International Marketing and Sales (IMS)

BPP Coursework Cover Sheet

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Programme MSC Management

Module name International Marketing and Sales (IMS)

Schedule Term October – December 2019

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BPP School of Business and Technology

MSc Management

Internation Marketing and Sales (IMS)

Coursework Assessment Brief

Submission deadline: 25th August 2020 by 23:59

Submission mode: Turnitin online access

1. General Assessment Guidance

 Your summative assessment for this module is made up of this submission which accounts for

100% of the marks

 The deadline for submission is 25th August 2020 by23:59 Please note late submissions will not

be marked.

 You are required to submit all elements of your assessment via Turnitin online access. Only

submissions made via the specified mode will be accepted and hard copies or any other digital

form of submissions (like via email or pen drive etc.) will not be accepted.

 For coursework, the submission word limit is 4,000 words. You must comply with the word count

guidelines. You may submit LESS than 4,000 words but not more. Word Count guidelines can be

found on your programme home page and the coursework submission page.

 Do not put your name or contact details anywhere on your submission. You should only put

your student registration number (SRN) which will ensure your submission is recognised in the

marking process.

 A total of 100 marks are available for this module assessment, and you are required to achieve

minimum 50% to pass this module.

 You are required to use only Harvard Referencing System in your submission. Any content which

is already published by other author(s) and is not referenced will be considered as a case of

plagiarism.

You can find further information on Harvard Referencing in the online library on the VLE. You can

use the following link to access this information: http://bpp.libguides.com/Home/StudySupport

 BPP University has a strict policy regarding authenticity of assessments. In proven instances of

plagiarism or collusion, severe punishment will be imposed on offenders. You are advised to

read the rules and regulations regarding plagiarism and collusion in the GARs and MOPP which

are available on VLE in the Academic registry section.

 You should include a completed copy of the Assignment Cover sheet. Any submission without

this completed Assignment Cover sheet may be considered invalid and not marked.

2. Assessment Outline

MSc Management: International Marketing and Sales

(IMS) Summative Assessment

Assessment background and aims:

Students must achieve a pass in the following element to pass the module, which accounts

for 100% of the module marks. The assignment will take the form of a 3,500 word individual

International Marketing Plan for the international expansion of a company (80% marks) and

a 500 word report on a popular and respected marketing model (20% marks). Thus there

are two tasks that need to be completed as part of the summative brief:

 Task One: You are required to complete a well thought out and justified International

Marketing Plan, which focusses on the practical implementation issues facing the

organisation rather than on repeating the course material and theory. However,

theory should be a foundation which supports and explains why you propose a

particular action. You should remember that this is an advanced (Masters) course

and your plan should reflect this through high standards of detailed content and the

quality of your recommendations which should be fully justified.

The general approach to constructing an International Marketing Plan will be taught

throughout the available teaching sessions using case studies.

 Task Two: A 500 word report on the Uppsala marketing model (refer to the brief

below).

 Assessment brief:

Case Study – PureGym

PureGym is the UK’s leading gym operator providing low-cost fitness facilities across more

than 200 sites.

The business was launched in 2009, introducing a flexible model where members pay an

average £20 per month and have no contract commitment (PureGym 2018). Most of the

gyms are open 24 hours a day and offer a full range of up-to-date cardio fitness equipment,

fixed-resistance and free weights. In addition, members have access to more than 50 group

classes each week included in their fee.

PureGym positions itself as the customers’ gym of choice at the low end of the market. To

this end, PureGym’s facilities only include the essentials: there are no swimming pools or

saunas and no beauty therapy options. (HelloGenious.co.uk)

PureGym focus is a great place to work out. Members will only find the things they’re likely

to use and only pay for those, too. There are no receptionists or sign-up departments.

Instead, PureGym offer online registration and booking service, which gives members 24-

hour access to a gym and none of the extras. Permanent staff numbers are relatively low

and all the Personal Trainers are self-employed.

CEO Humphrey Cobbold, commenting on their current position suggests, “While we may be

leading the market today, we’re not complacent. We know we’re only as good as our

members last visit so every day we try a little harder to be the best.”

To assist you, the details below provide up-to-date information of the UK fitness sector to

enable a better understanding of PureGym’s current operating environment

UK Gym / fitness sector.

Extract from Sportsthinktank.com

The 2019 State of the UK Fitness Industry Report reveals that the UK health and fitness

industry is continuing to strengthen. It has more gyms, more members and a greater market

value than ever before. There are over 7,000 gyms in the UK for the first time, total

membership over 10 million and market value is just under £5 billion. The penetration rate

remains at 15%, so 1 in every 7 people in the UK is a member of a gym.

