The course in Strategy Technology and Marketing is meant to i) introduce students to the fundamental concepts and principles of strategy and equip students with the tools they need to formulate and implement business and corporate strategies in the technological domain, ii) provide students with a comprehensive understanding of innovation and innovation dynamics and give them the basic concepts of management of innovation at the core of strategic decision making in technological fields iii) give students a comprehensive understanding of the key role of marketing in a technological innovation strategy.

Strategic Management, Management of Innovation, and Marketing are deeply intertwined disciplinary areas in management. In this course their perspectivesare integrated in order to show how firms are able to create superior economic value through appropriate strategic decisions related to market positioning, investments in technology resources.
In so doing, the course aims at equipping students in management with the concepts, frameworks and techniques needed by managers to conduct strategic and marketing analysis and to take appropriate decisions accordingly . As such, the course illustrates the fundamentals of strategic and marketing analysis, giving a high emphasis on the role that technological change and innovation have in shaping competitive dynamics and in offering new ways to develop valuable products for customers.
At the accomplishment of the course, students should be able to apply the traditional tools of strategic and marketing analysis in order to assess how in a given industry firms should take strategic decisions taking into account the threats and opportunities related to global competition and demand, technological change, and other competitive forces existing in their relevant market.
1.2 Importance of Strategy and Marketing in the professional background of the Managerial Engineer
In the curriculum of a student in Management and Engineering Strategic and Marketing management have a central importance irrespective of the choices and the chances that students will have in the job market. For example, a graduate in Engineering and Management may work as a strategic analyst in the Strategic Planning department or a in a consulting company and can be thus involved in making analysis whose outcomes are inputs to the strategic actions/decisions made by the top management team. For graduates working in other functional departments (e.g. Manufacturing, Logistics , Sales, Management of Information Systems) studying Strategic management and Marketing will be important to understand how the firm’s business strategy and the trends in its competitive environment (technology evolution, global competition and demand, etc.) influence strategy and operations within each function and require an alignment between the business strategy and functional strategies/operations. In all cases, progress in career always means being required more managerial skills and not only competencies that are specific of the task and the functional department (a «T-shaped» competence profile).

The learning method will be based on combining two types of lectures centered on two different and complementary approaches. Traditional frontal lectures will illustrate relevant theories and concepts from prominent scholars in strategic management and marketing and their application in tools for strategic analysis.
Laboratories will be based on a collective case study discussion in which students will be required to apply the tools and the concepts learned during the lectures on theory. Case study discussion will require that students will read material that will be provided by the instructors in advance.
When students are presented with a case, they place themselves in the role of the decision maker: read through the situation and identify the problem they are faced with.
To get the most out of cases, students read and reflect on the case individually, and then meet in learning teams before class to "warm up" and discuss their findings with other classmates.In class—under the questioning and guidance of the professor—students probe underlying issues, compare different alternatives, and suggest courses of action in light of the organization's objectives.

The textbook for the course is:
• M. Schilling, Strategic Management of Technological Innovation, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill
Suggested books are:
• P. Kotler and G. Armstrong, Principles of marketing, 14th Edition, Prentice Hall.
• R.M. Grant, Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 7th edition, Wiley.

A. Books
a. Grant, R. Contemporary Strategic analysis: Text and Cases, John Wiley. (or the Text version without cases, but students are required to prepare 8 case studies from this book)
b. Kotler, Marketing Management, Pearson/Prentice Hall
c. Schilling, M. Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. (optional. adopted as the reference book in the course of “Management of Innovation and Product Development”)
B. Collection of articles from Harvard Business Review
C. Collection of case studies from Harvard Business School
D. Slides

The final exam consists of a written and an oral examination. The oral examination is optional. In case a student decides not to take the oral examination, the upper bound for the final grade is twenty-four. The written exam consists of open questions about theory and case studies. The oral examination is based on a case study discussion, plus additional questions related to theory. Students have also the possibility to gain a bonus of one or two points by means of the so called best example competition. Students are challenged to find good (better) examples and short stories related to the topics dealt with during the lectures. Students wishing to join the competition are required to send their suggestion to the address techstrategypolito@gmail.com. The example or story must be explained in a maximum of 500 characters and should include at list one link to relevant websites.

4. Grading Policy

a. A written Exam,
b. An Optional Oral Exam.
For students that will not take the oral exam a grade cap of 24 will be applied.
5. Structure of the exam
Books and personal notes will not be allowed during the exam. The case studies that will be object of questions at the exam will be selected among a list that includes:
- the cases discussed in class during lectures
- case studies from a collection that the professors will require students to study on their own (no class discussion) as a preparatory step for the exam.
- brand new cases