The Great Courses - Critical Business Skills for Success
Год выпуска: 2015 г.
Автор: Michael A. Roberto, D.B.A.
Издатель: The Great Courses
Язык курса: Английский
Формат: PDF
Качество: Изначально компьютерное (eBook)
Кол-во страниц: 495
Видео: Windows Media Video 9 640x360 29.97fps 2000kbps
Аудио: WMA 2 44100Hz stereo 128kbps
Об Авторе: Michael A. Roberto, D.B.A.
Bryant University
Dr. Michael A. Roberto teaches leadership, managerial decision making, and business strategy as the Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. He joined the faculty at Bryant University after teaching at Harvard Business School for six years. Previously, Professor Roberto was a Visiting Associate Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. Professor Roberto earned an M.B.A. with High Distinction and a D.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He brings real-world business skills to the classroom from his years of consulting at and teaching in the leadership development programs of a number of firms, including Apple, Walmart, Morgan Stanley, Coca-Cola, Federal Express, and Johnson & Johnson. Recognized for his research, writing, and teaching, Professor Roberto has earned several coveted teaching awards, including the Outstanding M.B.A. Teaching Award from Bryant University and Harvard University's Allyn A. Young Prize for Teaching in Economics. Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer, his book about cultivating constructive debate to help leaders make better decisions, was named one of the top 10 business books of 2005 by The Globe and Mail. His most recent book is Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen.
Описание: 60 lectures | 31 minutes per lecture
Everyone wants to know: What does it take to reach success in business—the kind of success that lasts? It all comes down to a solid grasp of the fundamentals of business—the same kind that are taught to MBA students in many of the world's most prestigious business schools.
Our comprehensive five-part, 60-lecture course,
Critical Business Skills for Success, is designed to give you just this kind of integrated, accessible introduction. Bringing together five prestigious and renowned business professors from some of America's top business schools, each of this course's five parts is a detailed look at a particular skill:strategy,
operations,
finance and accounting,
organizational behavior, and
[*]marketing.Here in one place is an authoritative guide to the five essential disciplines that everyone, entry-level employees and CEOs alike, needs to master in order to reap rewards in today's complex marketplace.
In each part, you'll learn about everything from key terms and methodologies to research-backed strategies and case studies involving some of the world's most influential companies.
This kind of well-rounded business education is useful to anyone who works in a company of any size. Whether you're in a leadership position, just starting out, or somewhere in between, these skills will help you understand all of the functions of a business, not just your area of specialty. It's also a great resource to have even if you already have an MBA, as you can return to this course again and again for advice and clarification.
Bringing the MBA experience right to you,
Critical Business Skills for Success demystifies the secrets of business and gives you insights that will help you achieve your goals.
Part One: StrategyWhere, and with whom, will your business compete? What will you do, and not do, as a company? How will you create advantages that put you ahead of the competition? You can have the world's greatest product and the most effective marketing for selling that product, but if you don't have an effective strategy underlying your business or organization, a template for how it should run, you'll find it hard to stay on top of the business world.
Why is a crystal-clear strategy an essential piece of the business puzzle? In the words of popular Great Courses Professor Michael A. Roberto of Bryant University, it's because businesses can't do everything. "And so you have to be very clear about how you're going to use your resources in the most efficient way possible, both to serve the customers you intend to serve and to serve them better than anyone else."
Now you can learn straight from an award-winning business instructor the secrets to developing, executing, and managing powerful business strategies with
Critical Business Skills: Strategy. Award-winning Professor Roberto’s 12 lectures provide you with a research-based framework for understanding how strategy works and how to apply it.
Get Two Angles on Business StrategyBusiness strategy is one of the business world's most crucial activities. It's the template for how your organization should run, and comes before anything else. Throughout these lectures, you'll explore strategy from two fundamental angles:You'll examine the world of business unit strategy, focusing on how particular companies use strategic frameworks to beat their rivals in a particular product market.
[*]You'll also take a step back and explore the concept of corporate strategy, and how multi-business units and diversified companies strategically operate in a variety of product markets.But most important are the many specific strategies you'll learn how to formulate, wield, and apply to your own unique business situations.
Take On Tomorrow's Business Challenges
Professor Roberto, using his years of experience in the business world and his piercing insights into business strategy, includes in each lecture of
Critical Business Skills: Strategy stories of real-world successes (and failures) involving major companies of the past decade, including J.C. Penney, the Walt Disney Company, Target, and AOL Time Warner. An eight-time winner of Bryant University's prestigious Excellence in Teaching Award, he knows how to make this subject, and the research behind it, undeniably captivating and essential for any well-rounded understanding of how great businesses succeed and how poor businesses fail.
