DCP Marketing Module
Course Syllabus
This course provides a decision-oriented overview of marketing in modern organizations. The objectives of the course are to provide you with a broad introduction to marketing concepts, the role of marketing in the firm, and the various factors that influence marketing decision making. This course emphasizes understanding and using important marketing concepts and jargon, not memorizing facts. You will be active participants in the learning process.
TEXT:William M. Pride and O.C. Ferrell, Marketing Concepts and Strategies, Houghton Mifflin Company, Tenth Edition, Boston, 1997.
ARTICLES:
The Wall Street Journal
Marketing News
Harvard Business Review
Business Week
Enterprise Series
Course Description:
The course will:
Objectives:
The course is designed to have you:
Method of Teaching:
The course will use a combination of lecture, discussion, exercises, and hands-on projects to expand and reinforce your marketing knowledge as well as strengthen your communication skills, critical thinking skills, and team building skills. Lectures are designed to elaborate on the concepts developed in the text and discussions are designed to encourage you to reflect on your own experiences as applicable to the topic at hand.
Course Project:
Each team of students, will develop a Marketing Strategy for introducing a new product that will be presented orally to the class at the end of this module. Each team member must present. The presentation should last between 25 and 30 minutes, with about 5 additional minutes for questions. The benefits of doing this type of project are many: hands on experience in marketing management; opportunity to apply a variety of skills; opportunity to work with others; opportunity to deliver a formal oral presentation; and, finally, the opportunity to make concrete connections between classroom theory and real world work situations. Included in this binder is a detailed handout that further explains the project.
Computer Exercises:
During the second week of the module, the class will analyze two computer-aided marketing problems. The software to do the problems is already loaded onto your team's laptop. These problems dynamically illustrate important marketing concepts and how they effect the bottom line of the firm as reported on a firm's Income Statement. To prepare for this class, your team should review the assigned computer cases and the accompanying questions before class. After the class analyzes the computer cases, each student will separately prepare a formal write-up of computer problem #5. The formal write-up is due from each student the following week.
For the write-up, assume that you are the marketing manager and you are presenting this information to your boss. Your write-up should include background information, discussion of what was done, what was found, and what are the implications for your firm. There should be accompanying table(s) and/or graph(s) to support your discussion. Although the case provides most of the data, the organization and appearance of the information can be vastly improved. Go beyond the simple and often cluttered tables provided with the case. The write-up should be about one to two pages of narrative and about one to two pages of table(s)/graph(s).
Team Led Discussion:
On week three, each team will formally deliver a status report on the information gathering that has been done for the team project to date. The thrust of the presentation should be on possible market(s) for the product offering-- who they are and what they want in regards to the general product offering. There should be information from secondary sources and primary sources. At this point in the module your primary information gathering may not be complete. In this case present what you've done to date: plans for conducting focus groups and/or surveys, including questions, respondent selection, etc. Also mention information you've gathered by speaking to informed people about the product concept or appropriate target markets. For secondary information gathering use the library and the internet. Useful library sources are provided in the project section of this binder. Also, speak to the reference librarians, they are an invaluable resource (Kelly Cannon specializes in Business). Each member of the team should have some part in the presentation/discussion. It has been my experience that the use of handouts helps the team more clearly and concisely present the information to the class. The entire discussion and wrap-up should be under twenty minutes. Team led presentations will take place during week three.
Article Write-up:
Individually, prepare a three page summary write-up of either the article, Extend Profits, Not Product Lines or Developing Products on Internet Time for week 4 (members of team 1 & 2 will use the article, Extend Profits, Not Product Lines; members of team 3 & 4 will use the article, Developing Products on Internet Time). The write-up should include a summary of the article (be sure to touch upon the assigned questions in this section) and your reflections/reactions to the article. Don't be skimpy on the reflections section, often students omit or are too brief on this portion of the write-up.
Peer Assessment:
You will evaluate each member of your team on such criteria as: quantity of work, quality of work, cooperation, dependability, initiative, and overall assessment. The evaluations will be confidential. I will not share others' evaluations of you with you, nor will I share your evaluations with others. This will be turned in to the professor the last day of class. This information will only be used to penalize or reward a team member whose performance is deemed unsatisfactory or extraordinary by all other team members. In most cases this evaluation will not affect the student's grade.
Grading:
Your grade will be based upon an evaluation of your team project/oral presentation, article write-up, computer exercise, team-led discussion, quality and quantity of individual participation and attendance as follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|