in Commercial Strategy and Marketing

ladies and gentlemen, Some four years ago the dean of the Business School asked my colleague Michel Vandenput, a former senior partner at KPMG, to build a major in Strategy and Marketing at Nijmegen. It had to complement the School’s specialization on internal organizational issues such as Human Resource Management and Organizational Change Management. Vandenput created a program with a broad approach to the relationship between a company and its environment, bringing together elements of strategy, marketing, industry and market analysis, distribution and logistics. He called it “Strategy, Marketing and D istribution”. The program has been very successful ever since. It serves about 250-300 students a year, or almost half o f the Business School’s student body. Faced with the introduction of a Bachelor and Master structure throughout the European Union, the School has recently made some changes. Separate Masters degree programs will soon be introduced for Strategy and Marketing. It will be a challenge to position these new Master programs well. The “battle for the consumer’s or student’s mind ” involves three important decisions. It requires 1. Choosing a desirable and recognizable position