MARKET LEADERS

UCD has developed intensive courses for business people wanting to develop their marketing skills and develop competitive marketing strategies.

The UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business is running two highly innovative new courses over the next two months aimed at senior business executives.

The first is an intensive three-day course on performance-driven marketing, being held from May 27th to 29th next and the second covers leadership themes in food and agribusiness and runs from June 22th to 24th.

Both are led by Prof Damien McLoughlin, professor of marketing and director of the marketing development programme at the Smurfit Business School.

"We have taken a 12-week marketing programme from our MBA course and condensed it into three highly intensive days for the performance-driven marketing course," Prof McLoughlin explains.

The course is aimed at directors and managers assuming responsibility for marketing for the first time, or who already have marketing responsibilities, but do not have significant formal education in the area.

It is also geared towards entrepreneurs and general managers with a need for greater understanding of marketing, as well as heads of other functions such as finance, operations and R&D who could benefit from a greater insight into marketing.

The programme will concentrate on the unique insights and perspectives from the core marketing course and participants will develop a clear understanding of the essentials of marketing and the ability to develop a competitive marketing strategy.

It emphasises the need for managers in every function and at each level to consider the key marketing challenges facing their organisation and their capability to effectively and profitably respond.

The programme uses case studies, group discussion, interactive lectures, simulations and action learning to leave participants with a series of immediately actionable tools and the evidence and vignettes required to persuade other decision-makers to apply them.

Comprehensive coverage is provided of the full suite of marketing tools and concepts across consumer, service, technology and business-to-business markets.

"Marketing drives the performance and profitability of firms and you need to be able to measure its contribution because it is expensive," says McLoughlin.

"Sir Anthony O'Reilly estimated 10 years ago that it cost $125 million to launch a product in the US. This cost has at least doubled since then. If you buy a factory or an office block in America for $250 million (€160 million) and your business fails, at least you've got a saleable asset left over. If you spend $250 million on a marketing campaign for a product and it fails you have nothing left to show for it.

"This is why you need proper metrics to be able to measure what makes marketing successful or not," he continues. "You also need these metrics if you are to convince a chief executive or financial director to commit resources to a marketing campaign."

He points out that it is getting more difficult to do this. "The real costs of doing business have actually fallen over the past 30 years," he notes.

"A combination of outsourcing, technology - new processes such as JIT and so on have cut real costs for business but the cost of marketing has actually trebled over the same period. Very few companies are led by marketing visionaries and so don't necessarily make the best use of marketing."

He also talks about what he calls the "legacy of the multinationals".

"The US multinational companies who came to Ireland over the past few decades made a tremendous contribution to the country and have created a tremendous legacy in terms of management expertise in areas such as production, finance and human resources. But they helped create a deficit in management ability in marketing terms because they were not engaged in marketing."

Participants will also be given best practice marketing examples from European and international firms of all sizes and across a variety of industrial, technological, service, consumer and business-to-business markets.

To support decision-makers in the food and agribusiness sector Smurfit School partnered with the Harvard Business School to design a seminar to offer explanations and solutions to the complex leadership issues which they face in today's rapidly changing market.

The programme is designed to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of emerging and potential strategic shifts in their industry. With a strong emphasis on dynamic strategy, industry leaders will benefit by developing insights into the details of the challenges they face and how innovative organisations have been responding, thus increasing their effectiveness as organisational pathfinders.

Using case studies and in-depth discussion, the seminar will reveal positioning options for firms to best leverage major consumer, technological and competitive trends, and thus maximise competitive advantage.

The seminar is also designed to provide a forum, where leaders of change can meet to share insights and common experiences and debate the future shape of the food industry.

The outcome will be an improvement on participants' leadership abilities and their competencies in developing innovative strategy and designing effective change programmes.

"The food industry has gone through a 300-year bear market but this is now over," McLoughlin contends.

"A combination of economic and population growth as well as pressures created by biofuel production and so on has changed this.

"The food industry has always known that it was vibrant and growing. Some of the best managed companies in Ireland are food businesses - just look at Kerry, Glanbia and Dairygold for example.

"The seminar will use a series of case studies to show how food companies around the world are meeting a variety of challenges and successfully growing and thriving.

"We will have chief executives from some of the world's most innovative food companies who will not only present case studies on their own companies but will take an active part in the seminar as well," McLoughlin says.