Background to the Assessment

The aim of this project is to identify strategic marketing opportunities of an organisation, and develop a marketing plan for one of the strategic options. You can select any organisation of your choice. It is strongly recommended that you use the same organisation for Assessment 1 and Assessment 3, so read the brief for Assessment 3 before selecting an organisation.

Furthermore in making a choice you should bear in mind:
â€¢ you will be assessed on your ability to apply concepts from this unit, and
â€¢ you need to be able to obtain sufficient current information to provide a comprehensive evaluation of their current marketing strategy.

Referencing should be included where appropriate in your assignments to acknowledge relevant information. The required referencing format is the Harvard style â€“ see the MySCU site for information on how to apply this style of referencing in your assignments.

Assessment 1: Report (Strategic Marketing Options)

For this assignment, you are required to outline and discuss the strategic options available to an organisation of your choice. If you choose a large organisation, you may then want to do this in relation to a specific product line or particular service. If you have chosen a smaller organisation, you may prefer to focus on their overall offering.

Based on your analysis you are asked to consider alternatives for future marketing success and to outline your recommendations. Using the concepts from Topics 1 and 2, you need to address the following:
1) Introduce the business, its mission statement and product(s).
2) Present a comprehensive situation analysis which should include:
â€¢ Macro environment analysis: an analysis of the environmental forces that may impact the business.
â€¢ Micro environment analysis: an analysis of the market they currently operate in 3) Present a SWOT analysis â€“ as a summary of your situation analysis.
4) Now define â€˜the problemâ€™ that your organisation faces in terms of â€˜where do they go from here?â€™
5) Use Ansoffâ€™s Matrix to help you identify strategic alternatives for the future â€“ that will solve the problem. Evaluate these.
6) Make a recommendation, based on the above evaluation, of which of Ansoffâ€™s four options you believe the organisation should pursue â€“ to solve the problem. Support your recommendation with rationale. Outline briefly your recommendations for implementation (next steps).

To support your analysis you are required to submit at least four different items of current (i.e. the last 12 months) marketing material relevant to the business and/or product. So for example: a copy of a web page, a media release, product or packaging information, an advertisement, a survey and so on.

These should, of course, be addressed as part of your analysis. They should also be included as an Appendix to your assignment (not part of the word limit).

Guidance for handling case studies

The brief of your Assessment replicates the steps in analysing a case study. A case study should be considered as analogous to a realâ€“world situation, where you are asked to investigate a â€˜problemâ€™ and then to solve it by making recommendations for future action. You may perhaps envisage that you are acting in the role of a â€˜consultantâ€™.

Firstly you need to analyse the current situation, to understand the key issues and contributing factors, so that you can clearly define the problem, as opposed to symptoms of the problem.

Next, you have to solve the problem by identifying alternative courses of action, evaluating these and then making specific recommendations. More specifically a logical approach to handling a case study follows six steps:

1) Problem discovery: We have a â€˜problemâ€™; it is recommended that you discover the problem in broad terms at the outset (leaving problem definition to later).
2) Situation analysis: Analyse the current situation, concluding with a SWOT as a summary of your analysis.
3) Problem definition: Make a succinct statement of â€˜the problemâ€™ that the organisation faces and you are now going to solve.
4) Identification of alternatives and evaluation of these: Identify three or four (or more as appropriate) alternative courses of action; evaluate each, listing the pluses and minuses.
5) Recommendations: Make your recommendations from the alternatives and support your recommendations with rationale â€“ the â€˜whyâ€™.
6) Implementation: Discuss briefly any implementation issues (e.g. timing, resources) pertinent to your recommendations.

Academics and authors may differ in their approach to case study. If you refer to your Introduction to Study and Writing Skills booklet youâ€™ll see a slightly different approach in terms of steps and sequencing. There is no one best way to analyse a case â€“ the important thing is to have a logical, structured approach and to ensure linkage between the different steps. Some further tips for handling case studies:
â€¢ Analyse rather than describe. You need to present an analysis/evaluation. You need to identify the key issues. You need to decide what is the most important and relevant information.
â€¢ Use â€˜evidenceâ€™ to support your analysis and subsequent recommendations; analysis evidence can often be succinctly (well) presented as tables/charts/graphs.
â€¢ Use your analysis in your evaluation and recommendations and support your recommendations with rationale (the â€˜why?â€™). There is no one â€˜rightâ€™ answer to a case study and the marker is looking for you to support your opinion â€“ â€˜Have you explained how you came to that conclusion?
â€¢ Your recommendations must come from your alternatives.

Background to the Assessment The aim of this project is to ide...