New marketing concentrations, courses for growth fields

Announcements | Jun 28, 2016 | Gabelli School of Business

To keep pace with industry growth, the Gabelli School of Business marketing area has introduced three new courses and three new secondary concentrations for undergraduate students.

Sertan Kabadayi, associate professor and area chair of marketing, said the changes were born of a desire to help students develop needed skills and be more competitive in the job market. The courses and concentrations, designed in collaboration with marketing scholar and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Lerzan Aksoy, will debut in the fall.

“The business world is changing a lot,” Kabadayi said. “Some of the things that were popular and useful a couple of years ago, they don’t matter anymore.”

Conversely, new things do.

The new courses are Marketing Analytics, Design Thinking and Sustainable Marketing, all of which are open to undergraduates who already have taken Marketing Principles.

Marketing analytics is a rapidly expanding area, Kabadayi said. The course will be taught by Assistant Professor Alexander Buoye.

“You cannot talk about marketing analytics enough when it comes to marketing jobs today,” Kabadayi said. “Almost every marketing position requires some technical skills, including marketing analytics.”

Design Thinking, taught by new adjunct instructor Martin Dominguez Ball, will focus on an “iterative problem-solving process” to help decision-makers in the workplace.

Sustainable Marketing will show students how to adapt traditional marketing principles to the triple bottom line of “people, planet, and profit.” Taught by Assistant Professor Ahir Gopaldas, it will align with Fordham University’s Jesuit principles of caring for the whole person.

“It’s [no longer] enough just to create jobs and profit for companies,” Kabadayi said. “We need to think about the future and how to make marketing and business more sustainable.”

The three new secondary concentrations are marketing analytics, strategic branding and services marketing. They are designed to help Fordham students stand out in the senior-year hiring process.

“Having these concentrations on their résumés puts our students in a different basket compared to many other students from other schools,” Kabadayi said.