GRA 6436 Managing Business-to-Business Relationships
GRA 6436 Managing Business-to-Business Relationships
Business-to-business (B2B) relationships accounts for more than half of the economic activity in developed economies. Relationship management and marketing in business-to-business (B2B) settings are in many ways different from business-to-consumer settings. An understanding of B2B marketing is essential for those who want to understand the unique needs of business customers and succeed in marketing and management roles within B2B businesses.
This course provides insights about marketing of industrial goods and services for business customers. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to B2B marketing by identifying the distinctive characteristics of the business market, exploring the way in which organizations manage their relations with their business partners, and isolating the requirements for marketing strategy success. In addition to fundamental aspects of B2B marketing, more recent developments such as the digital transformation of B2B markets will be covered.
Upon completion of this course, students will:
- have a basic understanding of the nature and role of B2B relationships;
- understand how firms can mitigate governance problems through various governance mechanisms, such as incentive contracts, relational contracts, detailed formal contracting, and network governance;
- understand what constitute customer value in B2B relationships, and marketing strategies that can be adopted to deliver value, including segmentation, product form decision, branding and pricing; and
- gain knowledge about the digital transformation in B2B markets.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to
- analyze competitive realities and opportunities related to B2B markets;
- analyze B2B relationships to identify sources of governance problems that might prevent the parties from motivating each other to create value and share value efficiently, and suggests ways for the parties to mitigate those problems through better governance choices;
- formulate different value-based strategies available to firms and design effective marketing strategies for new and existing B2B products and services; and
- explore and respond to some of the opportunities and challenges arising from the digitization in B2B markets.
Upon completion of the course, the students will have reflected on
- the nature of B2B interactions and how they fit into a broader network of firms, customers, and collaborators;
- different kinds of governance problems that can arise in B2B relationships, and how they as B2B marketers can approach these problems in a manner that mitigate conflicts and opportunistic behavior;
- the special nature of B2B marketing strategies and how they differ from B2C marketing strategies; and
- recent advances in digital transformation of B2B markets.
- The characteristics and importance of B2B markets and B2B relationships;
- Establishment and management of inter-firm relationships and networks;
- B2B marketing mix and strategy; and
- Recent advances in B2B markets.
A detailed schedule with dates will be distributed during the first meeting.
A set of required readings will be assigned for each meeting. The readings will be a mix of scientific articles and case descriptions. Students are expected to thoroughly read and analyze all of the required readings prior to each meeting.
The course will require the students to participate actively as it is based on lectures, discussions, case analyses and presentations. Students need to be well-prepared for each session. Course credit will be given based on quality of class participation, hand-in assignments, and a written exam.
This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam components) and one final exam code. Each exam component is graded by using points on a scale from 0-100. The components will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the examination code (course). Students who fail to participate in one/some/all exam elements will get a lower grade or may fail the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades when the course start.
At resit, all exam components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course.
All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 40 Grouping: Group/Individual (1 - 3) Duration: 2 Week(s) Comment: Multiple assignments. Exam code: GRA 64361 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Activity Form of assessment: Class participation Weight: 20 Grouping: Individual Duration: 1 Semester(s) Exam code: GRA 64361 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 40 Grouping: Individual Duration: 24 Hour(s) Comment: Written examination Exam code: GRA 64361 Grading scale: Point scale leading to ECTS letter grade Resit: All components must, as a main rule, be retaken during next scheduled course |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.