marketing B 2B

Type of Assignment

Report

Word Count

2000 (Excluding executive summary, cover page, table of contents and list of References and Appendices.

Weighting

50%

Submission Date

March 9th 2020, via Blackboard by 12:59 (mid-day). The link to submit will open one week before submission.

Introduction

You have been recently recruited as an executive tasked with developing B2B Marketing in a rapidly developing company. Your first task is to show you understand the key role that customers play in B2B marketing as distinct from B2C Marketing. Before you embark on other more critical roles within the company, your manager has identified a number of issues that he would like you to consider.

Your Task

Your first brief in your new position is to write an informative report which will examine the nature of B2B customers and explore ways of monitoring and improving customer satisfaction within your B2B marketing remit.

There are 2 key parts to this assessment

1. Formative Feedback (10%)

· You must prepare for a provisional meeting with your manager (seminar tutor) to debrief him/her/the of your progress on your report (outlined in #2 below).

Submission Requirements

· This is a report: please number the headings and sub-headings: You should use salient headings (numbered) throughout to signpost your work.

· Use 1.5 line spacing.

· Font 11

· Typeface: Tahoma, Arial or Calibri ONLY!

· Please ensure that you include a cover page, a table of contents and an introduction.

· You are encouraged to use some diagrams, (but not too many). Please make sure these are embedded in your assignment. Also, be sure that these are also referenced in the standard Harvard format.

· Please ensure you use Harvard referencing to cite all relevant literature and sources.

· Avoid including unnecessary appendices; marks will be deducted for unnecessary appendices that are not cross referenced in the report body.

· Please make sure you use at least 5 journals of academic research sources , in addition to other core texts, data, and salient uploaded articles on blackboard.

Assessment Criterion for Assignment 1

Weighting

Preliminary meeting with your manager.

10%

Executive summary.

10%

Differences between B2B & B2C.

10%

Customer journey map and key touchpoints.

35%

Ways of enhancing the BB customer experience.

25%

Structure, clarity & presentation of work.

10%

Type of Assignment

Report

Word Count

2000 words (excluding executive summary, list of references and appendices)

Weighting

50%

Submission Date

April 23rd 2020, via Blackboard by 12:59 (mid-day). The link to submit will open one week before submission.

Introduction

IKEA has recently eyed the B2B market as an area with potential growth opportunities. Specifically, they have identified a range of small business industries with potential for growth in sales of a range of their products.

You have been recently recruited as an executive at IKEA tasked with developing B2B Marketing within the company.

As part of your brief, you are required to visit the IKEA store in Greenwich to examine the range of products they offer for specific small business types. From this, you will select a specific business area for which you will develop a B2B Marketing plan.

Your Task

Focusing on the UK market only, your outline brief for this task is as follows:

There are 2 key parts to this assessment as follows:

1. Formative Feedback (10%)

· You must prepare for a provisional meeting with your manager (seminar tutor) to debrief him/her/the of your progress with your IKEA B2B Marketing Plan. (outlined in #2 below).

· Your de-brief will last no more than 10 minutes and within this time you will have the opportunity to seek further guidance at this meeting (Formative feedback).

· For this meeting, your manager will expect a clear structure and summarised content on 1 printed A4 page [footnoteRef:4]. You may also present other information if you have time so long as it is in hard copy. [4: The Printed A4 sheet should be typed in 1.5 line spacing in font size 11, typeface Arial, Calibri or Tahoma. It should be NO longer than 1 A4 page. You should add your reference list on the reverse side of the page. .]

· If you have your Marketing Plan at an advanced draft stage, we are happy to have a cursory look at it to check for general content, structure and possible glaring areas for improvement within the allocated time. However, please note that we will only do this if it is printed out in hard copy. We will not have time to read whole drafts.

· Your meeting will be on either March 31st or April 7th : (Please see Announcements on Blackboard regarding this)

· You should include this A4 Sheet as Appendix 1 to your final submission. Please note, this is not the same as your executive summary.

2. Prepare a marketing plan to cover the following areas:

a) Identify the key macro drivers affecting the B2B sector in your selected sector. Please do not use PEST for this. (10%) (250 words)

b) Analyse the core existing and emerging competitors in your selected sector using 4-5 years statistics to identify key trends in the industry coupled with the various strengths and weaknesses of the competitors. Please do not use Porters 5 forces model for this analysis. (20%) (500 words)

c) Based on your research, identify and justify your key B2B segment to target for IKEA. (10%) (250 words)

d) Identify your product & pricing strategy for your selected segment. (10%) (250 words)

e) Develop a promotional/communication strategy aimed at increasing awareness, developing leads and driving B2B sales for your chosen segment for IKEA. Include an array of justified promotional tools to reach your target B2B segment. (Please be sure to include academic justification of your chosen promotional methods).You should also include some costings and these should be based on your research taking due care to reference the sources of your costings. In addition, you should align your selected promotional tool with the AIDA framework and identify which element of the DMU it will target. Finally, you should include a detailed Gant chart which summarises your promotional plan which should be for one full year, starting from July 2020 (30%) (750 words)