PureGym and GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd) have strengthened their positions as the UK’s

leading private and public operators (by number of gyms and members). PureGym have

become the first operator to reach 200+ clubs and impressively passed the 1 million

member mark in 2018. GLL, are also likely to break the 200 milestone in 2019.

Commenting on the latest report, David Minton, Director of LeisureDB said: “After being

widely quoted from last year’s report about ‘the golden age of fitness’, I’m sticking to my

prediction that the period up to 2020 remains the time for fitness to continue to break all

barriers.”

Summary of Key Facts

 The number of fitness facilities in the UK is up from 7,038 to 7,200 this year.

 Total membership grew by 10million.

 Total market value increased to £5 billion.

 The UK penetration rate increased to 15.6%.

 215 new fitness facilities opened in the last 12 months.

http://www.sportsthinktank.com/news/2019/05/the-2019-state-of-the-uk-fitness-industry-report

Your Brief

Given the continued competitive and crowded UK market, PureGym has decided to move ahead

with international expansion of their gym and fitness concept.

You are an international marketing consultant who has been appointed by PureGym, and you

are tasked with submitting a proposal to explore the potential for expansion overseas in a

country of your choice.

You must choose a country into which they might expand, a recommendation that must be fully

justified, and then write a report that presents a detailed marketing plan explaining how

PureGym might launch themselves into that market. You should look objectively at the

marketing issues that they might need to address.

You should assume that you are undertaking this work to be submitted to CEO Humphrey

Cobbold.

Note: You must agree your choice of market with your module tutor.

Task One: You are an international marketing consultant who has been appointed by PureGym.

As the UK market is increasingly competitive, PurGeym has decided to expand internationally.

You have been asked by PureGym to put together a detailed marketing plan that explains the

process of implementation. The stipulated strategic timescale is three years whilst the tactical

timeframe is 12 months, as all tactical activity will be reviewed at the end of that 12 month

period.

Your plan must be presented in the form of a written report and must cover the following

areas:

The Marketing Plan (Max 3,500 words)

1.1. The Value Proposition

1.2. Key findings, challenges and opportunities

1.3. Marketing Objectives

1.4. Strategic Marketing

1.5. Marketing Tactics, both Traditional and Digital

1.6. Action plan, Budgets and Financials

1.7. Ethics, Sustainability and CSR

1.8. Controls, Measurement, Review, Risks and Contingencies

Task Two

PureGym has also asked you to provide a 500 word report on the relevance and practical

application of the Uppsala mode. In particular, they want you to discuss the strengths and

weaknesses of the model as a concept, giving examples when it applied, examples when it did

not and then its relevance to the organisation.

You should then advise on PureGym’s choice of market entry, fully justifying your

recommendations, using the conceptual rational behind the model.

End of brief

Please carefully read the guidance notes and mark scheme before starting your summative assessment

Guidance for summative assessment tasks

Task 1: Marketing Plan 3,500 words (80 marks)

Task 1.1: The Value Proposition (8 marks): “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions,

and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have

value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (CIM 2016) and successful

companies try to find a way to create value for its customers, as well as the organisation

itself. Therefore, marketing is all about delivering value to stakeholders, that is, to everyone

who is affected by a transaction. Organisations that seek to ensure their long-term

profitability by identifying and satisfying customers’ needs and wants, adopt the marketing

concept which is based on providing Value.

As part of your report, you have been asked to explain WHO the key stakeholders are and

HOW this plan to launch products / services internationally will provide VALUE to those key

stakeholders. Mendelow’s matrix would be a suitable model to use but there are

alternatives.

Porter’s Value Chain is a powerful model as it suggests how an organisation might be able

to achieve competitive advantage in the way they configure their business. You are

required to apply this model as it is a key reference on value chains and value configurations

analysis for competitive advantage. The model suggests that at each stage of the value

chain there exists an opportunity to contribute positively to the firm’s competitive

advantage by performing some activity or process in a way that is better than the

competition, and so providing some uniqueness or advantage (Hollensen 2016).

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/103114/starbucks-example-value-

chain-model.asp)

Task 1.2: Key findings facing the organisation (8 marks): You are asked to prepare a SWOT

analysis based on the PureGym’s marketing environment and then prioritise the 4 key

issues they face, critically evaluating the implications of those issues for the PureGym.

