A Course In Marketing—And In Co-Existence

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 5

A Course In Marketing— And In Co-Existence

“WELL, it’s eight o’clock gentlemen. Shall we start the morning’s work by discussing the case of Gem Appliances?” The speaker is John McDonnell, a banking inspector from Ireland, who is chairman of the discussion group.

“I can’t see that there could ever have been much of a market for clothes driers in Israel —the climate is too dry,” says S. S. Raza, deputy director-general of the Pakistan Export Promotion Bureau. He speaks for several minutes before McDonnell invites another member of the group for his opinion. The Gem Appliance Company, which manufactured washing machines in Tel Aviv, at one stage considered making driers. A brief outline of the company’s operations, and the factors which, in 1959, tempted the company to branch out into clothes driers, formed the “case” for this morning’s discussion.

There are seven men in this group, the others being Worku Arega (Ethiopian Grain Corporation), Nazim Cakmacki (Turkish Ministry of Commerce), Cresente Hizon (Philippines Department of Commerce and Industry), Hee Kon Kim (Korea Trade Promotion Corporation), and myself. Gem Appliances is one of two cases we are to study this morning. After 90 minutes’ discussion of the cases, our group leaves the window alcove where we met at 8 a.m. and walks upstairs to a lecture room. Here we are joined by nine other discussion groups, so there are about 60 of us in this room—the finest lecture room I have ever seen.

Tiered seating for 100 is arranged in horse-shoe rows so that each student can see

than by other methods, and this is why Mercator’s Projection remains in universal use for all marine charts. So to this day every time a ship puts to sea, its safe navigation across the oceans owes something to the inventiveness of a Flemish scientist of four centuries ago. Not a bad achievement when one realises that only a few years before Mercator’s birth in 1512 most people were still firmly convinced that the earth was flat!

the blackboard and hear the lecturer comfortably. The lighting, acoustics and ventilation are superb. Each student sits behind a large card with his name on it.

Our lecturer this morning is Edward C. Bursk, Professor of Business Administration, editor of the “Harvard Business Review”—which has a circulation larger than that of “The Press”—and author of the text book from which the Gem Appliances case is taken. Professor Bursk is a discussion leader rather than a lecturer. “How many clothes driers would be sold in Israel in 1964?” he asks. A range of estimates, from 700 to 60,000, is offered from the audience, and Professor Bursk writes up each estimate on the blackboard. Not till the end of the discussion does he tell up that the sale of clothes driers in Israel in 1964 was, in fact, negligible. Typical Session This was a typical session in the working day on this course. The teaching technique, particularly applicable to men with business or administrative experience, is known as the “case study” method. There are no formal lectures, no instruction in the “theory” or “principles” of marketing. The diligent student learns much from the discussions, in the small groups and the larger classes, on the dozen cases which he studies each week. He will not leave Harvard with a set of principles, 1.-.ws or formulae, but he should have formulated a sounder approach to the business of marketing. (At Harvard they like to think of marketing as both a science and an art.) This course, of six weeks, is residential. It is held from mid-June to the end of July each year, during the business school’s summer vacation. This year the enrolment is 120 students, from 51 countries. The average age of the students is 35, and they come from Government departments, research organisations and private employment. Nearly half of them are here at the expense of, or subsidised by, the United States Government. The course is held by the International Marketing Institute, which has a small full-time staff and supplements this staff by engaging Professor Bursk and other marketing specialists. Discussion Groups The daily routine is reminiscent at times of life at a boarding school, or in the armed forces. The greater part of the working day is occupied with discussion groups, classes or seminars—the seminar on exporting is of particular interest to the New Zealanders on the course. Some of the students appear to spend the rest of their waking hours preparing cases for the next day, doing the written work required for

the “marketing games” (one a week), and reading the prescribed texts; but most of the students can usually be tempted to leave their study in the evening, and at weekends. Diversion and entertainment is never far away. Mellon Hall, which houses 85 members of the course, contains a lounge with two television sets and a piano. Refrigerators are liberally scattered throughout the building, and most students keep a modest stock of canned beer, cordials and ice cubes. .In the temperatures of 80 degrees or 90 degrees which

This article is by Norman Macbeth, assistant editor of "The Press," who is studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

have been usual this year, a companionable drink is specially welcome before dinner. Led by a 24-year-old South African—a cousin, incidentally of the renowned “Okie” Geffen—a Rugby squad has turned out several times a week to privide exercise for some of the New Zealanders, Englishmen and Australians on the course. Soccer attracts a bigger following; up to 20 nationalities are represented in the two teams. Irregular Game Sometimes an irregular game of softball develops on the lawn in front of Mellon Hall. On one occasion an Australian, after lobbing the ball to an American to hit catches to some students in the “outfield,” wound himself up like a major league pitcher and unleashed his “fast ball.” The American retaliated by clouting the ball straight back to the pitcher, who took a sizzling catch with the nonchalance of a test cricketer. Which, in fact, he used to be; it was Leonard Maddocks, now sales manager of Australian Paper Manufacturing, Ltd. Other diversions on the campus include tennis, table tennis, bridge and chess. Strangely, there is no outdoor swimming pool on the campus. There have been several (receptions on the campus attended by students on this course, which is one of several in progress here. Private hospitality, too, has been generous; last week-end I had a day’s swimming and boating at Cohasset, and, the next evening went to a barbecue party and a memorable Fourth-of-July fireworks display at Lexington. But the greatest “diversion” of all—if it can be called that —is provided by the students themselves. No more than eight participants come from one country, and every encouragement is given to all to mix freely with those from other countries. The other three New Zealanders on this course are Noel Phillips (Woolworths, N.Z.), Alfred Pollard (Felt & Textiles,

N.Z.) and Earle Stewart (Turnbull and Jones). None of Us is billetted together or allotted to the same discussion group. Facilities Shared The accommodation in Mellon Hall comprises “suites”—a study flanked by two bedrooms. Each pair of room-mates shares bathroom—and refrigerator—facilities with two or three other pairs. In much less than six weeks of the study course one’s roommate, and “companions of the bath” (strictly speaking, shower), become intimately known. I share a study with Karel (Charles) Koubek, managing director of Kovo Foreign Trade Corporation, Czechoslovakia. We are about the same age, both married with three children. We have enjoyed an evening at the Boston Pops together, we usually discuss our “homework,” and occasionally have a serious, but never rancorous, discussion about America, democracy, capitalism or communism. I have had few companions more congenial and considerate than Karel Koubek. At meal-times in the excellent university restaurant there are no reserved seats. By choosing a different companion for each meal, one can avoid being bored by—or boring—the same person twice. I listened politely the other day to an Afghan telling one of the current jokes in his country. It was a story about the janitor telling the boffins in an aircraft factory how to remedy the defect in their latest prototype—the wings kept breaking off at the same place. “So the janitor said, ‘You must perforate the wings at the line of the break. . . ” It would have been unkind to interrupt him, so I waited for the denouement, which, was, of course, the same as when I first heard that story in New Zealand. In Common The fact that the same joke circulates in Afghanistan and New Zealand is not very illuminating; but the daily discovery that I have more in (common with men from Afghanistan, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia than I ever knew is, somehow, deeply satisfying. Some of the participants in this course arrived here, I feel sure, suspicious of the motives of their hosts. But from the outset it must have been apparent to them that the executives of the International Marketing Institute are idealists, firmly convinced that instruction in the “true I faith” (sound marketing) can j remedy many of the world’s evils. If there is an ulterior motive behind this annual programme, it is the convicjtion that if you bring together people from half the (countries of the world they must learn as much about each other as they learn about marketing as they study I at Harvard.