f) To assist your busy manager, you should include a clear succinct executive summary [footnoteRef:5] in your Marketing Plan. [5: THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR THIS MARKETIN PLAN: Situated just inside the cover page and before the table of contents (but not included in the table of contents). This should be one entire page written in font 11, 1.5 line spacing, and typeface Tahoma, Calibri or Arial. It should be made up of 4/5 clearly separated paragraphs. Your first paragraph should briefly outline the aims or objectives of the report. Paragraphs 2 should outline succinctly the key macro and competitive issues. Paragraph 3 should outline the key recommended segment with brief justification, and your product and pricing strategy approach & justification. The fourth paragraph should detail the key promotional strategy recommendations with 1 to 2 general concluding sentences. There should be NO references cited in an executive summary. There should be no bullet points in an executive summary. Failure to include an executive summary will mean your grade for Presentation/Structure/Clarity & Executive summary will be capped at a maximum of 4/10.]

Submission Requirements

· Use 1.5 line spacing,

· Font 11

· Typeface: Tahoma, Arial or Calibri ONLY!

· Please ensure that you include a cover page, executive summary, a table of contents and a brief introduction. You should use salient headings (numbered) throughout to signpost your work.

· You are encouraged to use some diagrams, but please make sure these are embedded in your assignment and that their contents are referenced accordingly using the Harvard Referencing System.

· Please ensure you use Harvard referencing to cite all relevant literature and sources.

· Avoid including unnecessary appendices; marks will be deducted for unnecessary appendices that are not cross referenced in the report body.

· Please make sure you use salient academic literature and other industry research to support your Marketing Plan.

· You will be rewarded for excel compiled diagrams which illustrate detail and help you reduce word count. Please ensure that you standardise all excel created charts and diagrams whilst referencing appropriately.

· As this is a marketing plan, you should aim for it to be more visual: diagrams, tables, etc., as this will help you reduce actual word count. In addition management prefer more visual reports compared to long over- text based reports.

· However, you will be penalised for the use of cut and paste charts which you could have standardised using excel.

The structure of your Plan should be as follows:

Cover Page

Executive summary

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Analysis of Macro Drivers

3.0 Competitive analysis

4.0 Segmentation analysis

5.0 Product & Pricing

6.0 Promotional Strategy

6.1 Etc…Use a Sub heading for each promotion activity and your final sub heading should indicate a Tabularised Summary of Promotional Plan

List of References

Appendix 1: A4 Document Submitted on Preliminary Meeting

Note: In addition to the above structure, you should also use numbered sub-headings where appropriate.

Assessment criteria for Assignment 2

Weighting

Preliminary meeting with your manager

10%

Macro Drivers

10%

Market Intelligence

20%

Identify Key segments

10%

Product & Pricing Strategy

10%

Promotional strategy.

30%

Presentation, Clarity, Structure & Executive Summary

10%

80-100

An outstanding piece of work: All assessment criteria have been met at an exceptionally high standard

· Shows independent reflective thought in relation to task.

· Demonstrates exceptional critical analysis of theories, practices and frameworks.

· Analyses concepts and principles that inform the work.

· Analyses wider context and implications for practice/subject.

· Synthesises research across a range of sources.

· Demonstrates exemplary communication excellent presentation of format used.

70-79

An excellent piece of work: All assessment criteria have been met at a high standard.

· Demonstrates critical and reflective analysis of theories, practices and frameworks from the module.

· Applies a range of competing concepts and principles.

· Analyses wider context and implications for practice/subject.

· Provides evidence of substantial research across a range of sources.

· Communicates effectively with excellent presentation of format used.

60-69

A good piece of work: All assessment criteria have been met at a good standard.

· Analyses theories, practices and frameworks presented on the module.

· Applies key concepts and principles reflectively.

· Identifies important aspects of wider context and implications for practice/subject.

· Undertakes own research and evaluation of sources to inform enquiry.

· Communicates effectively using appropriate format and presentation.

50-59

A sound piece of work: All assessment criteria have clearly been met.

· Uses appropriately theories, practices and frameworks presented on the module.

· Demonstrates clear understanding and reflection on key concepts and principles.

· Demonstrates limited understanding of wider context and implications for practice/subject.

· Undertakes own research to inform task/enquiry.

· Communicates work using appropriate format with some weaknesses of presentation.

40-49

An adequate piece of work: All assessment criteria have just been met.

· Describes accurately a range of theories, practices and frameworks presented on the module.

· Demonstrates adequate understanding of key concepts and principles.

· Undertakes additional research from sources provided within the module.

· Communicates work using appropriate format with some weaknesses of presentation.

30-39

FAIL: An inadequate piece of work: One or more relevant assessment criteria are not met

· Describes theories, practices and frameworks presented on the module with some weaknesses/omissions.

· Applies key concepts/principles with some weaknesses.

· Uses a minimal amount of relevant information provided within the module.

· Communicates using appropriate format with significant weaknesses in presentation.

0-29

FAIL: A poor piece of work: Most of the relevant assessment criteria area not been met.

· Describes theories, practices and frameworks presented on the module with significant inaccuracies and/or misunderstandings.

· Demonstrates omissions and very limited understanding of key concepts and principles.

· Uses insufficient/inadequate information sources.

· Communicates ineffectually with a very poor standard of presentation.