Reference no: EM132014223

Marketing Management Assignment -

ASSESSMENT 1: CASE ANALYSIS REPORT

The goal of case analysis is to allow you to consolidate what you have learned in the class and from the book chapters and to apply the knowledge in a written analysis of a real world case. This is an individual assessment. For this assessment you should focus on the core issues underlying the case and illustrate the analysis with appropriate and relevant arguments, logic and theoretical frameworks to demonstrate your mastery and knowledge of the case subject matter and alignment with the chapter topics. Background research, analysing the case based on unit relevant topics, models and frameworks as well as strong arguments backed up by credible and relevant data and facts will be crucial in achieving a good mark. In constructing the case analysis, a report format is preferably advised over an essay format.

Case: Health Care Tourism

Review the case and based on your chapter learning and topics covered in weeks 1, 2 and 3, answer the following questions.

Q1. Which kind of hotel manager do you agree with-the ones that do not wish to limit themselves given their business is good for all three segments of travelers, or the London firm and its approach? Why? (approximately 500 words).

Q2. If you wish to follow the first strategy (all customers could benefit), what would your marketing communications be to the end-user patient-customer? If you followed the second strategy, what would your marketing communications look like? (approximately 500 words).

Generic Guidelines for Case Analysis

• A case is a scenario that gives you the opportunity to identify problems and recommend a course of action in a business situation. The case may be real or fictional, but will usually represent a complex situation with no ready solutions. Case analysis enables you to improve your critical thinking and analytical abilities, evaluate sources of information and enhance your written communication skills. Written analysis of cases is widely used in major business schools around the world. In constructing this case analysis, a report format is preferably advised over an essay format.
• The case analysis has a relatively short word limit which will be strictly enforced. Going over the word limit will have a negative impact on marking. The intention is to focus your write-up on strategic analysis and analytical recommendations. The one thing to avoid is simple restatement of case data and facts. What we are looking for is strategic insight supported by logical analysis based on your learning from the lectures and tutorials. Your analysis should be compact, specific, context specific, relevant and directly pertinent to key case questions.
• The details of the case are more than sufficient for you to respond to the given questions and you can do your further background research if you require. The case analysis can include references from peer reviewed academic journals, textbooks, business magazines, industry whitepapers, newspapers, credible and reliable websites and marketing textbooks to confirm the strength and quality of your work and analysis. It is expected that students will utilize at-least 3 references for their analysis.

While analysing any business case one should consider the following

- Identify the problem(s) in the situation presented in the scenario

- Analyse the key issues within the context of the theory and concepts presented in your chapters

- Evaluate similar examples and strategy used by various company's/organizations

- Develop and compare alternative solutions to the problems

- Consider the advantages and disadvantages of various possible solutions or outcomes

- Select the best solution, justify your reasons and make recommendations for action

- Conduct background research in finding out updates in the strategy and outcomes that have happened since the period of the case for the selected company/organisation

- Appropriate analysis, evaluation, synthesis of key facts and contexts

- Proper grammar, professional writing, format and style

ASSESSMENT 2: PRESENTATIONS

This assessment component involves a seminar presentation on a set marketing topic by a group. The group will also need to submit a short topic brief on the marketing topic along with their presentation.

The Marketing Topic

• The marketing topics for the presentation are key and influential 'buzzwords' that is widely used in the corporate world. Based on the relevancy with the unit contents and learning objectives, the marketing buzzwords have been sourced from various industry reports and whitepapers, textbooks, academic journals, marketing reports and debates, expert opinions etc.
• Attempt has been taken to broadly align the marketing buzzwords with the lecture topic for each week. There is very low probability that one may find all of the selected marketing "buzzwords" topics in a typical marketing textbook as they are very contemporary and holistic in nature. This assessment opens up the opportunity to bring these contemporary concepts into our seminar discussion.
• This is a group presentation (3 members per group). The lecturer will randomly allocate students into groups of 3 members and the topics will also be assigned randomly to each group by week 2 or 3. The presentations will be made between weeks 5 and 10.

