Feature: Marketing Technology Focuses on Real Time
As technology revolutionizes marketing, an innovative program ensures that MSU students lead the curve in this transformation.
The initial group of students to enroll in the Marketing Technology MBA program originally was scheduled to start fall 2000. Demand was so great, however, that the program was launched a year early. Those first 30 students are now well into their second year of the program, and a second group of 30 first-year students began the program in the fall of 2000. The needs of business have changed dramatically in just the last five years.
Seemingly overnight, companies moved from systems of supply, demand and delivery that had been in place for years to new high-tech, just-in-time, internet-based, market-driven systems. Companies are now sharing data and partnering in ways that seemed impossible just a few years ago. “The recent advances in technology are shrinking the world and changing the way we do business,” says Robert Nason, chair of the Broad School Dept. of Marketing and Supply Chain Management. “But, companies are having difficulty finding people to meet the challenges of this new revolution.” That’s where the Broad School’s Marketing Technology MBA comes in.
Marketing technology involves the application of digital information to traditional marketing practice to enhance speed to market, adaptation to change, innovation and value. In this unique, new program, MSU partners with key global corporations to provide a MBA students with hands-on experience of the fast-paced and dynamically changing world of high-tech marketing. The Broad School’s cutting-edge approach is designed to produce a superior MBA graduate who can step into a company and immediately contribute to high-tech marketing charge.
Michelle Lange, manager for Global Curriculum at General Motors suggests just how much the skills needed for high-level marketing positions have shifted. “General Motors demands marketing professionals that have fused both the technical and marketing skills needed to perform in today’s highly dynamic and accelerating global business economy,” says Lange.
“There is going to be a continuing need for these students to step into leadership roles almost immediately,” says Professor Roger Calantone, who spearheads the new Broad initiative. “This is much more than e-commerce. This is a whole new way of creating value.
Many companies are having great difficulty hiring people with the combined skills of technology, marketing and strategic decision making.”
Already leaders in their fields of study, the faculty of the marketing technology program has joined to create a uniquely new MBA product. Calantone, along with Professors Dale Wilson, Joe Bonner, and Richard Spreng, is focusing on developing new courses to help develop students with new skills than those required by traditional business. This dynamic, targeted curriculum helps students graduate with both technology and leadership skills. Each faculty member brings a different skill set to bear on the ultimate goal. The department of marketing and supply chain management was the ideal developer of a world-class program in marketing technology. It already holds top national rankings in areas such as procurement, operations management, logistics, new product development, international business, and marketing. Technology companies quickly jumped on board. Executives from firms, including General Motors, IBM, Guidant Corporation, 3M, MVP.com and DaimlerChrysler agreed to serve on an industry advisory board to help design the program and provide internships for the students. In return, the companies hope to hire the students after the first class graduates in spring 2001.
This industry board is comprised of business leaders from companies who need –and understand–the expertise that the program is meant to create. John Zarb, MBA ’86, vice president of Libby, Inc., of Toledo, Ohio, and a member of Broad’s industry board says, “We’re always looking for college graduates who can come in and not be intimidated by technology.” Zarb says he became involved with the industry board because he wanted to do something good for MSU, wanted to build the best program in the country, and saw the potential to facilitate the recruitment of technically oriented employees.
Michael Klaus (Broad School BA 1980) is another alum, who is turning to his alma mater for help in finding people. Klaus is vice president of Global Management Consulting for CSC Consulting, a major provider of information technology services. He notes that industries like his have a major stake in the success of the marketing technology program. “The talent shortage in today’s economy is unbelievable,” says Klaus. “We have a constant need to recruit people. This program must stay in front of the marketing and technology issues facing business. The only way that will happen is if the business sector stays deeply involved and committed.”
John Costello (see “Spartan Profiles”), president and CEO of MVP.com, an on-line retailer of sporting apparel and equipment, agrees. “Many of the most powerful ideas today harness technology to solve real consumer needs,” says Costello. “There is a real shortage of professionals who are skilled in understanding and capitalizing on this emerging trend. The Broad School’s Marketing Technology Program prepares individuals for a marketplace that demands functional innovation and unique ideas that improve consumers’ lives.”
Broad School recruiters look for people with a unique skill set to fill the openings in the Marketing Technology Program. “We’re looking for students who have science or engineering degrees, who have worked for technology-related companies, and who have good communication skills,” says Calantone. The program is designed to evolve as technology and business needs change. “Industry is changing so fast that if we don’t operate in real time, we’ll be teaching our students an obsolete curriculum,” says Calantone.
This marketing technology program foreshadows a wider Broad College thrust in establishing a cross-departmental Information Technology Management program. A multidisciplinary group of faculty drawn from across Broad School departments is working together to create new academic technology concentrations at the undergraduate and graduate program levels. A current activity, aimed for a fall 2001 startup are new core-curriculum courses and a specialization open to IT majors, offered jointly with the Colleges of Communication Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering’s Computer Science Department.
Don Bowersox, interim Dean of the Board School, believes such changes are vital to the school’s future. “Our cross-departmental and pan-college approach to involving all our students in information technology management will position the Broad School on the edge of efficient organizational design and educational delivery for the 21st Century,” he says. “Our technology commitment addresses what students need to know as they enter the business world.”
For more information on the marketing technology program at the Broad School, visit www.bus.msu.edu/msc.
Author’s note: This story was compiled by Bob Metzger, former director of marketing and communications for The Eli Broad College of Business, along with input from other Broad faculty and staff.