Subject Code & title : MARK3082 Marketing
Assignment Type : Essay
Weighting: 40% of your total course mark (10% Proposal, 30% Report)
Length: approx 1,500 words +/- 10%.
Format: 1500 words +/-10%, must be 1.5 line spaced, 2.5 cm margins, 12 Point font (Times New Roman or Arial), footer must have zID and page numbers
PLUS 1-page info graphic for the client organisation
The word count excludes the title page, table of contents, list of references and any appendices.
MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

Description:
Select an organisation in which you are interested and on which you can find substantial amounts of information. This may be where you would like to work after graduation or an organisation that has been in the news recently. This firm should not be based in your home country. You should identify this organisation by Week 3 and gain approval from your tutor before continuing.

In Week 5 you will submit a brief proposal for your Project. This should identify your focus organisation, outline the current circumstances impacting marketing for the organisation (internal/external), and identify at least one marketing problem facing the organisation. This should be no more than 2 pages, excluding references, using standard formatting as indicated above.

Analysis Report :
Your aim is to develop a marketing project and submit an analysis summary report in Week 11. There is no fixed format for the report as all projects will be different, however, a detailed description of a suggested structure and content of this Report is available in the Assessments tab in Moodle.

Your report should include the following:
1.You should clearly identify a marketing problem. There are many factors that can cause a marketing problem including new competitors, new regulation, new technology, product crisis, emerging markets, sustainability concerns, and input cost increases. You should clearly explain why your firm’s marketing team need to develop a new marketing strategy to manage the problem. You should consider multiple factors influencing their decisions.

2.Given your marketing problem, you should clearly define your objectives, e.g., increasing sales, securing market share, improving brand image, increasing customer satisfaction, developing a new product or a new distribution strategy. You may consider multiple goals, but all must be clearly related to your identified problem. A detailed description of a suggested structure and content of this Report is available in the Assessments tab in Moodle.

3.Provide a plan of action. Given your marketing problem and goal, you should analyse the organisation and its environment and suggest a feasible strategy that can solve your problem and achieve your goal. You should clearly justify why your suggested strategy will work.

MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

You will also need to create an info graphic for the client as an arte fact of your ideas. This should be attached to your Project report and submitted within that document. See additional resources in Moodle for the purpose and structure of good info graphics.

Report structure :

1.Definition :
Make a brief statement of business definition for the organisation.
This statement should define the scope of business opportunities (products and markets) that the organisation would consider serving. It should also outline the scope of “technologies” used to serve these (such as, for instance, service production, distribution, development, manufacturing, etc.).

2.Objectives :
Make a clear statement of corporate objectives, business unit objectives (if
applicable) and marketing objectives for the product-market entry on which you are focusing.

These may or may not have formally been stated by management in public.
Nevertheless, you must state objectives that are performance outcomes at one or more relevant levels of analysis. Marketing objectives, in particular, can include either dimensions or indicators of a) sales growth, b) market share, and/or c) profitability or potential profitability. Note that share objectives must be used only at a coherent and well-defined product market level. It is best to state multiple objectives that are also reasonable ones. The general marketing objectives stated in this section should be clearly achievable with the plan considered in your subsequent analysis.

Consider using the SMART concept in developing and stating your objectives.

3.Situation Analysis :
The next step is to conduct a formal diagnostic situation analysis. This is perhaps the most important element in developing a plan for marketing strategy and strategic marketing management. It is also most prone to deficiencies. The situation analysis must be diagnostic. Simply stating facts is not an analysis.

A diagnostic situation analysis should add value for informed management. The various texts noted in the Assessments/Resources section on Moodle discuss at length a variety of situational factors and dimensions to consider. The lectures in Weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 consider a number of internal and external situational factors. It is important to be selective in analysing such situational factors. That is, only appropriate factors and dimensions should be considered. These must ultimately be useful for the selection of product markets in which to compete, the assessment of management’s ability to achieve various marketing performance objectives for their entries in these product markets, and, ultimately, the selection of marketing strategies and strategic marketing plans for these various product market entries. Analysis that does not guide such decision-making is superfluous. Internal analysis
can include not only the corporate and business unit strategy contexts, but also the full range of functional and inter-functional resources, structures, and processes that might be relevant and useful for such a diagnosis. In general, it will probably be useful to at least consider the following modes of analysis:

MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

1. Analysis of product/service performance and portfolio situation
2. Industry and competitive analysis (including life cycle, competitive intensity analysis, and competitive positioning)
3.Analysis of customer markets and market structures
4. Analysis of cost structures and cost dynamics
5. Analysis of channels and business partners

In particular, do not apply frameworks such as SWOT or PESTLE without careful thought and explicit interpretation. Often a SWOT analysis contains a certain amount of vagueness and can have little relation to the decision at hand or the stated performance objectives. There is no diagnostic value in simply listing all possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats without explanation and justification. It is better to select the most important situational factors and explain these in depth. A PESTLE analysis, on its own, can have little value, unless the performance outcome for your plan is highly dependent on macro political, economic, social or technological developments. There is no value in doing any analysis for its own sake. It must be related explicitly to stated objectives and strategic choices. Environmental elements, in themselves, may not be relevant
unless there is some reason for analysing them (e.g., volatility, turbulence, or complexity due to diversity.)

Situation analysis can be both qualitative and quantitative. Since all situation analysis must be diagnostic and assist decision making, it is best to go back and check your analysis after you have developed action plans and plan evaluations to make sure of its usefulness and its consistency with overall stated objectives. To repeat: it is better to be selective, focused, and complete in your explanations than to attempt to exhaustively address all possible situational factors in a superficial manner. You must justify and explain every situational factor you choose to identify. Thus, the safe rule is: explain it or delete it.

4. Marketing strategy :
This section will present and evaluate your marketing strategy and strategic
marketing plan. This plan must be complete in all relevant elements and be both reasonable and feasible. It is important that your plan be distinct from the current strategy being pursued by the organisation. Each plan must contain the following elements:

a) identify product markets to be pursued
b) establish marketing performance objectives for each product market
c) establish marketing strategies for each product market entry
d) develop a basic strategic marketing plan outlining the roles and plans for the relevant elements of the marketing mix.

In evaluating a plan, you should consider its implement ability in terms of the marketing mix. Part “c,” marketing strategies for product market entries, should emphasise the source of sales that achieves the sought after objective: this source could be current customers, competitors’ customers, new-to-market customers,previous customers, suppliers, distributors, etc. These marketing strategies should also identify the target market(s) to be pursued and the process of maintaining or increasing sales growth, market share, or profitability: retention via relationship marketing, cross selling with complementary lines, etc.

MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

The evaluation of the several options for marketing strategies must be comparative and balanced. Subject to the availability of data and the reasonableness of assumptions, a comparative quantitative analysis of plans is often useful. The advantages and the disadvantages of each plan must be considered.

5.Conclusion :
You must clearly highlight your preferred plan from the options you have just evaluated. Justify your recommendation by stating how you believe its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. Develop a coherent and logical argument. Be sure to note trade-offs, sacrifices, or limitations to your recommendation. That is a matter of managerial responsibility. Do not ask for additional information or avoid making a decision. Do not “ice the cake” by adding extra actions and implementation details at this point. Make sure you have included all plan elements in the original statements of your alternatives and that these have gone through the same rigorous evaluation
process as all other action elements of plans.

Info graphic :
Info graphics are graphic visual representations of data that are intended to present complex information quickly and clearly. The aim of this document is to provide a quick visual overview of key elements of your report. This might include:

MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

Content
i. Appropriate details support main idea
ii. Accurate and detailed information
iii. Information adequately supports purpose of visual

Focus
1. Topic and title clear and easily identified
2. Main idea is clearly appropriate to topic
3. All illustrations complement purpose of visual

Visual Appeal
 Outstanding use of colour, design, and space
 Original and creative design
 Overall design is pleasing and harmonious

Mechanics
 Free of grammatical errors
 Words are legible and pertinent to topic
 Accurate referencing

Sources and Resources :
Note: For this assignment you should obtain publicly available information to document your analysis. You are not required to personally contact any organisation or industry association.

MARK3082 Marketing Essay – Australia’s Global University.

The sources you use for this project should be reliable and referenced
comprehensively. Do not get frustrated if the material you seek is not available in a simple search of online sources such as company websites or from a simple key word search. You should be creative and seek information as broadly as you can from publicly available databases and other secondary sources. You may need to make assumptions, and this is appropriate as long as you state that you are doing so and support them as much as possible. Some useful sources of information are linked under the Assessment tab on our Moodle site.