The "Pecha-Kucha" Seminar Presentation

• Students will be required to make a Pecha-Kucha style of presentation on a marketing 'buzzword' topic during the weekly seminar. For this topic, a presentation effectively involves a 6 to 10 minute presentation with maximum 3 slides. The topic is presented in images rather than words or text slides. No presentation headline or slide text is used. No video clips are allowed in the presentation.
• Creativity, inventiveness and thinking out of the box will significantly impact on the quality of the presentation. While a significant amount of research and thinking occurs prior to the presentation, the presentation is quick - to the point - and engages the audience. The following links are useful.
• The Pecha-Kucha style of presentation is constructed of images. The images chosen should reinforce the ideas. Try to find images which are illustrations or metaphors of your key points and/or use words-as-image. This makes delivery of your presentation much easier, as you're not trying to race through a list of points. You can take or use your own pictures to illustrate your point. The following link is useful.
• Team members are expected to make equitable contribution to the presentation and topic brief. All team members have to equally present the Pecha-Kucha presentation. Individual performances will be evaluated.
• Groups will need to provide the references used to construct the ideas and discussions in the presentation. The references should be provided in the last slide as a reference list. The discussions and references would be similar to the topic brief (discussed below).
• While doing your research for your topic please keep in mind that you are to source credible, reliable, relevant, factual and recent information from online business news and information sources, company reports and websites, industry whitepapers, business magazines, expert opinions, marketing textbooks, academic journals and suggested additional readings as an evidence to substantiate your illustrations, thoughts and arguments. Please avoid unknown and un-reliable online websites as well as commentary and opinion from unknown and non-expert commentators and personal blogs. Although Wikipedia is a great source, students are advised not to refer or cite it because it is a reader-produced encyclopaedia with a probable lack of accuracy or completeness of entries on a lot of cases. When evaluating sources always consider why and how is it relevant to your analysis; why and how does it matter to your analysis; and how it can add value to your analysis.

The Topic Brief

• The topic brief for this assessment refers to a short 2 page document which gives the reader a quick overview of the marketing topic presented. The topic brief may include definitions, why it matters, how it is used, best practice examples, debates surrounding the topic, positive/negative criticisms, etc. For clarity and illustration purposes groups can complement the topic brief with relevant models, frameworks and images as they see fit. It is expected that the topic brief discussions will be presented in the Pecha-kucha presentation. There is no set or ideal format for developing the topic brief, but the advice is to structure it in a manner which will allow the reader to have a quick and reasonable understanding of the topic and that the brief it could be used as a reference document for the topic.
• Groups are advised to be creative in structuring their information as it is short document. It is expected that topic briefs will be different between groups. Each group has the freedom to construct the brief in a manner that is useful and informative. For example, tables can be used to concise information. Merely filling up the two pages with oversized pictures, tables or frameworks to cover up the space will lower the overall quality of the topic brief.
• For the topic brief it is important that groups follow proper referencing and in-text citation rules. References can be part of the two pages or groups can organize the references in page 3. Please refrain from filling up page space with a detailed reference list. Discussions and examples for the concept topics may be sourced from textbooks, industry reports, whitepapers, reliable websites, journal articles etc. Absence of references will have a negative impact on the overall quality of the topic brief.
• You will be provided with a blank 2 page template for the Topic Brief. Groups are advised to submit and share this 2 page brief with the class before their presentations.

The following table lists the tentative topic schedule for the Pecha-Kucha presentation for each week. Each group will be presenting only one topic. The same topic cannot be presented by both groups. Topics will be assigned on a first come first serve basis.

ASSESSMENT 3: MARKETING PLAN

A Marketing Plan provides a vision and strategy proposal to position a business or product or service in the marketplace. The right marketing plan identifies who the target customers are, how to reach them, what strategies to use, and how to retain your customers over time. This assessment involves the preparation of a marketing plan based on the marketing activities of a selected company.

