Course director: Mr Chris Kimberley
The course
This is a fee paying part-time evening course of between two and a half and four years duration (depending on entry qualifications). It involves attending the Caulfield campus two evenings a week for two semesters each year.
The course is designed for middle managers intending to become marketing directors and for marketing directors who recognise the need in their present job to substantially improve their professional expertise and effectiveness.
The course aims to do three things for these people:
* provide them with a comprehensive, intellectually demanding and up-to-date understanding of business concepts;
* improve their current performance at work;
* enable them to direct a complete marketing operation at the corporate level.
Objectives
On completion of the course students should:
* be able to analyse and select marketing strategies and plan courses of marketing action for an organisation;
* have an understanding of how to translate business problems into fundamental and situational components, and then key into relevant business and marketing concepts, models and theories;
* be in a position to build appropriate and sound theories for marketing management areas currently dominated by empirical approaches;
* be able to apply concepts, models and theories from a wide range of sources to practical marketing management problems.
Teaching methods and assessment
The course is taught using lectures, seminars and cases with the lecturer acting as a discussion facilitator and candidates providing a significant part of the input.
Candidates are expected to prepare thoroughly for each class. This means perhaps up to twelve hours reading each week in addition to the time spent in class.
Since the course is a highly practical one in which candidates are expected to apply theory to practice, particularly in their own organisations, part of the discussion will involve an evaluation of the applicability of theory to practice and where necessary the creation of theory from practice.
The ability to communicate concisely and precisely on paper and verbally is important. Each subject is continuously assessed in terms of the preparation and presentation of views, analyses and papers during class. In some subjects, this assessment is supplemented by end-of-semester examinations.
Course structure
Year one
First semester
* MKT6160 Marketing theory and practice
* MKT6110 Buyer behaviour
Second semester
* MKT6120 Marketing research and forecasting
* ACC6800 Marketing financial control
Year two
First semester
* MKT6261 Marketing communication strategies
* MKT6361 Marketing decision systems
Second semester
* FIN6150 Competition and consumer law
* MKT6251 Case studies in strategy
Years three and four
Compulsory subjects
* MGM 7430 Business research methods
* MKT5301 Minor thesis (two subjects)
* MKT5200 Assessing marketing performance
* MKT5290 Competitive analysis: strategy and issues
* MKT5270 Strategic marketing policy
Electives
Candidates may choose two elective subjects from
* FIN5210 Economic policy
* MKT5220 Advanced marketing research
* ACC5230 Financial analysis
* MGM5250 Management behaviour
* MKT5260 International marketing
* MKT6660 Relationship marketing and service quality management
or, with the approval of the course director, any other graduate-level subject offered by Syme Business.