Management Development Institute, Gurgaon
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MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE, GURGAONNMP XXVIIIEnergy Management 2015-16Business to Business MarketingFaculty: Prof V KaliaIssues:What are the differences in marketing to organizational customers vis a vis marketing to individual and household consumers?How are the marketing concepts applied differently in business marketing situations, for managing the marketing mix decisions?What are the unique challenges in the role of a business marketer? What are the skill sets required by a Business Marketer?What kind of challenges are faced by a business marketing organization in creation of customer value?Introduction:This is a course on B2B Marketing and deals with issues pertaining to marketing of products and services to various types of organizational customers, as distinct from individual or household consumers. Organisational customers are very different in many respects – they are usually more knowledgeable, more resourceful, more powerful and more demanding. Markets composed of such customers throw up different kind of challenges, be it in understanding buyer behaviour, segmenting markets, forming relationships with customers, organizing the selling function or managing pricing. But a business marketer’s challenges are not confined only to external customers; they also have to perform a very strong role on many internal challenges on organizational processes, structures, people competencies and relationships without which their effectiveness with their external customers is seriously affected. It is for such reasons that there are many instances where successful B2C firms have found it difficult to become successful in B2B marketspace, and vice versa. Course Objectives:The objective of the course is to help the student develop an understanding about the differences in consumer marketing and business marketing, how the core marketing concepts and tools need to be applied and practiced very differently for success in business or industrial markets. Another objective of the course is to help the student to appreciate the role of a business marketer, how it is distinct from a consumer products marketer and what kind of skills he or she requires for playing this role effectively. The course aims to cover both the operational as well as strategic issues a Business Marketer is faced with. Overall, the student should develop an understanding about all aspects of marketing to organizational customers and be able to formulate as well as implement business marketing strategies for success in B2B marketplace.Pedagogy:Cases: In this course, a very high emphasis is placed on learning through case analysis and discussion. Cases are chosen to represent varying contexts and are taken from different industries to give the student a wide exposure about B2B markets. All students would have to form groups (maximum 4 students per group) and come prepared with a thorough analysis of each case for presentation in class. These would be combined with interactive discussions of theoretical concepts involved. For presentation of case analysis, groups would be chosen at random in the class and any member of the group would be asked to make the presentation. All the groups have to submit a hard copy of their ppt before start of the class – One sheet printed both sides having maximum of four readable slides per page in handout form, the first slide giving correct group number and names & roll numbers of group members. Non adherence will invite penalty in evaluations.
Presentations must be based on group’s own analysis. Use of material from earlier years’ presentations or any other sources would invite very serious consequences.Term Paper: The students have to write a term paper (either in groups or at individual level) to help develop a more practical/in-depth understanding of business marketing. The term paper can be done as a live project by studying and analyzing major aspects of B2B marketing of a company chosen by the group. The group would need to study the industry scenario and marketing environment of the chosen company, understand marketing strategies being followed by the company in comparison to other competitors, and then think from the perspective of the Marketing Head of the company whether there are any critical issues that require to be addressed – why are these issues critical, and how these need to be managed etc. The term paper can also be done at an individual level by writing a paper on various situations faced by an individual during his/her past work experience (either from seller’s or buyer’s perspective) and relating the same to B2B marketing concepts covered in the course. A third alternative would be to develop an in depth knowledge of a specific aspect of business marketing by studying and analyzing a few recent research papers on any chosen topic of B2B Marketing and discussing their relevance/limitations etc with the topics covered in the course.The topic for the term paper has to be submitted by session 4, and the term paper has to be submitted by session 14 (both – one hardcopy and a soft copy by email to [email protected] ).Class Participation will be used selectively as an evaluation component to ensure individual commitment to the course – details will be given in the first session.Evaluation : Case Studies Presentation/Submission 20% Quizzes 15% ———————————————————– Total CP 35% ———————————————————–Term Paper 15%Mid Term Exam 20%End Term Exam 30%Reference Books:Business Marketing by Bingham, Gomes, Knowles (McGraw Hill)Business Marketing by Gross, Banting, Meredith & Ford (AITBS)Business Marketing Management by Anderson, Narus (Pearson)Industrial Marketing by Reeder, Brierty & Reeder (PHI)Course Plan: Session Topic ReadingsNo.1-2 Business Marketing Perspective What is Industrial Marketing?