Marketing Simulation: Managing Segments and Customers

Das  Narayandas

Simulation | 2010

Marketing Simulation: Managing Segments and Customers

Abstract

In this single-player simulation, students assume the position of CEO of a medical motor manufacturer and are tasked with executing a successful business-to-business marketing strategy over a period of twelve fiscal quarters. Students determine all aspects of the company's go-to-market approach (including sales-force deployment and distribution channel strategy) and associated elements of product policy, including pricing and market positioning of the company's product line to both small and large volume customers. Students also prioritize the manufacturer's efforts in acquiring and retaining customers in order to achieve a combination of sustainable revenues and profits and maximize cumulative profits at the end of the simulation. The simulation also illustrates the benefits of investment in market research. Ideal for core marketing 101 courses (as a Capstone session) or in the introductory module of an advanced marketing strategy course. This simulation can be used in advanced undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs.

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Price; Product Positioning; Customer Relationship Management; Profit; Revenue; Cost vs Benefits; Policy; Manufacturing Industry;

Language: English

Format: Electronic

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Citation:

Narayandas, Das. "Marketing Simulation: Managing Segments and Customers." Simulation and Teaching Note. Harvard Business Publishing, 2010. Electronic.

By January 2017, Paytm, a mobile payments company that started in 2010, became India’s largest mobile payments platform with over 142 million users and $5 billion valuation. Could Paytm become a $100 billion company its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma envisioned it be?

Article | Harvard Business Review | March–April 2019

The Future of Leadership Development

Das Narayandas and Mihnea Moldoveanu

The need for leadership development has never been more urgent. Companies of all sorts realize that to survive in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, they need different leadership skills and organizational capabilities from those that helped them succeed in the past at all levels of the firm. But the leadership development industry is in a state of upheaval. The number of players offering courses to impart the hard and soft skills required of corporate managers has expanded well beyond the traditional business schools, corporate universities, and dedicated consultancies. And yet organizations that spend billions of dollars annually to train current and future executives are growing frustrated with the results. There are three main reasons for the disjointed state of leadership development. The first is a gap in motivations. In executive development, the “customer” is not the “client.” The organization pays for the individual to enhance his or her skills—and résumé—and thereby benefit from participating. The second is the gap between the skills that executive development programs build and the skills that organizations require—particularly the interpersonal skills essential to thriving in today’s flat, networked, increasingly collaborative organizations. The third reason is the skills transfer gap. Simply put, most executives do not seem to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to their jobs. For organizations to develop essential leadership and managerial talent, they will need to bridge these three gaps. The good news is that the growing assortment of online courses, social and interactive platforms, and learning tools from both traditional institutions and upstarts—which we call the personal learning cloud (PLC)—offers a solution. Organizations can select components from the PLC and tailor them to the needs and behaviors of individuals and teams. The PLC is flexible and immediately accessible, and it enables employees to pick up skills in the context in which they must be used. In effect, it’s a 21st-century form of on-the-job learning.

Keywords: talent management; executive education; Leadership Development; Business Education; Management Skills; Learning; Online Technology;

Citation:

Narayandas, Das, and Mihnea Moldoveanu. "The Future of Leadership Development." Harvard Business Review 97, no. 4 (March–April 2019): 40–48. (Spotlight Talent Management.) View Details

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Twenty-four-year old Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of India-based online hotel branding network OYO Rooms, has tackled the issue of unreliability in India's highly fragmented budget hotel industry. In 2018, OYO branded 8,500 properties across 200 cities and managed to capture almost 1.5% of India's budget hotel market. Ritesh believes that in the process, OYO has honed technological skills and infrastructural capabilities that can transform the company from being a technology player to a hotel developer. OYO now aspires to convert corporate spaces and homes into accommodation spaces and to make its mark worldwide.

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