Solutions Marketing: Should it be taught at business schools?

I’ve had the good fortune to teach an MBA level Solutions Marketing  course  for the past three years. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the only Solutions Marketing course taught to MBA students anywhere in the US. 

I teach the course at the Hult International Business School. Haven’t heard of it? Not surprising.  It’s relatively small, and highly specialized in international business. The Financial Times, however, just ranked it 6^th in the world for international business management. It’s also ranked in the top 100 general MBA programs in the world. It might be one of the the best MBA programs that nobody’s ever heard of!

If you scan the curricula of the leading MBA programs, there is no lack of courses on Product Marketing, Services Marketing, Branding, or a raft of other marketing related topics. The concept of "solutions marketing", however, still isn’t on the academic radar. Trust me , I know. When I agreed to teach the course, I went on the internet looking for case studies on the topic.  Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I checked the mainstream business case study collections at Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and Ivey. I couldn’t find a single case that directly addressed solutions marketing issues. 

Given the dearth of public cases and materials, I decided to develop my own. With the help of my business partners, I’ve now developed four case studies on key solutions marketing issues. In fact, we expect that two of them will be made available in the Harvard Business School system before the end of the year. I also borrowed heavily from the solutions concepts that ITSMA had developed over the years, as well as tapping into my own experiences.

The natural question, then, is how have the students reacted to a very different and unknown marketing course. I just finished teaching the course as an elective in June, and here are the results.

Students evaluation rating to the following questions (a 1-5 scale with 1=Strongly Disagree and 5=Strongly Agree):

• The skills and concepts covered in the course will be USEFUL to me in my professional career:  4.90
• The SCOPE of the course was appropriate to my professional needs: 4.74
• My OVERALL EVALUATION of the course is positive:  4.87
• I would RECOMMEND this course to others:  4.77

Clearly, the course resonated with the students.  Here are some verbatim comments on the experience of learning about how to market solutions:

•  “I’ve learned that by understanding the solutions marketing framework I was able to see that the concepts could be applied to any company, and that it helps in doing an in-depth analysis of the company’s marketing objectives.”
• “I strongly believe the knowledge I have gained from the course cuts across all careers and industries and will be invaluable to me as I look for a job.  I came to class expecting to learn about the traditional and conventional tools and methods that most companies use to marketing their offerings, but that wasn’t the case. I loved learning about the concepts  behind the term ‘solutions'."
• “The Solutions Marketing course has been very instrumental in taking my knowledge of marketing to a completely different level.”
• “I am now aware of the impact that a solutions approach can offer in terms of differentiation, business continuity, and value generation”
• "I only selected the course because it was the only marketing course that I could take given my schedule - but having gone through the course, I would select it twice over!"

I think I can safely say…mission accomplished! I have no doubt that there is a place for a Solutions Marketing course in any MBA curriculum, and that the students would line up around the block to sign up for it since it provides a very different perspective on a traditional academic subject.

If you're interested in learning more about the course or curriculum, or have your own experience teaching solutions marketing, please let me know.