The seminar is the second in a series of international marketing seminars being staged at the UCT GSB this year.
According to Steve Burgess, Professor of Marketing at the UCT GSB and co-director of the seminar, Ainslie's visit is a great opportunity for South African companies to re-energise the competitiveness of their marketing strategies.
"In these times of rapid change and globalisation, yesterday's winning marketing plan can become the perfect recipe for failure today. There are big changes taking place in the way winning firms engage in strategic marketing and market planning, and South African companies need to keep up with these," said Burgess.
Burgess explained that rapid advances in technology are blurring industry boundaries and helping to globalise competition.
"Managing competitiveness is becoming harder and social and political complexity continues to increase. Slow-growth and market saturation in the industrialised West is forcing firms there to look into emergent economies such as South Africa to maintain growth," said Burgess.
He said that, at the same time, China, India and other emergent economies are not only rising as viable markets, but also are shifting cost barriers and ever lowering prices in manufactured goods and services.
"This new complexity stretches South African marketers from the top to the bottom of the pyramid. Unless management engages in an ongoing process of rewriting the marketing plan in such a fast-changing environment, failure may be the likely outcome for even the best firms," he said.
Burgess added that the seminar on 15 - 17 March 2005 will involve interactive lectures and case studies that focus on winning firms in this new environment. Participants will learn how exceptional marketers are finding new routes to exceptional sales and profits growth, often from sources considered to have limited financial appeal.
"The course will be a step-by-step guide to the process of building dynamic, customer - and stakeholder - focused plans that produce results," he said.
At UCLA, Professor Ainslie teaches the core marketing course to MBA students at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management. He also teaches in several executive education programmes.
Ainslie's research focuses on consumer choice, especially in the new product and service innovation contexts, and he is an acknowledged expert in economic and statistical modelling and in direct marketing.
Burgess teaches the core marketing course and two marketing strategy electives at the UCT GSB. His research focuses mainly on marketing strategy and innovation in emergent economies.
Both presenters have extensive managerial and consulting backgrounds and serve on a number of international editorial review boards.
For more information on Ainslie's course at the UCT GSB, contact Junita Abrahams on +27 +121 406 1323.
