Go to Market

This course provides a comprehensive understanding of how companies - both industrial manufacturers and commercial/retail organisations - design and execute a complete go-to-market (GTM) strategy. The logic of the course flow mirrors the actual decision-making process used in the business world, moving sequentially through the phases of analysis, strategy development, commercial planning, execution, and performance optimisation.

The course revolves around a dual-lens approach and investigates:
a. Industrial firms. Manufacturers sell to retailers, but must design offerings, pricing, value propositions and innovation that ultimately influence and satisfy the final consumer. Their go-to-market decisions aim not only to build distribution, negotiate trade terms and support sell-out, but to position the brand through channels, and collaborate with retailers on category growth.
b. Commercial firms/Retailers. These firms sell directly to consumers, using pricing, assortment, category roles, promotions and in-store experience to maximise conversion, margin, traffic, but also loyalty and category profitability.

By comparing these two logics within each go-to-market phase, students learn why decisions differ despite operating on the same categories and consumers.
A key conceptual foundation of this course is that the distribution channel is not just a route to market, but also a source of competitive advantage, a brand positioning environment and a communication medium. Channels influence how value is created and captured: they shape pricing dynamics, guide sales execution, and enable customer relationship management (CRM) practices. Both industry and retail strategically use channels through a multi/omni channel approach to shape how products/brands/services are perceived and purchased.

By the end of this course, students shall be able to:
• Build a go-to-market strategy for both industry and retail players.
• Design channel architectures and end-to-end category strategies by defining category roles, shaping assortment, optimising trade terms, promotions and space allocation and understanding private label management.
• Plan sales activities, including key account management programmes.
• Apply pricing strategies and CRM approaches
• Monitor activities and their performance to support continuous improvement across the entire go-to-market process.

• Industry, innovation and infrastructure

In presence

Face-to-face lectures, in-class discussions, presentation of real-life cases, a group assignment, in-class supporting tutorships

Assessment is based on:
- an individual written exam (50% of the final grade, reviewing the key notions of the course and based on multiple-choice questions and short essay questions);
- a group assignment (50%). The format for group coursework is an oral presentation. Each group must submit a written report where they elaborate on their (orally presented) project, developed in partnership with a company. The group project is instructor-guided with practical support sessions that are directly relevant to the group assignment.