Skip to main content

Faculty & Research

Close

Teaching

PHD Courses

 

Pedagogical Material

MarkStrat

MARKSTRAT by Jean-Claude Larréché & Hubert Gatignon

  Co-designed & Co-developed under the direction of Rémi Triolet 

 

How to order MARKSTRAT

Different licenses are offered by Strat*X, depending on the program audience and type. To determine which license is adapted to your situation or to obtain further information on MARKSTRAT, please contact us at:

Elisabeth Hedbor
International Licensing Manager
222 Third Street
Cambridge MA 02142
Tel: +1 (617) 494-1428 , ext. 124 Fax: +1 (617) 494-1421

[email protected]

 

What is MARKSTRAT?

MARKSTRAT is a simulation that has been designed for teaching strategic marketing concepts. Used in combination with more traditional training methods such as lectures, discussions or case studies, MARKSTRAT is a very effective tool for learning strategic concepts; such as brand portfolio strategy, and segmentation and positioning strategies, as well as operational marketing.

Just as a flight simulator allows flight crews to practice in a risk-free setting, MARKSTRAT allows students and executives to practice their skills in a concentrated amount of time before trying them out in their real business environment. New alternatives can be tested without incurring the cost or the risk of implementing them in real-life situations.

Experience-based training has proven to be the most efficient training methodology. Students must go beyond strategy formulation and implement their strategic plan through decisions at the tactical level, a challenge not provided by traditional pedagogical methods. In particular, the possibility of assessing the success or failure of marketing implementation over time is an important benefit offered by MARKSTRAT.

 

Main characteristics of MARKSTRAT

MARKSTRAT has been developed over the past two years by Jean-Claude Larréché and Hubert Gatignon, from INSEAD, in co-operation with Strat*X, a consultancy specialized in experience-based training. The philosophy and the overall structure of the original MARKSTPAT -a twenty year success story- have been retained in the newer version.

  • Strategic Perspective. MARKSTRAT has been designed for teaching strategic marketing concepts. Tactical decisions cannot be effective without first defining explicit portfolio, market segmentation and product strategies. Marketing mix decisions are secondary to strategic decisions.

  • Long-term Perspective. Planning is essential in MARKSTRAT. Teams have long-term objectives and they must develop and implement strategies over a significant number of simulated years, usually from six to twelve.

  • Extensive Treatment of Competition. Teams are in direct competition in the simulated world. Detailed market and competitive data are available, and analysis tools are provided to turn market research data into coherent information.

  • Solid Theoretical Foundations. The MARKSTRAT model incorporates the latest theories of market and competitive behavior. The model was extensively tested by academics, students and executives from many industries.

 

Target courses and audiences

MARKSTRAT can be used for a variety of courses, from one week residential training programs for groups of twenty-five executives, to eight-week academic courses for three hundred or more students.

Courses

Audiences

Operational marketing
Marketing principles
Marketing management
Marketing strategy
Undergraduates
MBAs
Doctoral Students
Operational marketing
Building a market-focused Organization
Marketing principles
Strategic marketing
Strategic management
Cross-functions mid-level or senior managers
(Finance, R&D,Production, etc.)
Key account managers
Marketing department
 
 
 

Benefits to course participants

Going through a MARKSTRAT course is usually perceived as a highly demanding but very enriching experience. At the end of the course, participants will have a better understanding of the following subjects:
  • Strategic marketing concepts. Students will be confronted with real problems and will better understand key concepts such as: the relationship between market share and profitability, the experience effect, product/market portfolios, allocation of resources, market segmentation and product positioning, barriers to entry, competitive advantage, etc.
  • Business integration. Students will have to use the knowledge acquired in many different business courses in order to succeed fully. Topics from finance, accounting, production, economics and marketing will all have to be integrated to form a coherent course of action.
  • Marketing tools. Students will make an extensive use of a number of marketing tools which have been built into MARKSTRAT : perceptual mapping, conjoint analysis, portfolio analysis, marketing planning, multiple regression analyses, etc.
  • Market and competitive analysis. To be successful, teams will have to analyze changes in markets, anticipate the moves of competitors, evaluate different courses of action, plan long-term and secure competitive advantages

 

Organization of a MARKSTRAT course

Course participants are grouped in industries, where four to six teams of around five members are in direct competition against each other. Each team must have access to a computer, loaded with the MARKSTRAT Team software, and a printer. Similarly, the course instructor must have access to a computer loaded with the MARKSTRAT Instructor software. The new network capabilities will simplify course administration.

The instructor and the participants will usually run through six to twelve decision cycles, intermixed with conceptual sessions, case studies and application work. The flow of a decision cycle is depicted below.

 

Instructor

Teams

1. The Instructor transfers to the teams the latest industry data, produced by the run of the previous decisions or by the industry creation. 2. The teams load their computer with the latest industry data.
3. The Instructor helps teams to formulate and implement their strategies. S/he grants loans and budget increases if necessary. 3. The teams print their company report, analyze the available market, competitive and internal data, and finally, make decisions.
5. The Instructor loads his/her computer with the team decisions, makes a financial audit, and finally runs the simulation. 4. The teams transfer their decisions to the Instructor.
 
 

Schedule of a typical MARKSTRAT course

The table below shows the schedule of a typical three-day training program built around MARKSTRAT (assuming 1 1/2 hours per session and 2 hours per decision cycle). Other scheduling ideas, with shorter or longer course duration, are provided in the Instructor's guide.

