STAND APART

Increasing and sustaining profitability requires that you deliver unique value to consumers while guarding against competitive threats. Developing a successful strategy requires recognizing and planning for the specific challenges in your market so as to avoid costly mistakes, seize new opportunities, and raise long-run profits.

In this course, you will explore a variety of real-world examples and powerful frameworks to supercharge your strategy and profitability. You will analyze how your organization currently creates value and strategize how best to create new value for your targeted customers, beyond what rivals offer. You will then develop your organizational plan, identifying which resources and partners are essential for success, while also identifying which key resources you should own to help sustain long-run profitability. You will perform an in-depth competitive analysis of threats to the profitability of a firm, allowing you both to identify threats in your current market and assess the prospects for profitability in other markets which you might enter. You will develop tactics to mitigate each of these threats to profitability, while also recognizing the power and potential of working towards win-win situations with complementors.

Change can be a highly profitable opportunity for growth, or it can sink a once-successful business. How should you and your organization prepare to adapt and even thrive in the face of change and disruption?

In this course, you will acquire the tools you need to evaluate change, disruption, and uncertainty in your industry. You will implement key frameworks designed to help you strategize in changing and uncertain environments. The skills you hone in this course will prepare you to succeed in dynamic market environments and think clearly about the future.

Of course, strategies for change risk failing if the organization as a whole is not willing or prepared to implement them. To pave the way for truly successful implementation of the strategies you devise, you will identify and mitigate critical internal challenges and resistance to change, thereby enabling your organization to eliminate roadblocks to growth.

Marketing professionals rely on clearly defined goals to determine the course of action when placing a product in the market. Leveraging research to learn more about your target audience is the focus of this course. In it, you will learn how to be an intelligent consumer of information when it comes to market research and analysis so you can become a more effective decision-maker. You will first look at market research, including the purpose and goals of research; how to balance the ideal with reality in doing research; and how to apply the six stages of research to a marketing situation.

You will then examine different ways to analyze the data acquired through market research. Using formulas to determine how cannibalization affects the profitability of new products and the value of a long-term customer, you will perform a basic sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of your results.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Essentials of Marketing Strategy

The right pricing strategy can make or break a business — yet pricing impacts can be difficult to fully measure and understand.

In this course, you will analyze pricing data, evaluate key factors relevant to pricing effectiveness, and use your insights to optimize product prices. You will have the opportunity to apply a variety of popular pricing formulas and determine the business impact of the resulting price changes. Ultimately, the skills developed in this course will allow you to make pricing decisions that will maximize profits for each product or service in your organization.

It is recommended that students be comfortable using Microsoft Excel before beginning this course.

Symposium sessions feature two days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today's most pressing topics. The Marketing Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium, in which we'll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of marketing work. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the marketing field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across the industry.

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.