Creating a Differential Competitive Advantage -Jagdish Sheth

This course explains how digital technology is transforming marketing. It focuses on how technology will enable salespeople from selling products to becoming trusted advisors for customers, especially in financial and health services. Technology will also impact all 4 P’s of Marketing from product, promotion, price, and distribution, especially with the rise of e-commerce. For example, pricing will become more dynamic in a real-time basis based on demand and supply, and we will switch to digital advertising from print and television advertising.

This course suggests how branding creates value for the product through standardization and quality assurance. Branding can also differentiate your product or offering compared to competitors. In marketing, it is the ultimate differential advantage. Branding also creates a value independent of the product or service you’re offering. It is an intangible asset often commanding 5-10 times product revenue. For example, the highest brand value today is Apple, which has replaced Coca Cola as the highest intangible value asset.

This course is all about how to segment the market to take advantage of market heterogeneity. The course will review different bases for market segmentation including demographics, psychographics, and lifestyles. We will also review segmentation by product and price.