UC Davis MBA course review: MGB248 Marketing Strategies with Olivier Rubel

UC Davis Working Professional (Bay Area) MBA course review

MGB 248: Marketing Strategies with Olivier Rubel

Date evaluated: Fall 2009 at the Bay Area Working Professional San Ramon campus.

Official course description: Covers strategic marketing decisions, those that have a long-term impact on the organization and are difficult and costly to reverse. These include selecting product markets and customers; developing and communicating main benefit propositions for the chosen customers, including product features, quality, services; and developing competitive and cooperative strategies to successfully market products and services. The focus will be on the entire decision-making process, which starts by collecting and analyzing information about the external and internal environment of the organization.

The real course description: Strategy analysis from a quantitative perspective. Entry/exit, innovation, diffusion. Lots of game theory and “what would the competitors do if you do this?”

The professor: Olivier is refreshingly blunt and to the point. He cares about the students and how they learn, and if that means interrupting someone who has been talking for too long, he’ll do it. He is obviously passionate about the subject matter, and there were a few times in class he delivered some serious breakthroughs – pulling together concepts we’ve been learning all along into specific teachable moments.

The course: The course was numerically based – awesome when compared to all the other ‘soft’ marketing courses – and some classmates found it difficult. I really enjoyed taking a math-based approach to marketing efforts. The two cases we did were very interesting and the in-class discussion was extensive. There was a team project component that was interesting, but seemed like it was ‘tacked on’ to the course.

Marketing strategies was a lot of work. The readings alone measured more than an inch think, and when coupled with the textbook and the cases it was a lot to digest. The amount of material we were required to have read for each class was sometimes a little overwhelming.

The grade: I got an A+. I give the instructor and the class an A+. Highly recommended.