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MSc - Advanced Marketing

Innovation: Technology, Markets and the Organisa- tion

Marketing is not just a profession; it is an art, too. Marketing combines creative and communicative skills and has strong roots in critical strategic and analytical thinking at the same time. This makes marketing interesting, but also complex.

The last two decades have changed marketing tasks significantly and marketers need to be up-to-date with their capabilities and knowledge. Consumers have become a market power. Concepts such as post-modern consumers, tribalism, but especially the technologisation of the marketing context have shaped a new and very different marketing agenda, which is addressed in the individual modules. In addition to these direct requirements the increasing request for respecting ethics and the environment, two of the attributes at the core of the request for sustainable (marketing) management, are permanently embedded in the taught content. This awareness adds to the Degree's objectives to offer students the highest standards in marketing knowledge.

The MSc - Advanced Marketing provides students with the latest knowledge on marketing for the physical place, e- and mobile marketing.

Degree Programme Objectives

The marketing discipline has seen most significant changes in the last two decades, but has not been fully able to meet these in the same speed. The mission of the course is to embrace the radical changes and to adopt the new market(ing) realities consequentially. This leads to a distanced and critical consideration contrasting old theory with new approaches, which are expected to have more power and relevance for students and graduates, who have to work and manage the new complexities.

The programme is designed and structured to build a sound understanding of the key areas of strategic, tactical and function-oriented best practice in the complex and challenging environment of global markets in the 21st century. Its vision is to provide the necessary backgrounds and future-oriented paths for managers and students, who are seeking their careers in the marketing function.

Key marketing skills and specific tools and techniques are taught, which support students in their management roles to improve the performance of both their organisations and employees in turbulent and hyper-competitive marketplaces. The course’s objective is to enable students of the MSc - Advanced Marketing to apply their knowledge gained to the specific market(ing) situations of organisations.

Benefits

Shared aims unite the modules in the MSc - Advanced Marketing. These common aims are:

Understand current practices and issues in Marketing and to apply this knowledge and understanding in practical terms.
Apply effectively analytical and critical evaluation skills.
Undertake the formulation and apply problem-solving skills for all levels of Marketing.
Critically understand the various philosophies and methods of research and selection of the most appropriate application to solve Marketing’s strategic, tactical and operational problems.
To develop the reflective manager engaged in a lifelong cycle of learning, who respects corporate responsibility and sustainability by high standards of moral actions and ethical behaviour.

Programme Content

Introduction

Many times innovation is related to technological improvements, while market innovation plays a subordinate role. Innovation must be effective and one symbol of such effectiveness is the successful impact on markets. Why was the iPod successful? Not by technology alone, but by the strategic combination of the technology with new market creation by iTunes. This is just one example.

Innovation is a decisive value driver, nevertheless far more than 90% of new products do not survive the first 24 months on markets. This is one of the weak- nesses of marketing, but not all of this can be attributed to marketing only. Market research frequently is of very little support for innovative products and services and fails up to 550% in its forecasts due to wrong research methods. What can the marketer do, how can the marketer assess that innovative products and ser- vices will be successful?

Innovation owns a full set of grades and has two equally strong strands, technol- ogy and market linkages. The module explores both equally and shows tools, ways and analytical methods to make innovation successful and sustainable. The module looks behind the stage of successful and failed innovation and presents concepts and frameworks for finding answers to the ever-lasting question on ef- fective innovation.

Learning Outcomes

Students should be able to:

Understand the interconnectedness of technological and market innovation
Analyse by the use of research-based theory the actual environment for inno- vative products and services
Classify innovation accordingly into different degrees and understand the con- sequences for the marketing effort
Assess effectiveness in both strands of innovation, technology and markets; use product/service sustainability tools to sustainability-proof innovations

Set Texts

Bessant, J. and Tidd, J. 2011. Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change. 4th ed Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Fransman, M. 2010. The New ICT Ecosystem: Implications for Policy and Regu- lation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.