Consumer Products & Retail
Custom Programs for Your Team
Thriving in today’s retail and consumer product sectors requires agility to keep up with the pace of change and constantly shifting consumer preferences.
Wharton is where to come to spark innovation — not only in new products, but in processes, whether you need to analyze consumer behavior or develop a global brand strategy.
Wharton’s world-class marketing and management faculty bring tremendous industry insight and knowledge to our custom programs designed for consumer-products companies. Our Jay H. Baker Retailing Center links retail theory with practice by forming a partnership among world-class researchers, educators, students, and the global leaders of today’s retail industry. Another resource is the Wharton Customer Analytics, the preeminent academic research center focusing on the development and application of customer-analytics methods. From consumer behavior and pricing to digital marketing and sales persuasion dynamics, Wharton’s faculty experts will help your business achieve rapid, transformative change.
Strategic Focus
The challenges your organization faces are unique — whether you are focused on the impact of social media or constant margin pressure on your product sales. By customizing our programs to your business scenario, Wharton provides your team with the insight and strategic skills to bring your business’s brand and products to the forefront. In addition to providing you with a competitive advantage, your Wharton partners will become trusted advisors you can rely on to help your organization navigate a constantly changing consumer landscape.
At Wharton, you will learn how to:
- Assess your organization’s short-term and long-term goals
- Meet competitive challenges head-on
- Create new products and strategies to drive dramatic business growth
- Develop critical leadership skills to inspire and lead your organization through uncertain times
Thought Leadership and Solutions
We have partnered with a range of world-class companies and organizations to create transformative executive education experiences. Resulting programs leverage the vast resources, such as the research centers of the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania, to showcase powerful thought leadership, and provide solutions that can be implemented immediately.
Below are examples of a custom executive education solution:
Estée Lauder
The educational partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies is built upon long-established bonds that the company has with the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania. Leonard A. Lauder, Ronald S. Lauder, and William P. Lauder all are Wharton alumni, and Leonard and William have served as university trustees. In addition, Leonard and Ronald founded the Joseph H. Lauder Institute for Management and International Studies at Wharton in honor of their father.
With such strong ties, it’s not surprising that The Estée Lauder Companies would choose to partner with Wharton in executive education. Wharton Executive Education has delivered joint programs for the company’s marketing and finance divisions, building a common language for the disciplines and advancing their executives’ ability to work together to create more integrated strategic decisions and improved financial outcomes. “We are not delivering a single custom program or even a discrete series of custom programs, but rather multiple programs all in alignment around a strategic set of goals,” says Professor Patti Williams.
Read Trusted Partners: The Impact of Deep Faculty Engagement. »
Grupo Modelo
Grupo Modelo partnered with Wharton Executive Education to create a custom program designed to enhance innovation and strategic thinking among the company’s top leaders. Grupo Modelo brews and distributes 13 brands, including Corona Extra, the number one Mexican beer sold in the world, as well as Modelo Especial, Victoria, Pacífico, and Negra Modelo. It exports six brands and is present in more than 180 countries. It is the importer of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s products in Mexico, including Budweiser, Bud Light, and O’Doul’s. It also imports the Chinese Tsingtao brand and the Danish beer Carlsberg.
Wharton designed a custom program for Grupo Modelo’s top 60 leaders that combined classroom learning and leadership education. The residential program focused on leadership, innovation, creativity, customer centricity, and strategic decision making. The participants left the residential module with new product ideas for the Grupo Modelo pipeline, structured ways to promote innovation inside the firm’s existing business processes, and new relationships that will foster collaboration among the company’s global business units.
Wharton Research Centers
Client Perspective
The relationship between Wharton and our company is unique in its collaboration among our senior leaders. Over the years, Wharton has developed a deep understanding of our company culture and has become a trusted thought leader and learning partner. They know just what we need to accomplish and can design an educational experience to help us get there.”
William P. Lauder Executive Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies
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Called “one of the most successful organizational learning methods yet devised,” the After Action Review (AAR) was developed by the United States Army in the 1970s to help its soldiers learn from both their mistakes and achievements. Since then, the AAR has been used by many companies for performance assessment.
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Faculty
Barbara Kahn, PhDSee Faculty Bio
Patty and Jay H. Baker Professor; Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School
Research Interests: Brand loyalty, consumer choice, customer-relationship management
Patti Williams, PhDSee Faculty Bio
Ira A. Lipman Associate Professor of Marketing; Vice Dean, Wharton Executive Education
Research Interests: Consumer decision making, emotional and attitudinal ambivalence, the persuasive effects of emotion
Z. John Zhang, PhDSee Faculty Bio
Tsai Wan-Tsai Professor; Professor of Marketing; Director, Penn Wharton China Center
Research Interests: Channel and retail management, pricing strategies
Contact us to learn more about a partnership with Wharton.
+1.215.898.1776
customprograms@wharton.upenn.edu