The International Marketing MBA course of Zurich Elite Business School (ZEBS) includes topics such as; the marketing concept, the environment, the objectives, strategies and the instruments for using marketing in an international context.

The MBA-course was prepared and moderated Prof. Dr. Reinhard Hünerberg.

To summarize the seminar the involved parties were faced with three very interesting and exciting days. The students had to work in groups to solve different kinds of case studies and discuss and present their solutions. At the beginning every student had to present his/her own marketing strategy with a company he/she was familiar with.

The first day Professor Hünerberg explained the main topics of the course.

Particularly work-intensive and very interesting were the international case studies, about Nivea, Schindler Group, Daimler, Mc Donald´s and e.g. ALDI. All these cases had different international marketing strategies and environments and this made each of them so interesting. The case studies were separated into three different groups with 3-4 students. Each group had to prepare two or three questions about the case and discuss the presentation with the other groups. So, a very exciting and animating discussion was the result of the preparation and presentation of the case studies.

Even though the studies involved a lot of work and the students had to prepare the case studies over night for the next day, the working atmosphere didn´t attenuate. Just the opposite was the case, the motivation and the goad to give the best presentation and solve the case study let the students forget that time was running far into the night.

On the second day during the group-work for preparing the case studies there was a special highlight. A professional camera team joined the students and provided them with a unique experience during the video shoot.

After having a full, exciting and powerful day, students had homework in preparation of the final case study and presentation of it on the last day. After two days of hard work the point could have come of falling back, anything but! Perhaps the great atmosphere between the students and the motivation to prepare a good finale encouraged us to work again until deep into the night. The communication during these days with the professor and the director was excellent, he was open-minded and interested in helping students to do their best and strive for excellence.

So at the end of the course students gathered many impressions and learned a lot about the way of international marketing and especially how to use this attained knowledge in practical case studies. They learned not only something about e.g. the marketing objectives and strategies or the internal and external determinants, but also about the cultural background and how important that is. This also helped a ZEBS student to develop an international marketing strategy for his own Start Up in the Asian winery market.

Written by Andreas, IMP student