Strategic Marketing - Marketing Audit

Main Objective of the assessment

The individual coursework aims to assess the understanding of the role of marketing audit in the strategic marketing planning process and the ability to make recommendations for changes and innovations based on a comprehensive and fact-driven evaluation of the organizational context and past marketing activities.

Description of the Assessment

You are to assume the role of an independent marketing analyst or consultant, hired by an organization to write a marketing audit report. This organization can be chosen from the following sectors:

• A U.K.-based business school (e.g., Brunel Business School etc.). 


• A local government’s tourist authority (e.g., Canadian Tourism Commission, British Tourist Authority, Japan National Tourism Organization, Singapore 
 Tourism Board, etc.). 


• Internet providers (e.g., TalkTalk). 


Marketing audit is the systematic examination of a business’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities, with a view to identifying key strategic issues, problem areas, and opportunities. The marketing audit provides the basis for developing a plan of action to improve marketing performance. It should provide answers to the questions: “Where are we now?”, “Where do we want to be?”, “How will we get there?” and “Did we get there?”

In this coursework, the marketing audit performed on this chosen brand/ organization may lead to a diagnosis of its current competitive position and recommendations to improve its competitive position in the market.

The marketing audit report should be entirely based on secondary information such as reliable public sources, trade magazines and business publications, company websites, library databases etc. Primary research is not essential. Your report must include the following components and fully address these questions:

Report Structure: The report should contain the following sections:

CBASS electronic coursework coversheet (add a line “Word count: x,xxx”) 
 A title (no more than 25 words) 
 Executive summary (no more than 1 page)

Table of contents 
 Introduction 
 Strategic environment analysis 


External environment 
 Market/customer analysis (e.g., describe the consumption trend and discuss the major threats and/or opportunities in your sector.) ! Competitor analysis.You may try to benchmark the organization’s offering sagains to ther key players in the market, and then produce 
 a positioning map for the key players in this market. o

Internal environment: Company analysis 
 A SWOT table as a summary of above strategic environment analysis 
 Strategic fit analysis 
 Strategic decisions and choices 
 Clearly state the objectives of there positioning effort in a SMART way. 
 Recommend an ideal and realistic repositioning and propose a unique selling proposition. 
 Provide a marketing plan and discuss the details of development and implementation, such as marketing activities, with a specific timescale. 


Conclusion 
 References 
 Appendix (optional) 
 Note: Only the text after Table of Contents and before References are counted toward the maximum word limit. The report should not exceed 2,000 words.

Additional guidelines

You are expected to apply appropriate theories/concepts and justify the application within your context. 
 You are expected to build arguments based on factual sources. You must reference your sources effectively and comprehensively.

Referencing should follow the Harvard referencing system. 
 Limit the use of direct quotations; avoid the use of online study guides and essay banks as references.

Typographic guidance:

Body text: Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri, 11 point, justified. 
 Headings: Arial, Times New Roman, or Calibri, 11 points minimum. 
 Page setup: A4, normal margins, single line spacing. Pages must be numbered. 
 Graphs, charts and tables must have proper titles and clearly numbered.