Duration
36h Th
Number of credits
| Master in sales management, professional focus (en alternance) | 4 crédits |
Lecturer
Substitute(s)
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
(revised on September 2025)
Approximately 80% of employment are derived from service brands (Zeithaml et al. 2024). Even product-dominant firms are now turning into service brand companies; services are indeed becoming critical for competitive advantage in companies across the globe and in all industry sectors. For instance, revenues and profits of manufacturers like GE, Michelin, and IBM are now primarily derived from services.
Brands play a key role for any (service) organization seeking to differentiate themselves and create value in the eye of consumers.
This course thus addresses two interconnected and key issues: brand management and service management. Essentially, the course covers key principles of brand management, as well as services management. On the one hand, the course uncovers the foundations of brand management, the importance and role of brands, and how to value, build and grow them in a highly competitive, disrupted and digital world. On the other hand, a specific focus is placed on services as service organizations require a distinctive approach. In this class, you will learn how quality is evaluated in service firms, why expectations are important to service consumers, why people (both employees and consumers) are essential to service success, how the physical environment and service design influence service delivery, and how services firms should recover from failure. In essence, you will be exposed to and learn a new way of thinking about marketing.
In a nutshell, this course helps you to discover how an organization can develop a service brand.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
After taking this course, you shall be able to understand:
- what brands are, their key components and role as key company assets
- the core brand management concepts, such as brand equity, image and reputation
- how to manage brand portfolios and strategies
- how to build, grow and protect your brand
- the role that consumers play in shaping brand meaning, for instance through brand communities and engagement
- what services are, the differences between services and physical products, and how these differences translate into strategic direction
- how service consumers' expectations are formed, how their perceptions are developed, and what quality means in service delivery
- how to listen to your consumers and build service brand relationships with them
- the role of physical evidence in service delivery and how to best design services
- the important roles of employees, consumers, and technology in service encounters and brand management, and how to manage them
- ILO-2: Gaining the knowledge and understanding of one of the proposed fields of concentration or to gain deep knowledge in the field of the management being already specialized through a first University Master Degree.
- ILO-4: To acquire the capacity to research autonomously and methodically the information needed to solve a complex, transversal management problem.
- ILO-5: Integrate autonomously researched information, tools, knowledge and context to build and propose, either individually or as part of a team, original, creative and viable solutions to concrete complex management problems, whether real or simulated, taking into account, when necessary, the human, social and legal context.
- ILO-7: Being capable of professional team work.
- ILO-9: Developing a critical sense.
- ILO-10: Developing a transversal, global vision.
- ILO-11: Creative conception of solutions.
- ILO-12: Professional capacity for oral communication.
- ILO-13: Professional capacity for written communication.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
You should have sucessfully followed an introductory course of marketing.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Class will consist of a combination of theoretical lectures, case studies, scientific articles presentations, group projects, guest lecture, and participative discussions/activities.
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face course
Course materials and recommended or required readings
Platform(s) used for course materials:
- LOL@
- Microsoft Teams
Further information:
The course material is composed of the various resources posted on Lol@, including:
- Power point slides
- Multimedia content (podcasts, videos, ...)
- Academic articles
The following books are also used as references. The purchasing of the books is non-compulsory.
Brand part: Beverland, M. (2018). Brand management: Co-creating meaningful brands. Sage, London.
Service part:
Wirtz and Lovelock (2021), Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, 9th edition, World Scientific Publishing, SG.
This book is accessible online in PDF at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348960657_Services_Marketing_People_Technology_Strategy_9th_edition
Exam(s) in session
Any session
- In-person
written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire, open-ended questions )
Written work / report
Further information:
Grades in this course will be based on the following components:
- Group activities (40%)
- Final individual examination on the whole material: 60%
Important notes:
- In order to pass the course, you MUST at least have 10/20 in the final examination. If you fail the exam (but pass the Group activities), the exam grade accounts for 100% of the final grade.
- Any fraud (e.g., plagiarism, AI misuse) in any activity leads to a final grade of 0/20.
For more information: https://www.student.uliege.be/cms/c_11161787/en/student-preventing-plagiarism
Use of AI: You are responsible for the academic work you present, and therefore for the use you make of AI in it. This means distinguishing between permitted and prohibited uses-see: ULiège Charter for the use of generative artificial intelligence in academic work (uliege.be)
Students who are tempted to entrust ChatGPT or other AIs with the task of producing all or part of their personal work are liable to sanctions (e.g., fraud).
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
Participation in learning activities: Given the importance of taking part in the activities, the Article 37(§2) from the 'Academic and Examination Regulations' of the University of Liege is applicable. According to this article, we may declare students inadmissible for exams if they did not (1) submit their work in due time, or (2) take part in the core learning activities. In particular: Students who did not actively participate in and present the "Service Brand Challenge" (group project) during the year are not allowed to take the final examination in the first session. Thus, students have to present the service brand challenge to take the final examination.
Class attendance: Because class participation is key (and taken into consideration in the final evaluation), attendance is strongly recommended. The more you participate in this course, the more you will reap the benefits of this course.
Contacts
PROFESSOR
Prof. Dr. Laurence DESSART, Professor in Marketing
Email: Laurence.Dessart@uliege.be
ASSISTANT
Jordan FLEISSIG, PhD candidate and teaching assistant in Marketing
Email: jfleissig@uliege.be
Office hours: By appointment only.