Global Business Planning is the final Seminar in the specialization International Marketing Management. The goal is to translate market entry strategy theory into appropriate strategies and reflect and assess critically decision and marketing strategies. 

The course GBP will run as online course. This means that you can participate in the course from outside the WU Campus and of course from abroad during your exchange term or internship.

A very important tool is Learn@WU where you will find all the information regarding the course and all the material you need (articles, useful links, etc.).

These days more and more companies are operating worldwide. They have foreign subsidiaries and / or sales offices and are collaborating with other firms internationally. Due to large distances and the high costs of face-to-face meetings managers have to collaborate in virtual teams more often. As a result future international managers should command marketing know-how, be prepared and trained to work in international contexts and be able to work in virtual teams.

The major objectives and learning outcomes of this course are:

• Applying international marketing management know-how: In this seminar you apply your IMM knowledge in an international context. You reflect and assess critically decision and marketing strategies and translate market entry strategy theory into appropriate strategies.

• Applying marketing research methods: You learn how to use secondary and primary data to analyze the market situation in a specific country/market.

• Working in multi-cultural teams: As the virtual teams consist of students from different cultures studying at differen tuniversities you learn to work in multi-cultural teams dispersed over the globe.

• Working in virtual teams: You should experience how it is to work in virtual teams and be prepared for future challenges.

• Using innovative communication technologies: You should get to know and work with new communication technologies such as video conferencing systems to present and discuss ideas and marketing strategies.

The attendance at the first session and the final presentation-session (last session) is mandatory.

Overall there is a mandatory attendance rate of 80%.

The sessions involve a mixture of lectures, presentations, discussions and self-study sessions. Attendance and participation in class and online forum discussions will be critical to the success of the course.

In order to support your work on the seminar paper, you will have plenty of opportunities to get feedback from your instructor during the individual coaching sessions.

Furthermore, students learn to use a number of communication tools such as video conferencing, forum and chat discussion etc.

Individual part:

Participation in Class - 15%

• Contribute to in-class activities, plenary discussions and discussion on group projects.

Post in the Forum at Learn@WU - 15%

• Provide structured comments referring to your expectations, your group's product/country choice as well as other groups' choices.

Peer Review - 15%

• Assess the performance and contribution of your fellow group members to the overall group work.

Group work:

Market Entry Project - 55%

• Provide a written seminar paper (35%) and a presentation (20%) on the development of a market entry strategy. Therefore, select a product and a target market and apply existing theories to develop a specific strategy for them. You will need to look at both secondary data referring to your selected product and country, and conduct primary market research to gain better insights into the market situation of the respective country.

You can participate in the seminar when you have passed the two courses “SBWL Kurs I (Grundkurs) - Internationales Management und Marketing - Foundations” AND “SBWL Kurs II - Internationales Management - Marketing Applications in GMM”.

GBP takes place online. The attendance at the first session and the final presentation-session (penultimate session) is mandatory. Overall there is a mandatory attendance rate of 80%.

Important!

If you plan to participate in this seminar from abroad please get in contact with the instructor.

e-mail: elfriede.penz@wu.ac.at