Day 1

  • Lecture/discussion: Introduction to MARKSTRAT
  • Group work: Decisions for period 1
  • Lecture/discussion: Operating a MARKSTRAT3 firm
  • Group work: Decisions for period 2

Day 2

  • Lecture/discussion: Segmentation and Positioning
  • Group work: Decisions for period 3
  • Lecture/discussion: Marketing Plan Implementation
  • Group work: Decisions for period 4

Day 3

  • Lecture/discussion: Allocating Marketing Resources
  • Group work- Decisions for period 5
  • Lecture/discussion: The Marketing Strategy Process
  • Group work: Decisions for period 6
 

MARKSTRAT software organization

MARKSTRAT is easy to get setup and used.  It is organized in six modules.
  • Decisions. This module is used by teams to make their decisions. It contains one easy-to-use dialogue box per category of decisions: Brand portfolio, Brand marketing mix, Sales force & distribution, Market research studies, R&D.
  • Results, Newsletter & Mkt Studies.These three modules provide easy access to simulation results, such as Stock market Brand characteristics, Company performances, etc. Results are presented with colorful Excel-like charts or with graphs.
  • Analysis. This optional module provides a set of graphs on market and company results. It also provides a built-in portfolio analysis tool and additional tools using regression analysis.
  • Interface. This module of the Team software serves as the interface with the course instructor, mainly to exchange data files or request loans or budget increases.
  • Instructor. This module of the Instructor software is used to exchange data files with teams, to print team reports, to grant loans and budget increases, to run the simulation and to customize the amount of information available to teams.

 

Overview of MARKSTRAT decisions

Each period, the teams managing the simulated firms must make the decisions which are usually made by marketing managers. These decisions are organized in five easy-to-use self-explainable dialogue boxes such as the Sales force & Distribution one shown on the back cover.
  • Research & Development. The team must interface with the R&D department to specify new research projects. Specifications encompass the physical characteristics of future products and the target unit cost.
  • Brand Portfolio. When completed, R&D projects can be used to launch new brands, to target new segments in existing markets or to enter entirely new markets. Alternatively, teams can decide to upgrade existing brands.
  • Production, Price &Advertising. A number of more tactical decisions must be made for each marketed brand. Teams must plan production batches carefully in order to avoid stock-out while minimizing inventories. Prices must be set according to the expectations of target segments. Finally, communication budgets must be allocated to marketed brands according to their position in the product life cycle, to their sales potential, etc.
  • Sales Force & Distribution. Sales force decisions include the size of the sales force, and its allocation on distribution channel. Guidelines can also be set regarding the effort to dedicate to individual brands.
  • Market Research Studies. More than twenty market studies can be ordered each period. Teams must select the most appropriate studies to purchase in order to avoid information overload.

 

Overview of MARKSTRAT results

New industry results are produced at each run of the simulation, just after the team decisions have been entered and collected by the course instructor. New and past results can be accessed on-line through Excel-like charts and graphs. They can also be printed in the form of three documents: the Company report, the Newsletter and the Market research studies.

  • Company Report. This document contains private data on a specific company: scorecard, financial performance at the company level as well as the brand level, brand market shares, distribution coverage, status of completed and uncompleted R&D projects, cumulative financial results since the beginning of the simulation, etc.
  • Newsletter. This document provides general information on the industry: stock market results, key performance indicators of competitor companies, economic variables (inflation rate, GNP growth rate and others), physical characteristics of marketed brands, brand sales and market shares, etc.
  • Market. This document contains the results of the studies which were ordered at the beginning of the previous period. Up to twenty-three studies provide the following information: brand awareness, brand purchase intentions, shopping habits, brand market shares by segment and by channel, distribution coverage, semantic scales, perceptual map, conjoint analysis, market forecast, competitive information on communication and sales forces, competitive benchmarking, marketing experiments on advertising budgets and sales force sizes.
 

AdStrat

ADSTRAT International

An Advertising Decision Support System

 

NEW FORTHCOMING: ADSTRAT International: An Advertising Decision Support System, by Hubert Gatignon and Raymond R. Burke

The ADSTRAT software package was developed as a means of providing students of advertising with an integrated set of tools and data for assisting a broad range of advertising management decisions. By making these facilities available in a user-friendly package, ADSTRAT helps students to understand and use scientific techniques for advertising decision making. This software is intended to be a pedagogical tool for the future advertiser, advertising or brand manager, account executive, or marketing researcher.

The version of ADSTRAT supplied with this manual provides data sets designed especially for educational purposes. However, all of the analysis modules and the content of this manual are appropriate for any real advertising planning situation. By combining ADSTRAT with databases from specific industries, advertisers can have a comprehensive system for developing a brand's communication program.

 

Compared to the first version of ADSTRAT, this second edition:

  1.  Improves on the user-friendliness of the package by making use of the improved technologies;
  2. Enables access to multiple data banks;
  3. Makes it possible to create new data bases and
  4. Provides information for multinational contexts with the corresponding country specific media data.

Contact

Hubert Gatignon
Emeritus Professor of Marketing
The Claude Janssen Chaired Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

INSEAD Europe Campus
Marketing Department
Boulevard de Constance
F- 77300 Fontainebleau
France

Tel: +33 1 60 72 43 46 
Email: [email protected]

Assistant: Cécile Girardon
Tel: +33 1 60 72 44 59
Email: [email protected]