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Written for a module in the Marketing Implementation course (a second-year elective in the MBA program). Provides a brief introduction to common issues involved in recruiting, training, compensating, and evaluating field salespeople. Also offers questions to consider concerning these topics in case analysis.

Written for a module in the Marketing Implementation course (second-year MBA elective). Offers a framework for considering relevant factors that affect sales force deployment and criteria for measuring sales effectiveness and the conduct of field marketing efforts.

Written as an introduction to a module concerning channel management for the second-year MBA elective in Marketing Implementation. Discusses: 1) reasons for the growth of multichannel systems in marketing efforts, 2) key components and choices in channel management, 3) major factors that affect producer-reseller relations, and 4) a framework for analyzing common trade-offs between control and resources in most distribution systems.

Written as an introduction to a module in the second-year MBA course, Marketing Implementation. Discusses issues encountered in the selling and management of major accounts. The topics covered include: 1) reasons for the increasing importance of major account management in sales management and marketing strategy, 2) a framework for account selection, 3) a review of concepts useful in analyzing buying behavior in major-account sales situations, 4) an overview of stages in the development of buyer-seller relationships, and 5) key issues in sales coordination.

Describes the challenge of creating, communicating, and committing to a "vision" for an organization. Visions are characterized as a critical building block for stimulating a successful major change in an organization. Considers characteristics of a good vision, an effective visionary, and a process for giving commitment to a vision.

Explains the concept of a family of performance curves. The most well known is the price/performance curve relating the prices of items in a product line to their performance. Also discusses the cost/performance curve and its impact on product positioning, product line length, and technological options. Also introduces a reservation price or value/performance curve. All are considered in the context of competitive behavior.

Describes the process of decision making (establish objectives, generate alternatives, and so on) emphasizing the human side of it (using rules of thumb, favoring one's own pet projects) yet demonstrating the role an analytic/quantitative contribution has to make.

Describes the major challenges associated with managing change. Highlights the focus for change, the different degrees and types of change, when change is to be introduced, what factors enable that introduction, and what reactions change evokes. Underscores the paradoxes and tensions inherent in managing change effectively.

This note provides a brief history of the origins of return-on-investment measurement at Du Pont and its close link with operations management. The Du Pont chart approach to calculating return on assets is described, and the chart is presented in work-sheet form to facilitate application by persons unfamiliar with the financial concepts. Use of ROA and ROE for performance measurement is discussed, and average measures of two samples of top U.S. and Japanese companies are presented.

A considerable amount of our working lives is spent in meetings. However, as most managers will attest, meetings are often inefficient and tedious and fail to accomplish their intended objectives. Fortunately, these problems can often be avoided by carefully considering several important issues when planning and conducting a meeting. This note summarizes these issues.

Identifies the elements of marketing strategy and introduces frameworks for strategic marketing decisions. The frameworks deal with market definition and selection, positioning and differentiation, and market entry/exit decisions. Other topics discussed include selecting and articulating the marketing vision and values, anticipating and responding to competitors' marketing strategies, and determining the appropriate degrees of flexibility and focus in marketing strategy formulation.

Explores the "new" theories of international trade--also called strategic trade policy--which were developed in the 1980s. Examines why economists and policy makers thought new approaches were necessary to explain international trade, the contributions of industrial organization to these theories, and the implications of these theories for firm strategies and government policies.

An introductory note for MBA students on the nature of marketing and topics encountered in its study. Defines the topic then breaks marketing into two major conceptual pieces--the tools, tasks and variables of the marketer, and the marketing process. In the tools piece, promotion (advertising and selling primarily), pricing, distribution, and product policy are considered. In the processes one, situation analysis, strategy formulation, planning, organizing, budgeting, marketing implementation, and marketing performance analysis are introduced. The intent is to give the beginning MBA student an overview of both the discipline and the major topics involved in its study. The organization proposed captures in large measure the design of the First Year Marketing course at the Harvard Business School as well as the organization of the book Marketing Management by the authors of this note.

Introduces learning by the case method, with application to marketing learning. Places case learning in the stream of experiential learning and explains the advantages and disadvantages of experiential learning methods. Turning to case learning specifically, the note discusses the nature of cases, their construction using a physician-patient analogy, why companies cooperate with case writers, how cases are analyzed, the role of the case teacher, and the beneficial effects of successful case study. Concludes with some preparation guidelines for students and instructors and gives sources for further reading.

Outlines the differences between convergent change, which is a process of incremental innovation and continuous improvement, and divergent change, which involves revolutionary changes. Discusses how to manage each type of change and the consequences associated with each. Organizational evolution typically involves longer periods of convergent change that are punctuated by short periods of divergent change in which managers realign the firm and react to external opportunities and challenges.

Profiles the household furniture industry in the United States in 1986. Designed for use with Masco Corp. (A) and (B).

This note illustrates several data-analysis techniques that can be used to compare two groups of interval data.

A comprehensive description of industrial distribution systems. Written from the perspective of industrial products manufacturers, concerned about building and managing channels systems for taking products from point of manufacture to point of use. Covers: 1) channels design options, 2) factors influencing design choices, 3) producer-reseller relationships, 4) distribution costs, 5) intrachannel and interchannel conflict, and 6) coping with change.

Provides an integrated discussion of the basic elements of industrial marketing strategy and develops a strategic marketing planning model. May be used as either an introductory or a summary reading for an industrial marketing course or course segment.

Acquiring resources--or to put it more broadly, attracting stakeholders--is a basic entrepreneurial task. While every enterprise needs employees, customers, suppliers, and financiers who are willing to risk their time and money, attracting these "stakeholders" to an entrepreneurial venture is a particularly difficult challenge. This note first describes the importance of the challenge and then the set of tasks the entrepreneur must work on in order to overcome it: Designing the enterprise to minimize the stakeholder investment needed, selecting the right stakeholders, and then convincing them to participate in the enterprise.