he did an MBA at INSEAD, France and M.Sc. in Economics at the New University of Lisbon, Portugal. Professor Villas-Boas has published extensively in the areas of marketing strategy, organization design, and customer relationship management. He has been involved in consulting projects in banking and in telecommunications. Professor Villas-Boas has been nominated for, or has won, the Cheit Best teaching Award for several years, and has won the 2009 ISMS Long-Term Impact Award among other research awards. He has published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, RAND Journal of Economics, Management Science, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Journal of Business, and in other top journals in management. Professor Villas-Boas is a Department Editor for Management Science and an Associate Editor for Marketing Science and Quantitative Marketing and Economics, is in the Editorial Board for the Journal of Marketing Research, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing, and is a founding member of SICS-Summer Institute in Competitive Strategy.

Website: http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/marketing/profiles/profs/villas.html