Part Two: OperationsSome people think of operations as a specialized aspect of business, usually overshadowed by a focus on corporate strategy and marketing. But without effective operations, which work hand-in-hand with the other core business disciplines, you have no goods or services. In short, you can't deliver on your promise to your customers, your employees, and your shareholders.
Operations Demystified
Professor Goldsby's
Critical Business Skills: Operations is your accessible guide to everything you need to understand—and utilize—operations and operations management. In 12 thorough lectures, you'll explore a range of topics related to supply chains and logistics, including inventory management; performance measurement; new trends in, and research on, strategies to enhance agility and sustainability; internal and external resources companies use to mitigate risk and thrive; and much more. And with this course, you'll be able to break through the intimidation of a specialized subject and start using operations to improve the functionality of your organization—wherever you stand in the hierarchy, in any kind of business.
Tying his operational insights to case studies of major national and international companies and corporations, Professor Goldsby makes
Critical Business Skills: Operations an invaluable resource and reference for anyone interested in a thorough mastery of business administration.
An expert in Six Sigma techniques and logistics management, he delivers fascinating insights into why operations is the key (and often overlooked) component of success in business, and how it can help your company—whether you're looking to eliminate waste from processes, measure your operational performance more effectively, or ensure that your business strategy covers the supply and demand requirements of your organization.
Part Three: Finance and AccountingTo succeed as a businessperson in today's fast-paced, global marketplace, one of the essential business skills you need to master—whether you're a top-level manager, an investor, or an entrepreneur—is a firm grasp of how finance and accounting work.
Accounting is the language in which organizations communicate their performance. Finance translates this language into smart, savvy business decisions. And no matter how honed your corporate strategy, how intricate your operations, or how ethical your organizational behavior, if you don't know about the business side of money, you cannot dream of building or growing a business. Knowing the fundamentals of finance and accounting—key terms, concepts, methodologies, real-world examples, and applications—is knowledge that can make all the difference in making wise decisions, whether you're looking to raise capital for a bold new venture, value once-in-a-lifetime stocks, or build a better investment portfolio.
These 12 informative lectures make a seemingly intimidating topic accessible to learners from all backgrounds, and will help you hone the critical skills you need to finally master the fundamentals of business. With the guidance of award-winning Professor Eric Sussman, a senior lecturer in accounting at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a licensed CPA and business consultant, you'll soon discover the confidence to understand, interpret, and learn from the vital financial data in your professional and personal life.
Part Four: Organizational BehaviorYou have your product, you've developed your business plan for selling that product, and you've spent invaluable time and money securing the top talent to help you reach your goals. It's all smooth sailing from here, right?
Unfortunately, it turns out that some of the costliest mistakes within an organization stem from a critical misunderstanding of how organizations work, and how to operate effectively within them. If you don't have a workforce that’s operating smoothly to accomplish your organizational goals, there's no way you'll succeed in business.Why are some leaders more effective than others?
What makes a team or department so productive?
[*]Why are some initiatives received enthusiastically, and others met with apathy?Questions like these are at the heart of organizational behavior, a field that contains powerful strategies and best practices that everyone in the business world should learn. Professor Clinton O. Longenecker, an award-winning business instructor from The University of Toledo and an active business management coach, has created
Critical Business Skills: Organizational Behavior to answer these questions and more. Whether you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or an entry-level employee looking to climb the ranks, in these 12 engaging lectures, you'll expand your understanding of business by exploring the key psychosocial and behavioral issues that impact our ability, as employees and leaders, to get work done. Tapping into the science of human behavior, along with numerous case studies and research from Professor Longenecker's professional experience, you'll come away from these lectures with refined skills and an essential list of tools, tips, and techniques for putting yourself in a position to succeed.
Professor Longenecker delivers powerful lectures that explore in depth what he calls "power factors" that can help you achieve better results for your organization.
Effective leadership: Effective leaders can impact innovation and creativity, productivity and efficiency, workplace motivation and job satisfaction, and other important performance variables.
Emotional intelligence: By recognizing your own emotions and those of others, you can better cultivate productive relationships in the workplace.
Teamwork and cooperation: Failing to leverage cooperation in a business setting is essentially a failure to utilize a source of competitive advantage.
[*]
Power and influence: Where does authority come from? What are the common mistakes people in authority positions make?With Professor Longenecker, named by The Economist as one of the top 15 business professors in the world, you're getting critical business school insights from a master of the subject.
