STRATEGIC MARKETING IN ACTION (SMA)

Our participants

You are a mid-level or senior manager with strategic, marketing or commercial responsibilities and have at least 10 years of experience in different fields. You want to boost your and your team’s contribution to your business strategy and its results. You have the ambition to deliver a superior level of performance, and are eager to work intensively with other like-minded professionals attending the program.

The following represents a sample of positions held by recent participants: Marketing and Sales Director, Global Marketing Manager, Business Development Director, European Product Manager, Regional Director, Head of Brand Management, Trade Marketing Manager, Business Director, VP of Strategic Projects, Managing Director.

What

Achieving marketing success has never been tougher. Customers are powerful, difficult to satisfy and all too ready to defect to the competition. Brand and supplier loyalty are hard to win and easy to lose. Products and services that were once innovative have now become commodities where price dominates in customer choice. Competitors are smart, aggressive and fast moving.

How do you win in tough markets?

There are no shortcuts and half answers won’t do. What you need are an innovative marketing strategy that is rooted in market and competitive insights; a differentiated value proposition that is inspired by customer insights; and an organizational capability that allows you to execute your strategy flawlessly - and fast.

Strategic Marketing in Action (SMA) is designed to help marketers and strategists win in tough markets. It goes beyond traditional, often tactical marketing by equipping you with modern tools and innovative concepts to:

• Boost your strategic thinking about your market and the forces reshaping it
• Gain insights into drivers of customer value, behavior and choice
• Formulate a differentiated value proposition for customer-focused strategy and brand platform
• Meet the challenge of implementing your strategy, including making a business case and gaining internal support
• Discover effective ways to satisfy and retain your key accounts and most important customers

You will leave SMA with insights, action plans and a commitment to succeed.

How

SMA is an action-oriented program in strategic marketing. You will learn to formulate strategy through stimulating case studies, videos and live cases showcasing best practices from successful companies, as well as from group discussions, exercises and the latest research insights from the program’s experienced and highly regarded Faculty.

In addition, SMA uses a unique, structured process that allows you to examine your business and marketing challenges with a fresh eye and turn your learning into effective action plans. With the aid of two instruments, a Learning Diary and an Agenda for Moving Forward, you will translate each session’s lessons into task priorities and action initiatives back in the office, thus completing the cycle from learning to insights to action.

To benefit further from SMA's action-oriented approach, you are encouraged to have your own project to work on during the program. Examples of past projects include:

• Developing a marketing strategy for a new IT product
• Creating a global marketing strategy by incorporating the best of local marketing practices
• Achieving growth through entry into new markets: Identifying key players, market approach and implementation

As an alumna/alumnus of SMA, you are entitled to a number of privileges, including: 

• Wednesday Webcasts: 30 minutes of IMD’s latest Faculty research and thinking for continued learning
• A biennial alumni event organized around latest business issues
• IMD Alumni Clubs: more than 40 locations around the globe offer opportunities to meet and network with business professionals
• IMD Alumni Directory: provides professional details of more than 60,000 executives

Our Faculty

Our Faculty members are recognized world authorities in their fields. They divide their time between teaching, research and acting as consultants to international companies. They remain on top of the latest management trends.

You can expect timely, innovative learning activities, materials and content in all IMD programs.

In this section, you will find important information on the program fee, application, invoicing, cancellation and transfer. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our program advisors.

Fee

The program fee (which is mentioned on the overview page) includes tuition, teaching materials, and lunch on weekdays. Travel or living expenses are not covered. You must settle your own hotel bills, both when in Lausanne and on off-campus assignments, as well as all dinners and lunches on weekends when applicable. IMD reserves the right to modify the program fee at any time.

Tentative reservation

To make a non-binding reservation, send us a completed tentative reservation form. This carries no obligation and is not a substitute for the formal application form.

Application & invoicing

Your application is forwarded to the program director who will evaluate it to ensure that the program corresponds to your objectives and profile. This can take approximately 1 week.

The information & registration office will notify you of the outcome of your application. If you are accepted, they will send your acceptance letter and invoice fee together by priority mail. From this point, your enrollment will be considered firm by both you and IMD.

Please pay the program fee within 30 days of the invoice date and no later than the commencement of the program. If you register within 1 month of the start of the program, you must settle the invoice immediately without exception.
Payment can be made by bank transfer or credit card.

Up to six weeks before the program start date, a program coordinator will contact you with information on hotels and pre-program preparation. Please note that IMD reserves enough rooms for each participant on the program.

If accepted, you understand that you must be completely free of professional duties while attending this program and that you must attend all scheduled sessions and activities.

Substitution

A participant can be substituted on the same program session without incurring any fees. The substitute needs to apply and be admitted.

Note: Once you have paid the program tuition fee, if you do not attend another program within 24 months, the program fee will be forfeited.