CASES IN STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGEMENT ROSENTHAL D., BROWN L. Księgarnia

Preface

Strategic marketing creates competitive advantage. Those organizations that understand the role and practice the processes of strategic marketing gain an advantage over those organizations that do not. Strategic marketing is the central activity of a modern enterprise. Strategic marketing requires an articulation of the organization's vision, mission, objectives, and culture. More than any other organizational activity, strategic marketing defines and maintains the desired relationship between the organization and its environment. Strategic marketing specifies the customer base, develops an understanding of customer needs and behaviors, accounts for the activities and initiatives of competition, and evaluates the economic, social and cultural, international, legal and political, and technological environments. In response to the conditions external to the organization, strategic marketing molds the organization, determines product and production specifications, pricing, promotional activity, and distribution, indicates financial requirements, and dictates needed human skills. Strategic marketing defines the role of the organization.

Fitting the organization to the needs of the environment has never been more critical. The rate of change in the environment has accelerated. At no previous time have organizations faced a more turbulent, confusing, and threatening set of conditions. Impetus for significant change will come from many sources, including government, international and domestic economic and market forces, demographic shifts and lifestyle changes, and structural evolution of many industries. Marketers will have to anticipate and understand the complex interactions of these changes if they are to develop effective programs to position their organizations in the most advantageous manner.

A course in marketing strategy must be directed toward preparing students to enter this complex decision-making environment. Much of the coursework in the business curriculum is devoted to exposing students to the concepts, definitions, and models that comprise "best practice" in the business world, but at a theoretical level. It is the role of a course in marketing strategy to bring together the tools and processes described in other classes and forge them into a unified and systematic approach to problem solving and decision making. To accomplish this task, students are required to develop a comprehensive framework that enables them to apply independent critical intelligence and to make judgments in a complex world of different and competing points of view.

The use of cases encourages students to practice their analytical and decision-making skills and to develop a practical, comprehensive framework. The case approach provides a practice arena in which students may integrate and apply their marketing knowledge to gain experience. Students are called upon to apply their knowledge to many different types of organizations in many situations, thereby providing them exposure and wisdom beyond their current level of personal experience. Therefore, this edition of Cases in Strategic Marketing includes case studies that provide a variety of strategic marketing situations that cover the spectra of large and small, public and private, product and service, domestic and international companies. It also includes appendice covering case analysis, financial analysis, and oral presentations. Following this preface is a table containing the companies featured in the cases.

THE CASE APPROACH

In order to effectively use cases, it is essential that both students and instructors understand the nature of case studies and the teaching objectives of cases. A case typically is an accurate, historical record of a business situation that actually has been faced by business executives. It is, to the best abilities of the case researchers and writers, a reflection of the sum of the information available to the executive(s) who had to make the decision, including the surrounding facts, opinions, and prejudices on which executive decisions frequently have to depend.

A case study attempts to vicariously place students into a managerial position in which they will have to "size up" the situation and suggest some action for the organization. The action is typically a plan (set of decisions) that addresses the key issues of the case. Therefore, the case most often provides some degree or focus for the student, as well as some discussion of the environment, in order to develop the decision-making situation.

The objective of the case approach is not for students to develop "right" solutions, or rote knowledge, that they will be able to apply in a future situation. Rather, the case approach provides students with a perspective concerning the complexity of the issues that organizations face, practice in discerning the critical issues, application of theory, an understanding of the interrelated complexity of business functions, and discussion concerning important issues faced by modem enterprises. Case studies provide students with an in-depth learning experience in a given business situation that is difficult to obtain elsewhere.

THE CASEBOOK

This casebook is designed to be used in upper-level marketing strategy and marketing management courses. Marketing strategy or marketing management is usually the capstone course in marketing and is typically required for all marketing majors and minors. The general objective of the capstone course is to pull together marketing theory and practice into a broad understanding of marketing and its application. Other courses in marketing provide an overview of marketing, as in the principles of marketing course, or an in-depth study of various functional areas, such as sales management, advertising, pricing, channels, and so on. The marketing strategy or marketing management course asks students to solve problems and develop comprehensive marketing strategies in situations that are not clearly predetermined as promotional, segmentation, or channels of distribution. Utilizing a top-management perspective, students must consider all of an organization's systems and their interrelationships in developing marketing recommendations.

610 pp

Po otrzymaniu zamówienia poinformujemy,
czy wybrany tytuł polskojęzyczny lub anglojęzyczny jest aktualnie na półce księgarni.