Master of Management (Chartered Marketer)

This module involves critically evaluating the impact of a range of new and emerging themes in marketing, business organisations and the changing marketing environment. It will help you build and refine the skills necessary to anticipate and adapt to future changes.

After studying this module, you will be able to:

• critically assess the significance of various emerging themes
• demonstrate an ability to recognise the strategic importance of key themes
• consider how best to take them into account when developing and implementing marketing strategies
• establish strategies and mechanisms for anticipating future trends and emerging themes

This module involves performing a strategic audit of an organisation. The audit entails assessing the capability and capacity to deliver business and marketing strategy, and recommending a strategic option based on a critical evaluation of the options available.

After studying this module, you will be able to:

• undertake a strategic marketing audit
• assess the impact of external factors on an organisation and its strategic intent and direction
• use the strategic marketing audit to critically evaluate a range of strategic marketing options in order to deliver best value growth and expansion opportunities
• use a range of financial and other measurement tools to assess the financial and non-financial benefits of strategic marketing decisions
• use a range of risk assessment tools to critically assess the risk of strategic market decisions and their impact upon an organisation

This module involves developing high-level marketing strategy to deliver an organisation’s value proposition and business goals in the short, medium and long terms. You will analyse the corporate strategy, determine a range of high-level marketing and relationship strategies, and demonstrate how these strategies will deliver growth, CSR goals, ethics and key strategic decisions.

After studying this module, you will be able to:

• evaluate the links from corporate strategy to marketing strategy and ways of delivering an organisation’s corporate mission and vision effectively
• develop marketing strategies to establish an organisation’s competitive and sustainable marketing and relationship strategies to achieve the organisation’s strategic intent and deliver its value proposition
• develop strategic (but operational) marketing plans at organisational level using synergistic planning processes, taking account different planning frameworks and ensuring they are within the capabilities of the organisation
• determine the most appropriate organisational structures for market-oriented organisations and changing organisations, while evaluating the resource implications and requirements
• develop sustainable competitive advantage through suitable approaches to leadership and innovation
• assess the link between change programs, marketing activities and shareholder value

An organisation’s reputation represents the way in which a complex range of stakeholders perceive it. Often, a gap develops between the way an organisation intends to be seen and the way stakeholders actually perceive it. This can be due to a range of forces, some slow, foreseeable and manageable, and others sudden, unforeseen and relatively unmanageable. All can result in organisational underperformance, destabilisation, financial difficulties, leadership change, a fall in market value, and even difficulty in raising finance or recruiting personnel. This unit explores ways in which organisations can minimise the gap and avoid these potentially problems.

This module involves the following:

• critically evaluating the way organisations develop their identities (which they use to form images and assign reputation)
• critically analyse the elements that contribute to the identity an organisation projects to its stakeholders
• critically evaluate the link between how an organisation wants to be seen and how it is perceived through corporate communications

This double module is a work-based project that involves taking a key emerging theme identified in the Emerging Themes module of the CIM Postgraduate Diploma and applying it to your organisation.

The project has three components:

• Project definition (including a literature review)
• Project implementation and assessment
• Review and self evaluation

After studying this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate an awareness of current and emerging issues, which is informed by leading-edge research and practice
• propose a strategic response to an emerging marketing theme that considers the impact on marketing and its interaction with other parts of the organisation
• evaluate the skills, behaviours and attitudes required to lead strategic marketing projects
• assess published research to determine methods of designing, implementing, measuring and monitoring the success of a project
• demonstrate the relationship between theory and professional practice by applying a range of assessment tools and techniques
• evaluate project success and recommend actions to improve the implementation of future projects or revise approaches to practice