Course 2024-2025 a.y.

• Industrial markets: distinguishing features and recent emerging trends.
• Types and nature of exchange processes in industrial markets. 
• Types of exchange processes and implications on effective management practices. 
• Economic and competitive relevance of partnering with industrial customers.
• Cooperation and competition in industrial markets.
• Customers’ purchasing behavior in industrial markets across different types of exchange processes.
• Industrial market segmentation and customer portfolio analysis.
• Value proposition and customer solutions for industrial customers.
• Key Account Management approaches and practices.

This course should prepare the students to:

• Identify the main distinguishing features that characterize industrial markets and understand how these features affect the development of effective industrial customer management practices.
• Understand how to deal with the increasing complexity in firm-to-firm interdependences.
• Recognize ways to develop customer knowledge in business-to-business relationships.
• Understand how to develop customer value propositions across different types of exchange processes
• Manage commercialization practices in business-to-business relaitonships

This course should prepare the students to:

• Analyse a specific industrial market context and acknowledge the nature of the inter-firm interdependences as well as select approaches to develop and mantain a competitive advantage in that market.
• Analyze a customer business context and choose strategies to gain customer preferences and maintain customer relationships over time.
• Measure the economic returns of the investments in the relationships with industrial customers.

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Individual works / Assignments

• Lectures are used to help students develop knowledge on the main topics. Lectures introduce and pave the way to discuss conceptually the main topics. The ultimate purpose for the leactures is to provide the students with the conceptual frame that they will then use as a guidance for the application of the knwoeldge in the practical case contexts. 
• Case Studies consist in reading and discussing cases where a specific topic is well detailed in practice. These cases expose the students to fruitful contexts of application of specific topics included in the course program. By getting exposed to these case studies, students learn how to use concepts and models in practice as well as they are challenged in critically thinking of ways to solve issues that firms managing industrial customers typically face. 
• Individual assignment consists in a research project where students develop a research paper on a specific, well focused research question, under the supervision of the course instructor. This research project aims at providing the students with an opportunity to open their minds to the more relevant changes that have been challenging the ways to manage industrial customers, develop a rigorous method of inquiry, challenge their critical thinking, and strive for a non obvious managerial response.
• Guest speaker's talks give the students an opportunity to interect with outstanding professionals and get exposed to real contexts where some topics of the course can be observed in practise in their full complexity and in their more recent developments. The inclusion of guest speaker's talks urge students to deepen their practical knowledge and to exert their critical thinking.  

• The written exam is taken at the end of the course in one of the regular exam dates. The written exam is based on three questions extracted from a list of questions on the course contents included in the program and discussed during class hours. The overall list of questions from which the text of the exam is extracted is distributed in the first few days following the end of the course. The written exam assesses the acquisition of the concepts of the course and the critical thinking of the students and, to a lesser extent, the practical knowledge.
• The individual assignment consists in carrying out a research project, i.e. writing a paper bound to answer to a specific research question under the supervision of the course instructor. This assessment tool complements the written exam as it enables to better assess a number of soft skills, e.g. communication skills and critical thinking.   
• Active class participation assessment is based on the quality of the students’ contribution during class discussion. Students are encouraged to read in advance the material referred to the class topic and their contribution to class discussion on that topic is assessed. Also, students’ contribution in case study discussion is assessed and included in this area of evaluation. The evaluation of the students’ class participation and research project are valid for the three regular exam calls in the academic year 2024-2025. This assessment method also contributes to assess more globally the learning process of the students as it enables to better evaluate a number of soft-skills (e.g., communication skills, critical thinking, teamwork) and practical knowledge (as active participation also involves case study discussion).

Non-attending students have to take a written exam, on the contents of the course textbook, in one of the official exam dates. The written exam mostly assesses the acquisition of the concepts of the course and, to a lesser extent, the practical knowledge and critical thinking of the students.

A selection of papers from the Reading Collection: Industrial Marketing, EGEA 2024. The selection of papers are those included in the course detailed program.

Reading Collection: Industrial Marketing, EGEA 2024. The whole set of papers published in the Reading Collection is required for non-attending students.