Masterclass Marketing & Supply Management

Designers and managers think in different ways; whereas the focus of the second often lies upon understanding the current situation, the first focuses on creating new scenarios and futures. Designers’ concern is not on how things are, but how they could be.  Design thinking is an approach that helps managers learn to think like designers.

In the first part of this course we will use Design Thinking approaches to Marketing, exploring how to integrate market driven insights and design techniques to create new products and services that addresses  the customers’  needs and wishes, and the  company’s internal capabilities and their desire for profits  - in other words, balancing desirability, feasibility and viability.

At the heart of the second part of this course is the process of making or buying the components a firm needs for its products (considering internal resources and market opportunities), the planning and execution of activities to meet these goals, and measuring progress toward their achievement. Considering that a modern (Dutch) company spends, on average, seven times more on supplies than on production costs the course will be scoped accordingly.

There are two seminars of two days each followed by an assessment return day:

  • Marketing and Design Thinking
  • Production and Supply Management

Number of participants is limited to 20!

Marketing and Design Thinking

The first seminar will introduce key marketing concepts through a design thinking perspective; that is, we will use marketing tools and methods to explore the current strategic situation, and a design thinking approach to shape new solutions for the customers and possibilities for the organization. The course will be divided into five main sections of half a day each, starting with foundational concepts in marketing and design, with a practical session on research. The goal is to show how the two disciplines can support each other when it comes to understanding the customers and the competitive environment. The synergies between the disciplines are essential to enable a holistic view of the market from eyes of different stakeholders, framing the possibilities for the development or new, or improvement of existing products (goods and/or services).

Next, our focus will shift from understanding the market to creating and delivering new value propositions. By the end of the first day, you will learn how to use Design Thinking to translate the insights developed earlier into new offering concepts. On the second, this concept will be translated into a more tangible prototype with the use of Service Design tools and methods, and finally, we turn our attention to the creation of a marketing plan that will help bring the devised offering to the market.Throughout the course, you will learn a mix of theoretical concepts and practical skill that will help you understand and respond to a customer experience-oriented view of marketing. The goal is to create solutions that answers to customers’ explicit and implicit demands. In that sense, the course is not a traditional communications course but a design thinking-take on strategic marketing. To support the learning process, we will share essential publications and recommend material freely available online.

Faculty

dr Mauricy A. da Motta Filho
Prof dr Jörg Henseler

Production and Supply Management

Following Henry Ford’s famous quote „if everyone is moving together, then success takes care of itself“ it is clear that business success can only come from state of the art marketing followed by excellent supply management.

The second seminar is therefore aimed at teaching students the fundamentals of production and supply management. At the heart of this course is the process of making or buying the components a firm needs for its products (considering internal resources and market opportunities), the planning and execution of activities to meet these goals, and measuring progress toward their achievement. Considering that a modern (Dutch) company spends, on average, seven times more on supplies than on production costs the course will be scoped accordingly.
The following topics are covered:

  • Make or Buy Decisions,
  • Production Principles,
  • Purchasing Year Cycle (Category Sourcing Cycle, Purchasing Department Cycle, Embedding in Firm Strategy and Supply Market)

Upon completion of this course, participants are expected to:

  • Know core concepts of purchasing management and basic concepts of production management,
  • Assess the make or buy situation whilst considering the corporate strategy and the supply market,
  • Design a sourcing strategy based internal and external analysis,
  • Apply key concepts of purchasing management to increase the odds of the corporate success and achieve cost savings
  • Understand megatrends and the future of purchasing

Faculty

Prof dr Holger Schiele
dr ir Petra Hoffmann

Assessment Return Day

Participants are expected to organize a Research World Café, in which they will address a self-chosen research question. This research question should explicitly integrate the different topics of this module. Participants are expected to design the World Café set-up, thereby choosing substantiated discussion topics that will help in answering the research question.

Practical Information

Language:

English

Location:

University of Twente

Start Date

February 2022

Certificate:

Participants will receive a certificate of attendance after successfully completing the course.

More information?

If you are interested in following this masterclass and would like to register or obtain additional information, please contact Prof.dr.ir. Petra de Weerd-Nederhof