Overview of Course

Marketing is at the heart of business success or failure. If the business does not do marketing well, it will almost certainly fail in a globally competitive business environment. Thus, managers working in any business discipline must gain an appreciation of marketing strategy and tactics, with a view to creating value. This course is designed to introduce the concept of marketing as an integrative discipline and discusses the role of strategic marketing planning in developing a business strategy and solving business problems. For non-marketing majors, the course will help you understand what marketing encompasses and how it relates to other business functions, to customers, and to society as a whole. Through lectures, exercises and case studies students will learn how to solve actual business problems and situations by scanning the pertinent environmental factors, describing the target market, formulating a marketing strategy, and outlining the marketing mix. The Semester at Sea voyage presents a learning environment in which students have the unique opportunity to closely observe, reflect and examine cross-cultural differences of marketing practices and recognize opportunities and challenges for marketing in a global context. Applying marketing concepts and frameworks, students are required to work in teams to develop a comprehensive marketing plan that could actually help real businesses in the countries visited by Semester at Sea. The students will be required to present this plan in one of the countries that we will visit on Semester at Sea.