Part Five: MarketingHere's a surprising truth about business: The best product doesn't always win. It takes more than just a great idea or a clear-cut strategy to succeed in business; you have to know how to sell that idea to consumers, each with their own tastes and values.
True marketing, according to consumer psychologist and award-winning professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University, is a methodology; a series of skills that should be applied to every stage of business, from initial conception to product development to brand management. In his words, it's "what turns something with the potential for creating value into something that actually creates value for the customer—and the company for selling it." And it all revolves around being able to answer three fundamental questions:Who are my customers?
What do they value?
[*]How can I give them what they value better than competitors?Regardless of your professional role in an organization knowing the ins and outs of marketing is a surefire way to help your company create value, both for itself and for its customers.
In
Critical Business Skills: Marketing, part of our comprehensive series on the five essential skills in business, Professor Hamilton has crafted an informative, accessible lecture series that introduces you to the fundamentals, the concepts, the tools, and the applications of effective marketing. Filled with intriguing case studies, expert insights, and helpful strategies, these twelve lectures are crucial for anyone looking to market a product or idea, develop lasting relationships with customers, and strengthen their business savvy.
Acclaimed by Emory University M.B.A. students for his award-winning teaching skills, Professor Hamilton makes the field of marketing fascinating and relevant to all audiences. At the end of this course, he leaves you with a packed toolbox of practical marketing tools for everything from expanding your business to diagnosing weak sales to building more effective relationships with your customers.
1. Strategy: Strategy Is Making Choices
What do we mean when we talk about business strategy? Start thinking more smartly about strategy with this introductory lecture that covers four key facts about competition and the two drivers of profitability: industry structure and competitive advantage.
2. Strategy: How Apple Raises Competitive Barriers
Five essential forces shape any business strategy, and together, they create a framework that can help you better make key strategic choices. Central to this discussion of these five strategic forces: Apple's meteoric rise to the top of the market.
3. Strategy: The Danger of Straddling
Professor Roberto introduces you to the three paths that lead to competitive advantage and four basic competitive strategies. Then, using case studies including JC Penny, IBM, and Dell, he explains both the dangers of straddling between competitive positions.
4. Strategy: What Trader Joe’s Doesn’t Do
Passionate customers, tremendous profits, happy employees - the Trader Joe's grocery chain is a powerful business success story. Discover how their secret for success lies in their use of trade-offs to make it hard for imitators and to mitigate the negative effects of the industry.
5. Strategy: First Movers versus Fast Followers
Discover the strengths - and drawbacks - of being a first mover who establishes a market position and fast followers, who can learn from first movers' mistakes. Along the way, you'll consider relevant examples from industries including video game systems and social media networks.
6. Strategy: When Netflix Met Blockbuster
Netflix's ultimate domination of the video rental market is a classic example of disruptive innovation: a serious threat to traditional business - and often the hardest to respond to.
7. Strategy: Anticipating Your Rival’s Response
Get a stronger grip on competitive dynamics and the importance of understanding your competitor. Professor Roberto guides you through powerful lessons from three situations where new entrants did battle with incumbents: NutraSweet with Holland Sweetener Company; British Airways and Aer Lingus with Ryanair; and another perspective on Blockbuster versus Netflix.
8. Strategy: Why Did Disney Buy Pixar?
Turn now to corporate strategy, which involves determining where to compete, not how. Explore the corporate strategies of horizontal and vertical integration (and their two types) in the context of Disney's acquisition of Pixar animation studios. As a multi-business unit corporate, why build a particular portfolio of businesses?
9. Strategy: The Diversification Discount
What happens when the whole is worth less than the proposed sum of the parts? You've got a diversification discount, common for many unrelated diversifiers in the United States, and one that has led to many corporate breakups. If you're going to diversify, you need to do it the smart way. Learn how here.
10. Strategy: Forward and Backward Integration
Professor Roberto explains in more detail vertical integration and its two key directions: forward and backward. Does vertical integration make economic sense? Learn about vertical integration's rationales (and risks) by digging deep into interesting stories of vertical integration involving Disney's retail stores and Zara's "fast fashion" strategy.
11. Strategy: Mergers and Acquisitions—The Winner’s Curse
Mergers and acquisitions are part of daily life in the business world. Why do some bad deals get done, leaving the acquirer in a trouble spot? When can a hostile takeover be the right strategy to take, and how does one work? What happens if a bidding war occurs? What are some alternatives to merging?
