Marketing fundamentals workshop for agricultural service centers
The training session on Marketing fundamentals for Service, Training and Innovation Centres (STICs), focusing on five specialized sectors: Potatoes, Dairy, Poultry, Horticulture, and Agritourism was successfully concluded in the first week of May. Thes training was hosted at the Integrated Polytechnic Regional College (IPRC) Karongi along beautiful Lake Kivu on the western border of Rwanda.
Led by Oliver Olson, MSM’s Senior Lecturer of Marketing and Strategy, the 3-day workshop offered an intensive curriculum covering fundamental marketing principles for today’s dynamic agricultural market to 22 participants.
This important workshop was a follow-up to the Strategic Planning workshop held by Mr. Olson in 2023 in the capital of Kigali with the same stakeholders of these five important STICs. In 2023, the participants not only finalized a strategic plan for each of their organizations, they also learned valuable skills on how to continually maintain and update their strategies to align with internal and external realities. In these most recent sessions in May 2024, the strategies developed in 2023 were operationalized with marketing plans that will be immediately useful for their day-to-day operations.
The primary goal of the training was to equip the STICs with the skills necessary to enhance the visibility of each center and effectively market their diverse agricultural products and services. The session emphasized the importance of designing marketing strategies to navigate the competitive agricultural sector.
Participants explored key concepts such as the customer value equation to understand market needs and developed tailored value propositions for the various agricultural sectors. The marketing mix was also explored as a tool to foster communication with their customer base. Finally, the training also included sessions on customer segmentation, positioning, and targeting to refine the STICs’ marketing strategies.
The workshop concluded with a practical exercise in which all participants developed a comprehensive marketing plan, synthesizing the concepts and strategies explored during the sessions. These plans are intended to steer the STICs towards more effective market engagement and sustainable business growth.
All of these trainings and workshops evolve from the master’s level courses delivered by MSM which build on MSM’s more than 70 years of experience in the realities of running successfully organizations in the Global South, the Global North and (most importantly) the intersection between the two.
Orange Knowledge Programme
This project is part of the Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) which is funded by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by Nuffic. For more information click here.
MSM's Expert Centre on Emerging Economies
This institutional collaboration project is part of MSM's Expert Centre on Emerging Economies. The department is an expert centre on local economic development in emerging and developing markets. We capacitate managers and professionals from government, private sector, NGOs, and post-secondary education in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. We offer consultancy and customized training programs, and we manage complex projects in key sectors, e.g. water, agriculture and health. For more information click here.
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