1. This is a group project (3 to 4 members per group) and the marketing plan effectively needs to be developed throughout the semester. For the project, your group can choose any one of the local businesses (or a product or service of that business) from the following and identify a marketing challenge and/or opportunity of interest for the company.

1. Destination NSW 2. Victoria University- Sydney 3. The Cupcake Factory 4. Telecom companies (Optus or VodaFone) 5. Actual Project

Under Actual Project, if you are working in an organization or have access to organization insights and resources and would prefer to undertake this piece of assessment on that organization you may do so. However, you will be required to have written permission from senior management within the organization. Please speak with the unit coordinator if you are planning to do any actual projects.

Time to time, we may also have actual projects from interested industry partners who would allow our student groups to gain hands on experience through developing strategies and solutions on projects of their own. The unit coordinator will notify you of any such available projects. Please speak with your unit coordinator if you know of any companies who would want to participate in such class projects.

2. The assessment is a group project and 3 to 4 students are allowed to form a single group. Ideally would be to have 3 members per group, but based on class size and special cases, the lecturer will have the final say for group formations. Groups and their preferred marketing plan companies will have to be finalized by week 3. Team members are expected to make equitable contribution to the completion of the report. Teams are strongly advised to contact the lecturer/tutor at the earliest for any major issues or concerns with the team members. Team conflicts should be mitigated between the group members as it is a part of the learning process. "Free-riders" will be dealt on a case by case basis and will have a negative impact on his/her assessment grade.

3. There are various templates and models of marketing plan available in various textbooks, industry whitepapers, Internet resources, journal articles etc. Effectively they all cover the same core concepts and topics in various orders. To have a structured and unified guide for developing a marketing plan as well aligning the core topics of a plan with the unit contents and discussion, we will follow Chapter 17 from Dawn Iacobucci's text book which solely focuses on developing a Marketing Plan. Students are strongly advised to follow this chapter contents and the marketing plan guidelines and structures to complete this assessment task. The assessment evaluation and marking criteria will be based on the marketing plan framework discussed in the unit.

4. The following sections are required for the marketing plan. The detailed content and requirements of sections A, C, D, E and G are elaborated in Chapter 17 from Dawn Iacobucci's textbook. Groups can also utilize guidelines and strategies from textbooks, best practices and external resources to the complement the section requirements. The expected details for each of the sections will vary based on the nature of business, competitive environment, product/service strategy, availability of information and analytical capability of the group. Please review the mark weightings (in the evaluation criteria) assigned to each of the sections to construct your report accordingly.

Section -

A. Executive Summary

B. Marketing Plan Objective

C. Situation Analysis (5Cs)

D. Market Analysis and Strategies (STP)

E. Tactical Plans (4Ps)

F. Conclusion

G. Appendices

5. The word limit for the whole report will be strictly enforced. Make effective use of tables and charts to portray detailed information in brief. Use appendix for any additional analysis, exhibits etc. Refer to the marking criteria for the relative weight and sub-topics for each of the major sections for the marketing plan.

6. The marketing plan should include a minimum of 3 (three) references from textbooks and peer-reviewed academic journals and an additional minimum of 7 (seven) relevant references from business magazines, industry whitepapers, company reports, credible and reliable websites, online business news and information sources, and marketing textbooks to confirm the strength and quality of information and analysis. Please avoid unknown and un-reliable online websites as well as commentary and opinion from unknown and non-expert commentators and personal blogs. Although Wikipedia is a great source, students are advised not to refer or cite it because it is a reader-produced encyclopaedia with a probable lack of accuracy or completeness of entries on a lot of cases. When evaluating sources always consider why and how is it relevant to your analysis; why and how does it matter to your analysis; and how it can add value to your analysis.

7. This is a post-graduate unit. Therefore, demonstration of highly developed analytical skills in expression, presentation and writing is expected. Poorly constructed report with lack of clarity in meaning, referencing, weak arguments, grammar and formatting issues, etc. will lower the overall quality of the report.

Attachment:- Assignment File.rar