12. Strategy: Launching a Lean Start-Up
Professor Roberto concludes this course with a fascinating lecture on the challenges of launching your own business. You'll learn what makes entrepreneurship different from leading a complex, large organization; how the simple "marshmallow challenge" reveals different approaches to startup strategies; and key questions any entrepreneur must answer before starting.
13. Operations: The Power of Superior Operations
What exactly is operations management, and how can you make it work to your advantage? Turn your attention to operational capabilities: the composite of processes, people, and technology that helps you execute your strategy. Observe a case study featuring both production operations and service operations.
14. Operations: Leaner, Meaner Production
Production operations are the greatest value-adding activity in all of business. Whether you're making the product yourself or through others, explore the decisions involved in successful production operations, and get a glimpse at developments to look for in the future, including 3-D printing and reshoring.
15. Operations: Refining Service Operations
Turn now to service operations, the successful management of which takes into account the psychology of winning customers through great experiences. From the Service Quality Scale to the details of process improvement, find out how to seize the movement where services are increasingly dominating the 21st-century business landscape.
16. Operations: Matching Supply and Demand
Sales and operations (S&OP) planning integrates a company's sales forecasts with the operations plans from the purchasing, production, and logistics departments. Learn how qualitative and quantitative forecasts are used to gather and share information; how the principles of S&OP can help you better match your supply and demand; and more.
17. Operations: Rightsizing Inventory
Master the fundamentals of right-sizing your inventory through inventory management. Specifically, focus on four basic strategies used to maintain just the right amount of inventory.
18. Operations: Managing Supply and Suppliers
Supply management is the one department that accounts for well over half of a company's total spend, and involves decisions that impact its long-term profitability. By examining fundamental questions about what to buy and how to select suppliers, you'll leverage effective supply management practices that can set you apart from the crowd.
19. Operations: The Long Reach of Logistics
Logistics are responsible for ensuring that the right products are available in the right quantities at the right time to meet customer expectations. Professor Goldsby introduces you to three key aspects of logistics, including its role in providing "reach" and the movement, storage, and technology used to meet customer requirements.
20. Operations: Rethinking Your Business Processes
Ways to improve business processes are indispensable to success. Gain simple tools and methods for improving the processes that matter to your organization. Learn how to create and use powerful, yet simple tools called process maps.
21. Operations: Measuring Operational Performance
Why is performance measurement so important to the health of an organization? How do the four dimensions of the "Balanced Scorecard" framework (financial performance, customer assessment, internal business process, and learning and growth) work independently and together? What is the "triple-bottom-line" approach, and how does it measure sustainable business performances?
22. Operations: Keeping an Eye on Your Margins
Obliterate the assumption that all business is good business. Instead, come up with more precise numbers that show how different customers affect your business by understanding the contribution margin.
23. Operations: Leveraging Your Supply Chain
Among the most pervasive developments in business organization over the past few decades is supply chain management. Learn how this discipline, a higher order of operations management, uses your network of suppliers and customers to achieve maximum effectiveness and help you better leverage your company's supply chain.
24. Operations: Reducing Risk, Building Resilience
Professor Goldsby introduces you to the hottest topic in modern business: risk management. How can you overcome perilous situations, or dampen their effects? What are common internal and external risks to an organization? And how will tools like the "Failure Mode and Effects Analysis" help you identify and prioritize them?
25. Finance and Accounting: Accounting and Finance—Decision-Making Tools
This introductory lecture unpacks some key concepts in accounting and finance; dispels some common myths about accounting; and gives you a helpful overview of three essential statements companies routinely prepare to communicate critical financial data to shareholders and owners.
26. Finance and Accounting: How to Interpret a Balance Sheet
Using a balance sheet from Intel as your case study, survey the significance of specific items that typically appear on balance sheets, including current assets and intangible assets. Also learn how to read balance sheets for clues about an organization's financial stability, risk, and liquidity.
27. Finance and Accounting: Why the Income Statement Matters
Income statements are the statements most widely cited in popular business news. First, learn how income is measured under general accounting principles. Then, explore how income statements are organized to reflect everything from revenue to operating expenses. Finally, examine four questions everyone reviewing an income statement should ask.
28. Finance and Accounting: How to Analyze a Cash Flow Statement
What makes statements of cash flows the most important financial statements you'll encounter? Professor Sussman explains the differences between revenues, profits, and cash flows; discusses the three separate sections of a statement of cash flows; and uses two intriguing anecdotes to highlight why analyzing these statements is so important.
