George Mason University/School of Public Policy

International Commerce and Policy Program

Course #ITRN 758-Global Market Planning and Practice

Fall Session 2001

Course Description and Synopsis

IMProved Market Planning Program.

Marketing is the major action function in any type of business, enterprise, commerce and trade activity, either national or international. This course, developed by practical experienced international marketing professionals, is designed to explain and demonstrate the processes and procedures needed by small and medium sized enterprises (SME) to develop their International Market Planning (IMP) programs.

The core basis of this course will be the preparation of a practical marketing plan. The class will be divided into marketing teams. Each team will work with a SME Virginia company or organization. The company will have indicated its interest to go into an international market with either a product or service. and will have been selected by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) to participate in the IMP program in conjunction with the GMU/ICP Program..

Planning for international marketing, management, distribution, transportation and other aspects of the full market system will be addressed. Functionally, each student will actively participate on a market planning team, thereby gaining a maximum of experience while participating as an integral part of this development process.

The educational approach for this course features the business leaders of today guiding the business leaders of tomorrow. The professor is well experienced and continuously involved in practical global marketing and market consulting. Discussions, presentations, and active information interchanges with guest speakers will be used to keep the classes informative and interesting.

Meetings with company executives from the specific companies will help give each student a real-world perspective for the dynamic functional endeavor. Discussions will include the use of selected aspects of information technology, knowledge technology, and other applied systems. Additional skills will be gained by learning how to blend business and financial planning aspects to form a complete approach to real dynamic market planning concepts. Previous students have been extremely pleased with this dynamic learning technique.

The final examination for this course is the Marketing Plan. It will be presented by each team verbally to the class with each team member participating. The audience for this presentation will include executives from the involved company as well as VEDP and GMU officials. The written IMP portion will be delivered to the professor for presentation to the Company, the VEDP, and GMU. Each student’s final grade will be a reflection of his/her participation in the entire process.

Successful IMPs will be entered through GMU to the VEDP for a possible team award in the Virginia Statewide competition. Financial awards and other recognition awards will be awarded to the winning teams.

For any additional questions please contact Professor(Adj.) Malcolm Novins, tel: 703-313-7893, Fax: 703-313-8500, e-mail: mnovins @ aol.com We look forward to answering your questions regarding this course.