Your comments need to be fully justified and supported with professional sources of

evidence.

Task 1.3: Set and justify Marketing Objectives (10 marks). A key issue when setting

objectives is to remember that they are relevant to achieving the corporate vision and

corporate objectives i.e. its strategic intent. Objectives should cascade down through an

organisational structure, effectively forming a framework around which detailed planning

can take place. Your task is to provide detailed marketing objectives, which are SMART, fully

justified and which are consistent with PureGym’s strategic intentions.

Task 1.4: Strategic Marketing Plan (16 marks). Once an organisation has decided where

and how to compete in broad terms, there needs to be a focus on the market and

submarkets that they are going to serve. As part of this explanation, you are also

expected to advise on a Targeting Strategy, as targeting involves segmenting the market,

choosing which segments of the market are appropriate and then determining the type

of product or service that will be offered in each segment.

Positioning can be defined as designing an organisation's offering and image in order to

occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target audience (Trout 1983), whilst

Competitive Advantage means achieving superior performance relative to other

competitors in the same industry or superior performance relative to the industry average.

Every company must have at least one advantage to successfully compete in the market. If

a company can’t identify one or just doesn’t possess it, competitors soon outperform it and

force the business to leave the market. So, as part of your justification you need to explain

specifically how your recommendations provide PureGym with a source of Competitive

Advantage

So, to summarise, the expectation for this section is for students to provide a good depth

of discussion, appropriately referenced, and fully justified, with regard to:

1. How the new market place is segmented and who the target audience is;

2. Choice of Targeting strategy for the new market;

3. Positioning strategy for the new market;

4. Details of your specific source of Competitive Advantage within the new marketplace.

Task 1.5 Marketing Tactics, both Traditional and Digital (15 marks). Tactics are the

operational marketing mix activities that companies use to achieve their strategic objectives.

The traditional 4Ps marketing mix has been supplemented by the additional 3P’s and more

recently with Partnerships, making 8Ps in total. Note that the marketing mix concept has

been criticised for not being customer centric, with other authors suggesting the 4Cs

framework as an alternative (Lautenborn 1990).

https://www.smartinsights.com/marketing-planning/marketing-models/4cs-marketing-

model/. The task is to provide detailed tactics, to an appropriate depth, which clearly explain

exactly how the marketing strategy will be implemented.

Digital media and technology provide many new opportunities for the marketer to vary the

application of the marketing mix, develop new routes to deliver competitive advantage. They

provide an organisation with the opportunity to build and to service relationships in

increasingly innovative ways, so the expectation is that a digital mix will also be provided,

although note that the digital mix needs to be integrated within overall marketing tactics.

Specifically you are expected to provide the following:

 Traditional marketing plan e.g. the detailed breakdown of the 7/8Ps or 4 cs

 Digital tactical plan e.g. use of the same model adapted for digital activities

Task 1.6: Action Plan, Budgets and Financials (8 marks). This should include all activities

required to implement the marketing strategy and tactics, and should be presented in a

timeline, normally in a Gantt chart format. You should also pick out the key activities and

explain what’s involved, and include a discussion about the potential financial implications

of the plan. Finances should include details with regard to:

 Payback i.e. how quickly the original investment is repaid from net cash flows

 Return on Marketing Investment i.e. increased revenue resulting from your

marketing activity

 A discussion about Breakeven i.e. how quickly it is estimated fixed costs will be

covered

(Students can make reasonable assumptions with regard to the underlying finances included

within the plan, as it is recognized that students do not have access to this information, in

order to demonstrate that they understand the underlying principles.)

Task 1.7: Ethics, Sustainability and CSR (5 marks). All marketing planners increasingly face

the challenge of managing their business in a way that is ethical and sustainable. Marketing

ethics refer to the principles and standards that define acceptable conduct in marketing as

determined by various stakeholders, including the public, government regulators, private-

interest groups, industry and the organisation itself. As part of your plan you are required

to provide details of any potential ethical challenges facing PureGym as part of their

expansion and make recommendations for dealing with those challenges. This must involve

carrying out research to identify specific potential issues which PureGym might have to deal

with as part of the new marketing venture (as opposed to just discussing generic issues).

Task 1.8: Controls, Measurement, Review, Risks and Contingencies (4 marks). Control is

essential if the marketing plan is to be successfully executed, with the need to monitor to

ensure things go according to plan. Marketers are increasingly under pressure by senior

management to become more accountable for their activities and expenditure, and are

expected to monitor, control and evaluate activities.