29. Finance and Accounting: Common Size, Trend, and Ratio Analysis
Common size analysis. Trend analysis. Ratio analysis. Three financial tools every seasoned businessperson should be able to use. First, learn how each of these tools is used. Then, get a closer look at five key categories of ratios to keep in mind, including liquidity ratios and market ratios.
30. Finance and Accounting: Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis
How does breakeven analysis, or cost-volume-profit analysis, work - and how do businesspeople make it work for them? As you'll discover in looking at both the basic breakeven model and some more advanced variations, cost-volume-profit analysis has far-reaching applications in everything from marketing hotel rooms to pricing concert tickets.
31. Finance and Accounting: Understanding the Time Value of Money
Begin your focus on finance with an insightful look at the time value of money. Along with basic concepts and terminology (including risk and present/future value), you'll learn about the five types of cash flows that should be in the business student's toolkit, including lump sums, annuities, and perpetuities.
32. Finance and Accounting: The Trade-Off between Risk and Return
In this lecture on the trade-off between risk and return, Professor Sussman introduces you to several important financial models businesses use every day. These include the Nobel Prize-winning Capital Asset Pricing Model, which is a means for formally unifying an asset's expected return and risk by studying asset fluctuations.
33. Finance and Accounting: How Investors Use Net Present Value
What exactly do we mean by "value"? First, learn the true meaning of value and its overarching importance in finance. Then, investigate three different approaches for evaluating investment opportunities: the payback method; the book rate of return method; and the powerful investment decision-making tool known as Net Present Value.
34. Finance and Accounting: Alternatives to Net Present Value
What are some alternatives to evaluating investment opportunities beyond Net Present Value? Find out with this lecture on commonly used measures, including the Internal Rate of Return (the discount rate at which the Net Present Value equals zero); and the Equity Multiple (commonly used in venture capital investments).
35. Finance and Accounting: Weighing the Costs of Debt and Equity
Explore the world of trade-offs and learn why issuing debt instead of equity can actually increase the value of a firm; why you should always consider the Weighted Average Cost of Capital of your investments; and how convertible bonds attempt to capture the best of both debt and equity.
36. Finance and Accounting: How to Value a Company’s Stock
All investors should know how to make value-creating decisions. Round out your introduction to accounting and finance with a recap of the fundamental tools of the trade. By applying these tools to specific examples involving major companies, you'll cement your ability to make smart and savvy investment decisions.
37. Organizational Behavior: Achieving Results in Your Organization
Start taking control of your professional organizational behavior with this introductory lecture on how to achieve lasting results. You'll explore how to use the S.T.O.P. ("sit, think, organize, perform") method to improve job satisfaction, reduce stress, and enhance your professional performance.
38. Organizational Behavior: The Value of Great Leadership
Professor Longenecker explains the most important things he's learned about leadership. Among these: the definition of effective leadership; the critical role of competency and character; and six leadership schools of thought.
39. Organizational Behavior: Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
What does it take to cultivate great working relationships? The answer: emotional intelligence. Learn how developing emotional intelligence can have a powerful impact on your ability to work well with others. Along the way, you'll learn about different types of workplace relationships, including strained working relationships and non-working relationships.
40. Organizational Behavior: The Art of Effective Communications
Cultivate stronger communication skills with this engaging lecture that covers three burning communication needs in an organization and introduces you to six critically important lessons every effective communicator should follow.
41. Organizational Behavior: The Motivation-Performance Connection
Motivation and performance improvement are two of the most researched subjects in the field of organizational behavior. Using an in-depth study of 60 high-performance organizations across a range of industries, discover what goes into a highly motivated organization and how the "performance equation" provides fascinating insights into improving workplace performance.
42. Organizational Behavior: Winning with Teamwork
You've known about teamwork since elementary school. Now, learn how to foster it in an organizational setting. First, find out what happens when organizations don't cooperate. Then, learn how people with conflicting interests can work together.
43. Organizational Behavior: Coaching—From Gridiron to Boardroom
To keep people in an organization more focused, engaged, and productive, you need to recognize the importance not just of coaching, but of tailor-made coaching. Discover how it works with a step-by-step analysis of a successful coaching scenario and a look at four sets of employees in need of different types of coaching.
44. Organizational Behavior: Understanding Power Relationships
Why is power such a potent aspect of business? What do we mean by "power" in an organizational setting, and what are some of its work-related sources? How can you cultivate personal power within your organization? What strategies can you use to upwardly manage a relationship with your boss?
