Marketing Strategy: A Decision-focused Approach with Gamar Software - Softcover

This is a flexible, short, paperback text which can be used on its own or packaged with a case book (Strategic Marketing Management Cases, by Cravens) or with a custom published case book. It covers the concepts and theories of creating and implementing a marketing strategy and offers a focus on the strategic planning process and marketing's cross/interfunctional relationships. This book helps the student integrate what they have learned about analytical tools and the 4Ps of marketing within a broader framework of competitive strategy. - New and updated mini-cases at the start of each chapter introduce and illustrate major concepts and strategies to help students connect book concepts to real world marketing strategy situations and problems. - Increased global coverage is integrated in detailed examination throughout the text to illustrate how marketing strategy must strive to become more customer-oriented and more flexible in rapidly changing domestic and global competitive environments. - Advances in information technology are discussed, together with the role these advances play in impacting environmental, competitive, and customer information. Students will analyse the kinds of marketing information available and learn about the tools and procedures used to gather and evaluate this information, and understand the growing role of the Internet in market opportunities.

Orville Walker is the James D. Watkins Professor or Marketing, and Director of the Ph.D. Program, in the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. He holds a Master's degree in social psychology from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof. Walker is the co-author of three books and has published more than fifty research articles in scholarly and business journals. He has won several awards for his research, including the O'Dell award from the Journal of Marketing Research, the Maynard award from the Journal of Marketing, and a lifetime achievement award (together with Professors Gilbert Churchill and Neil Ford) from the Sales Management Interest Group of the American Marketing Association. Prof. Walker has been a consultant to a number of business firms and not-for-profit organizations, and he has taught in executive development programs around the world, including programs in Poland, Switzerland, Scotland, and Hong Kong. Perhaps his biggest business challenge, however, is attempting to turn a profit as the owner-manager of a small vineyard in western Wisconsin.