Issued by: IMM Graduate School of Marketing


Marketing must be a company-wide responsibility, which means that marketers need to work closely with all the departments, including production, sales, and HR. You can purchase software packages to “balance-the-books”, but to be the preferred brand requires innovative, distinctive, creative, customer-centric marketing strategies – these ongoing solutions cannot be purchased off-the-shelf. A company must be influenced by a strong marketing team. In fact, everyone should have a marketing foundation, as this may be the competitive advantage as a player in a globally competitive environment.

Increased competition requires a greater marketing focus with skilled, qualified marketers to spearhead and drive this focus, prompted by consumer expectations and brand awareness. It's not good enough to just imitate the competition or innovate a great product – marketers need to win a majority share of their customers' minds, which requires intensive research and strategy and then to communicate in such a way as to set the product or service meaningfully apart from the competition. This requires psychology and promotional ability.

Although the fundamentals of marketing don't change, marketers have a responsibility to keep abreast of the dynamics of the industry. Relevant, internationally-recognised qualifications developed to cover both the analytical and the creative scope of marketing offer the serious marketer the “best of both worlds” – a fusion of analytical, number-crunching skills with innovative, lateral-thinking training.
The IMM first introduced the Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing in the mid-eighties. Over the years the programme has seen structural as well as content changes to meet the ever-changing needs of the marketplace. As a result, the programme material is constantly evaluated to ensure that it remains relevant to the marketplace.

The two core modules include Market Research, which provides a broad, practical understanding of marketing research through exposure to theoretical and practical issues, and Strategic Marketing, which focuses on synthesising the student's total body of marketing knowledge by examining the techniques used to develop a strategic marketing process, enabling the development of comprehensive and detailed strategic marketing plans.

Many product-orientated marketing practices have proven to be inappropriate for the complex interactions that take place in the process of Services Marketing. The basic principles of marketing refer to the four Ps as product, place, price and promotion. As one of the electives of the diploma, the module of Services Marketing focuses on expanding the marketing mix with three additional “Ps,” namely, people, process and productivity, together with new concepts, methods and technologies that are essential to the success of marketing intangible products. Another elective, Promotional Strategy, concentrates on the role of promotional strategy within an organisation, emphasising the components of an organisation's integrated marketing communications activities. The elective module, International Marketing, focuses on the development of international marketing strategy within an organisation and the diagnosis of some of the factors that may hinder its implementation. Students may select two of the three electives.

This diploma from the IMM Graduate School of Marketing is an excellent education programme for people in, or moving towards, a senior position in marketing and who wish to enhance their knowledge and skills in this area. The diploma focuses entirely on practical and applied marketing, exposing the student to the practice of marketing through the application of theoretical concepts to real life case studies and examples. Consequently, the student is equipped with greater marketing knowledge and skills to take back to their workplace, and thus the programme receives wide acceptance from employers both locally and internationally.

Feedback from the postgraduate students has emphasised the enormous opportunities that have opened up for them, nationally and globally. A passion and vigilance for business ideas has been discovered through the case studies, networking across the different fields of industry and class interaction.

This part-time 18-month programme is comprised of the four, one-week modules of face-to-face study, delivered over the period of one year, followed by a six-month period, which is allocated to the completion of a research-based dissertation. Because many postgraduate students are funded by their companies, the research topic of their dissertations is usually industry or company-focussed, which ultimately benefits the company in its educational investment in the student.

Conducted in a face-to-face environment in Johannesburg, there is a high level of interaction as the number of students per class is limited. Each student is expected to contribute to the classroom and group discussions. And, because the programme is run on a modular, block release basis, students can enter it at various times of the year. Facilitators of each subject are marketing academics and business practitioners from local universities and business schools, who have extensive practical experience in their fields of expertise.

This postgraduate diploma is ideal for those who hold a degree, but not a marketing qualification. Preferably, students should have been working in a marketing management position for a period of three to five years, which will provide the fundamental experience towards this honours qualification in marketing. However, individual cases may be considered.

Visit our PRESS OFFICE: The IMM GSM is a Provider of Higher Education, registered with the Department of Education and fully-accredited by the Council on Higher Education (CHE). These SAQA-registered IMM programmes provide marketing skills through high quality, globally recognised diplomas and degrees,- more....

[8 Apr 2008 17:27]

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