45. Organizational Behavior: Handling Workplace Conflict
Much of one's success in an organization depends on how well one manages conflict with others. Professor Longenecker guides you through two primary types of conflict and three levels where they occur. Then, he offers ways to avoid or better handle conflict using a powerful management model involving cooperation and assertiveness.
46. Organizational Behavior: Ethics and the Bathsheba Syndrome
Learn why ethical standards and policies are so important within an organization; the specific steps involved in ethical decision making; and the Bathsheba Syndrome, which helps explain why successful people do wrongful things at work.
47. Organizational Behavior: Leading Real Organizational Change
The one unavoidable part of an organization: change. After investigating the three essential ingredients of organizational change, focus on the kind of practical steps you can take to achieve change in your organization. Among them: how to make it about problem solving and how to cultivate a sense of urgency and speed.
48. Organizational Behavior: Lifelong Learning for Career Success
Because the average worker changes jobs between seven and 10 times, workplace relevance and career success depends on lifelong learning and professional development. Finish out this course with a pointed, inspirational discussion on the barriers toward lifelong learning in an organization - and how to finally overcome them for good.
49. Marketing: What Is Marketing?
One of the core tenets of successful marketing is understanding your customer. But often times, you aren't the customer you're marketing to. What can you do instead? Find out in this introductory lecture on "Marketing 101", which also explores four types of value consumers seek: functional, monetary, social, and psychological.
50. Marketing: How to Segment a Market
The first question in developing a strong marketing strategy is figuring out who your customer is. That's where the tools of market segmentation come in. In this lecture, learn the basic principles that underlie solid segmentation analysis - whether you're working with the best market data available or (as can be the case) imperfect data.
51. Marketing: Targeting a Market Segment
Make better sense of targeting, the process of selecting the segment (or segments) your product will best serve. Throughout the lecture, you'll learn key rules of targeting. One rule is: Don't try to please customers outside your target. Another: Always pick a target segment that values what you offer.
52. Marketing: Positioning Your Offering
Many products fail because marketers fail to communicate their true value. Here, Professor Hamilton takes you step-by-step through the positioning process, designed to create and communicate value. Case studies you'll learn from include Volvo in the 1980s, the emergence of DVRs, and a Washington, D.C. bike-sharing program.
53. Marketing: Identifying Sources of Sales Growth
You've mastered segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Now learn how to grow and increase your sales using the 2x2 Ansoff matrix - one of the most powerful ideas in marketing. In the process, you'll learn piercing insights into the interactions between customers (current and new), product development, diversification, and more.
54. Marketing: Deriving Value from Your Customers
Look at some other sources of value that companies can get out of their transactions and start thinking more broadly about the sources of value a company should seek. The specific focus of this illuminating lecture is on three additional kinds of customer-related value: loyalty value, information value, and communication value.
55. Marketing: Creating Great Customer Experiences
Begin exploring the tactics involving in reaching marketing goals with a look at how to design products and services to provide the best possible customer experience. Along the way, you'll learn six rules for effectively managing customer experiences (including getting bad experiences out of the way and empowering employees).
56. Marketing: The Tactics of Successful Branding
What defines a brand? What rules should you follow when building your brand? How do brands create value for customers? With the insights and answers in this lecture, you'll learn how to create a brand that will connect you with consumers - and defend you from the competition.
57. Marketing: Customer-Focused Pricing
One of the most important decisions anyone in marketing will make is how to price your product and service. Here, Professor Hamilton reveals the information marketers use to settle on prices; how customers evaluate prices; and how price discrimination, price skimming, and price wars work.
58. Marketing: Marketing Communications That Work
Add to your "marketing toolkit" some of the principles and strategies of an effective communications plan, with a look at some successful (and unsuccessful) ad campaigns, including the California Milk Processor Board's famous "Got Milk" campaign. Also, get tips on how to command consumers' attentions without turning them off.
59. Marketing: The Promise and Perils of Social Media
Dig into the unique opportunities - and challenges - of social media and word-of-mouth communications. From Facebook pages to viral videos, you'll learn how to navigate today's marketing innovations and tap into their power, reach, and low cost. You'll also learn how to dodge common errors other companies make.
60. Marketing: Innovative Marketing Research Techniques
Research is undoubtedly essential for making responsible, effective marketing decisions. Professor Hamilton concludes his course with a lecture on the importance of marketing research methods whose data is often expressed in helpful qualitative terms: customer observations, focus groups, ethnographies, and projective techniques.
