The clearer the marketing strategy, the faster the actions

The Strategic Marketing module of the Henley Executive MBA โ€“ Global was one of those things that I have been waiting for the most in my studies. Iโ€™m in charge of marketing in my current company, so I was really hoping to get some more clarity into my marketing thinking and to get new inspiration for planning our marketing efforts for the coming years.

Cariona Neary ran the Strategic Marketing workshop in Helsinki and it was a really good experience, especially in terms of taking a simplified and pragmatic approach to a complex and often abstract topic. I was particularly pleased with the group work exercises that we got to do in our learning teams.

The second day of our workshop was opened by Einar Toivonen, Head of Commercial at Foodora, who talked to us about the commercial strategy and turnaround management he has been working on for the past few years. He impressed us all with his sharp ability to combine holistic commercial and strategic thinking with practical improvements and experiments.

Einarโ€™s presentation was a good reminder that a marketing strategy can only work in a dynamic environment if things are put to action fast, and there is courage to fail fast with many of the experiments that are conducted. Strategic decision-making is often thought of as something thatโ€™s slow and time-consuming, compared to faster operative decision-making, but it is the clarity of strategic thinking that enables faster and wiser decision-making in commercial everyday matters.

During the workshop, I decided on a couple of changes that I will immediately make in our current commercial operations. First of all, I will change our value proposition (that also serves as a motto) to a more customer-oriented one, highlighting the key benefits for the customer. Secondly, I will have a serious discussion with my business partner about the ideal client segments, and how we should prioritise them a lot more in our marketing activities.

The workshop was designed to give us all the necessary tools and knowledge to complete our module assignment. Iโ€™m planning to write mine on the sustainability of our current marketing strategy, that relies heavily on social media, personal branding and domination of digital airspace. I would like to take a holistic, critical and analytical look at the effectiveness of our chosen marketing strategy, and what kind of changes might be needed during the coming years.

In the workshop we talked a lot about relationship marketing and Iโ€™m starting to think that this is something we should focus more on in the future. Relationships are particularly important in a business where a lot of the delivered value is intangible. Iโ€™m beginning to see a potential evolution path for our company that develops from broadcasting through dialogue to holistic customer relationship management.

All in all, Iโ€™m very satisfied with the workshop and now it is time to take all the learnings into action by writing the module assignment. Wish me luck!

You can follow my EMBA journey through weekly updates with the hashtag #JuhoGoesEMBA on LinkedIn.

If you would like to learn more about the Henley EMBA:

Please fill in the fields below to download the brochure.

"*" indicates required fields

Schedule for studies*
Book a meeting
Financing of studies
As well as contacting you about your brochure request, weโ€™d like to tell you about other events and opportunities to find out more about our courses and studying at Henley. Please let us know below if you are happy for us to do so:*

GDPR policy

The personal information you supply on this form will be used to help us respond to your request, for quality assurance and for data analytics purposes. Your personal data will not be sold to any organisation, and will not be shared with any organisations outside the university apart from those that help us to provide this service or unless required by law. The information that has been provided in this form will be treated in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (2016) and all applicable data protection laws. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information. If, at some stage, you wish to be removed from our database, please advise us by emailing to info@henley.fi.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Juho Toivola

Juho Toivola is Henley's Executive MBA student and brand ambassador. He's an organisational psychologist leading two Finnish companies, Asselmointi and Digital Minds. As a proud father of three small children, Juho lives an active life in the happy town of Lempรครคlรค, Finland. He will be sharing his MBA journey from 2021 to 2023. #JuhoGoesEMBA

Related content

The social aspect of learning - Henley Business School Finland

The work life value of research skills

  • 22 May 2023
One of the key sets of skills that are strengthened during the Henley EMBA journey are research skills. These are particularly necessary in the composition of the final thesis. But what is the work life relevance of academic research skills? How can I benefit from the research experience in my everyday work?

EMBA Afterwork – Personal development

  •   15.6.2023 โ€“ 18:00 to 19:30
  • Henley Business School Finland
Participate for our upcoming roundtable discussion on personal development within MBA, hosted by Associate Professor Chris Dalton.
WACC, CoC and IRR โ€“ a psychologistโ€™s guide to corporate finance - Henley Business School Finland

What have I learned about myself during the Henley EMBA?

  • 17 Apr 2023
The EMBA programme in general and the Personal Development module has been a great opportunity to constructively challenge my views and beliefs about myself. Iโ€™ve found myself increasingly disagreeing with some identity labels that I previously considered useful and accurate.