Marketing
Marketers concern themselves with acquiring and retaining customers, who are the lifeblood of an organization. They attract customers by learning about potential needs, helping to develop products that customers want, creating awareness, and communicating benefits; they retain them by ensuring that they get good value, appropriate service, and a stream of future products. The marketing function not only communicates to the customer, but also communicates the needs of the customer to the company. In addition, it arranges and monitors the distribution of products and/or services from company to customer.
The Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School aims to be knowledgeable about best practices in all of these areas, and to understand when, how, and why various approaches should be used. We aim to be at the forefront of academia in creating and disseminating practical ideas about marketing that help build sustainable, profitable enterprises or that help non-profit organizations to achieve their goals. We achieve this by hiring and promoting highly capable and motivated faculty who care about academic excellence, and about teaching, and who are fascinated by the challenges that marketing managers face.