Courses

MAR 2290 - Sears Holdings Retail Management Seminar id="mar2290"

Each semester, the Miller Center for presents an exciting line-up of speakers from positions in retail Store Management, Buying and Planning. Weekly lectures feature a different executive making a presentation in his/her area of expertise. Topics may vary each term based upon what’s hot in retailing. Discussions of career opportunities and career paths in retailing are included. Students also have the opportunity to share a lunch with one of the featured speakers.

Seminar Schedule

MAR 3231 - Introduction to Retail Systems Management

This course take students on a “tour” of the strategic and operational decisions involved in running a retail firm, the underlying business concepts and principles for making those decisions and the variety of professional roles required for effective execution. It’s retail!

While the course focuses on the retail industry, including both products and services leading up to the buy, it is also useful for students who might work for companies that interface with retailers (like manufacturers of consumer products), or for students with a general management or entrepreneurial interest. In one sense, this class uses retailing as a sustained “case study” in business strategy development and execution, with the retail industry as the framework. Specific student learning outcomes are to develop an understanding of:

  • the scope and contribution of retailers in the product value chain
  • consumer motivation, shopping behaviors, and decision processes for evaluating the retail offering and purchasing merchandise and services
  • strategic objectives, competitor analysis and competitive strategy
  • how retailers differentiate their offering as an element in their strategy
  • the traditional bases for market segmentation and how that segmentation can affect strategy
  • trends in retailing including issues of corporate social responsibility
  • the role of organization design and human resource practices
  • factors affecting strategic decisions about locations, supply chain and information systems, and CRM
  • how retailers communicate with their customers.
  • tactics (pricing, assortments, store management, merchandising, customer service) for profit

MAR 4945 - Retail Management Internship

This Retail Management Internship course is designed to include an internship in retail. Retail Management Internship students work from an activity book each week during their internship and forward materials to the University. During the semester, students are supervised, visited and guided by Miller Center staff. They are also invited to take part on the annual Retailing Smarter Symposium.