Although this marketing management training course will benefit marketing personnel it is not just for those dedicated people. Everyone benefits from enhanced business and market awareness. What people are striving so hard to do, i.e. produce and deliver in terms of price, time, quality, specification, etc., will be better served with a contextual business understanding.

This marketing management training course starts by constructing a business scenario from the following questions:

• What business are we in?
• What business do we think we are in?
• What business should we be in?

These questions, when answered, will lead to a STEEP analysis (Social pressures, Technological impacts, Environment pressures, Economic pressures, Political impacts) which attempts to assess the likely pressures on a business, leading to conclusions which will support a plan for action. When STEEP have been assessed, the balance between long and short term planning will be discussed.

A marketing overview will be given which will comprise of an understanding of the difference between classical marketing (a well founded market, demonstrable Demand and Supply) compared with the marketing of new technology goods where demand does not currently exist and where markets must be created.

With this foundation in place the course will review the four P's: Product, Place, Promotion, Pricing and "S" for Service, before producing detailed studies covering the product life cycle, Boston Matrix, AIDA, FAB, needs and expectations, and price V value perception, etc. For the more adventurous brainstorming, paradigms, new product/market studies could also be done.

However, marketing planning and dynamics theory must eventually be put into practice and this calls for planning, control and dynamics measurement. Therefore participants will turn their attention to competitor analysis, how they can manage implementation planning. To assist this process participants will be introduced to the SMART formula (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Responsible, and Time based).

However, markets are often vigorous and sometimes turbulent and it cannot be assumed that they will behave as predicted. Therefore the variables which may interfere with marketing plan assumptions will be discussed and the counter measures that can be taken, reviewed.

The course will consider Market Research V's Research & Development, the dynamics of market share, growth and the effects on profits of market share pursuit, the effects of aggressive competitor action and the implications of financial policy, sales and marketing budgets and integration within a corporate business plan.

NB: As some studies require detailed analysis of the organisation, its products and markets, it may be best to complete them as assignments with presentations to sponsors in a final module.

NB: For the adventurous, syndicate teams could produce a marketing video.