Strategic Management, Organization 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 organization design, 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, organizational and marketing analysis and to take appropriate decisions accordingly. As such, the course illustrates the fundamentals of strategic, organizational 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.
In the curriculum of a student in Management and Engineering these concepts 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, or in designing the organization needed to implement a strategy. For graduates working in other functional departments (e.g. Manufacturing, Logistics, Sales, Management of Information Systems) these concepts 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 among business strategy, organization 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).

At the accomplishment of the course, students should be able to apply the traditional tools of strategic, organizational and marketing analysis in order to assess how in a given industry firms should take 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.
The course aims at equipping students with the concepts, frameworks and techniques needed by managers to conduct analysis and to take appropriate decisions accordingly. As such, the course illustrates the fundamentals of strategy and organization, putting 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, organizational 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.

To take part to the course students must have attended courses in the following disciplines: Financial and Managerial Accounting, Economics, Operations Management and Applied Statistics.

Part 1. STRATEGY and ORGANIZATION
1.1. The tool of Strategic Analysis
- Strategy, Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage
- The external environment and Industry analysis: the fundamentals
- Evaluating a Firm’s Internal Resources and Capabilities

1.2 Business Strategies
- Business Strategies: Cost Leadership and Product Differentiation
- Strategies in technology-based industries and the management of innovation

1.3 Corporate Strategies
- Vertical Integration.
- Strategic Alliances and Cooperation
- Global Strategies and the multinational corporation

Part 2. Marketing
- Introduction to marketing
- The Marketing mix: Products and Services
- Marketing mix: price, price drivers and processes to set prices
- Marketing mix: Place, channels and economics of distribution
- Marketing mix: Promotion

Part 3.Organization
- Fundamentals of organizational design
- The role of technology
- Coordination mechanisms
- Power and culture in the organization

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.

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
B. Collection of articles provided by professors
C. Collection of case studies provided by professors
D. Slides

The exam is organized in a written and an Oral 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