Monitoring and control has four elements:

 Identifying Critical Success Factors

 Setting Key Performance Indicators

 Agreeing Marketing Metrics

 Identifying Risks and proposing contingencies to address those risks

You should identify specific examples of all of these.

Task Two: A 500 word report on the Uppsala model (20 marks)

The Uppsala model is related to behavioral theories of the firm and it explains how

companies can gradually increase their activities in foreign markets. The point of this theory

is that first the company gains experience from the domestic market before they enter and

start to develop foreign markets. Then the company starts their relationship with foreign

operations which are culturally and geographically close, slowly moving to culturally and

geographically more distant countries. It assumes that companies begin their foreign

operations by using traditional exports and then move to using more intensive and

demanding operation modes both at the firm and target country level. It describes the

internationalisation of the company as a process in which the firms gradually increase its

international involvement. You are asked to critically assess the validity of the model and to

consider its application/relevance in the context of the client organisation.

 Presentation and formatting (6 marks)

The report should include professional presentation and tone-of-voice and a clear structure,

including correct application of the Harvard Referencing System. The report should be

expressed with clarity and precision.

Recommended structure:

 Assignment Cover Sheet

 Report Title page

 Executive summary (max 300 words and not included within word count)

Marking Guide:

Task One: The

Marketing Plan

0

Mark

80%

Approach

1.1. Value Proposition (8

marks) 2

3

3

 Key stakeholders identified along with their

needs and wants, using an appropriate

model e.g. Mendelow’s Matrix.

 The organisational Value Proposition

identified using Porter’s Value Chain.

 A clear explanation of the customers’ value

proposition.

1.2. Key Findings (8 marks) 4

4

 Comprehensive SWOT

 4 Key issues clearly identified, each with a descriptive heading, an in-depth discussion of the issue, consideration given to the implications of the issues identified and credible referencing

1.3. Marketing Objectives

(10 marks)

3

4

3

Marketing objectives need to be related to

corporate objectives, written in SMART language

and be fully rationalised/justified.

 SMART language used

 Clear rationale and linked to the organisation’s corporate objectives

 Contextualised to the organizsation’s strategic intent

1.4 Strategic Marketing

Planning (16 marks)

4

4

4

4

Student should clearly identify and justify reasons

for decisions with regard to:

 Detailed discussion about how the market place is segmented

 Target audience(s) clearly identified

 Positioning strategy clearly explained

 Source of competitive advantage identified and justified

1.5. Marketing Tactics,

both Traditional and Digital

(15 marks)

8

7

Develop a marketing campaign that presents this

value proposition in a way that your audience will

appreciate. It should include recommendations on

how both traditional (advertising, direct mail etc)

and digital marketing (website, online advertising,

email, database marketing etc) can deliver the

consumer value proposition.

 Traditional tactical plans

 Digital tactical plans

1.6. Action plan (8 marks)

4

4

Action Plans are useful, because they give you a

framework for thinking about how you'll

complete a project efficiently. They help you

finish activities in a sensible order, and they help

you ensure that you don't miss any key steps.

Also, because you can see each task laid out, you

can quickly decide which tasks you'll delegate or

outsource, and which tasks you may be able to

ignore.

 Identification of the key steps in the

implementation process and key activities

discussed

 Discussion about budgets and financials: including payback, ROMI, breakeven.

1.7. Ethics and

sustainability and CSR (5

marks)

2

3

Marketing ethics refers to the principles and

standards that define acceptable conduct in

marketing as determined by various stakeholders,

including the public, government regulators,

private-interest groups, industry and the

organisation itself.

 Ethical issues clearly identified and

assessed

 Appropriate recommendations made

1.8. Controls,

Measurement, Review,

Risks and Contingencies (4

marks)

1

1

1

1

Monitoring and control are essential if the

marketing plan is to be successfully executed, as

it needs to be monitored to ensure events are

taking place according to plan and enabling

corrective action to be taken in a timely fashion.

 Critical Success Factors

 Metrics and

 Key Performance Indicators

 Risks and Contingencies

Presentation (6 marks) 2

2

2

 Appropriate Referencing

 Report Structure

 Tone of voice



Task Two: The UPPSALA model

Mark

20% Approach

The UPPSALA model

10

10

You are asked to critically assess the validity of

the model and to consider its application in the

context of the client’s organisation:

 Degree of critical assessment of the model

 Application and relevance to the client

organisation

Total 100