The Portable MBA in Marketing

All managers, and indeed all employees, need to increase their knowledge and expertise. The business environment changes so fast that education has become the key to advancement in business. Which raises some tough questions:

• To get an MBA or not to get an MBA?
• Where to find applied training?
• How to update an MBA or other training?
• Which are the critical areas for further study?

The Portable MBA in Marketing may be your most cost- and time-effective answer.

Why? Because The Portable MBA in Marketing:

• Illuminates the key issues facing companies today — the rediscovery of the customer, the quest for total quality, the rigors of global competition, the challenges of innovation. These trends are revolutionizing business, and at their roots they are marketing issues. When this business revolution is complete, marketing will be one of the core tasks for everyone in an organization, not just the province of the marketing department.
• Provides complete coverage of the upper-level marketing curriculum as taught at leading business schools, and goes beyond this material to update and apply it to today's — and tomorrow's — managers. Topics covered include product planning and development, pricing, marketing research, buyer behavior, distribution, global marketing … and much more.
• Is lively, witty and well written. Alexander Hiam and Charles Schewe provide a remarkable range of marketing stories to illustrate the ideas in the book. You'll learn how to keep ahead of competitors, satisfy customers, and meet the challenges of global competition from the "best practices" of leading companies.

• Part One: The Marketing Concept
1. The Essence of Marketing: The Customer First, Last, and Always
2. Planning: Using tested Concepts and New Ideas for Marketing Strategy
3. The Marketing Environment: Understanding Forces You Can't Always Control
4. The International challenge: Going Global with the Flying Pigeon Bicycle Group
• Part Two: Marketing Knowledge
5. Marketing Research and Information: Figuring Out What the Customer Wants
6. Profiling Markets and Forecasting Sales: The Art and Science Behind the Numbers
7. Understanding Buyer Behavior: Customer on the Couch
• Part Three: The Tools Of Marketing
8. Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning: From Mass Marketing to One-on-One with the Customer
9. Product Development: The Business of Innovation
10. Product Management: Birth, Death, and Resurrection
11. The Nature of Pricing: Making Money and Capturing the Customer
12. Place and Time — The Distribution Function: Innovative Guidelines for Profitability
13. Promotion: The Many Faces of Marketing.
• Afterword: Corporate Headquarters, Omni, 1998

A good introduction to the subject.