UVA Darden Executive Education Premieres Two Groundbreaking Marketing and Sales Programs in Washington, D.C.

12 September 2013

Innovative Courses Address Understanding of “Big Data” and Integration of Sales and Marketing Teams

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business announced today it will offer two innovative Darden Executive Education courses in Washington, D.C., to help executives and their organizations navigate the intertwining roads of marketing and sales.

Marketing Analytics: Effective Resource Allocation, to be held 10-12 December 2013, will provide participants a framework to translate “big data” into actionable strategies. Attendees will identify the relationship between marketing inputs and customer behavior through simple yet effective response models and design experiments to estimate the return on marketing investments. Darden Professor Raj Venkatesan, recognized as one of “The World’s 40 Best B-School Profs Under the Age of 40” by Poets & Quants, serves as faculty leader of a world-class team of Darden professors who will engage participants in a powerful learning experience to connect marketing spend to financial returns.

“Through Darden cases and real data sets, this course arms professionals with the mindset of how to know what is and is not working in their marketing strategy,” said Venkatesan. “It features the best of the marketing analytics course we have at Darden. The focus of the program is to enable leaders to become smart consumers of marketing analytics and know how to use analytics in their decisions.”

Strategic Sales Management, which will take place 3-6 February 2014, will deliver a clear understanding of how to align sales activities with the strategic goals of a firm and how to manage the tension that exists between marketing and sales. Participants will gain a greater appreciation of the need for an integrative approach to linking one’s go-to-market strategy with the overall organizational strategy and master the importance of developing comprehensive sales strategies.

“The course will help tie your company’s overall business strategy to your sales management practices. For example, we’ll talk about how you can achieve better financial performance by motivating all players on your sales team, from laggards to star performers,” said Darden Professor Tom Steenburgh. He, with Strategic Sales Management co-faculty member Michael Ahearne, authored “Motivating Salespeople: What Really Works” in Harvard Business Review.

“There is an imperative need for organizations to understand ‘what makes their marketing work’ and ‘how to drive more sales’,” said Colin Winter, senior director of Darden Executive Education Open-Enrollment Programs. “There is tremendous opportunity for companies that can fully leverage big data and motivate their sales teams.”

“The Darden Grounds in Charlottesville are well-known as an oasis for learning,” said Winter. “We’re excited to bring this powerful learning experience to D.C. through two new three-day programs. We look forward to working with professionals in the D.C. area to take them and their organizations to higher levels of accomplishment.”

For more information, visit the Marketing and Sales site.

About the University of Virginia Darden School of Business

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

Press Contact

Molly Mitchell
Associate Director of Content Marketing and Social Media
Darden School of Business
University of Virginia
MitchellM@darden.virginia.edu