strategic marketing report part 5,6,7, ONLY

MKTG1275 1 Copyright ©2019 RMIT University.

SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, FINANCE &

MARKETING

MKTG1275 – Strategic Marketing

Assessment 2 - Group Project (35%) – S2 19 v1.2

You are about to develop a strategic marketing plan. This will require you to do a lot of research, because in

industry clients and management demand that your findings and recommendations are supported with

strong evidence. Please make good use of RMIT databases.

How to proceed?

• Set up a group project plan that allows you to do the project in pieces throughout weeks 4-12.

• Read the guidelines below.

• Watch this clip http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/developing-critical-thinking

• Attend lectures and ask questions.

• Do a database, industry and company search to find additional information.

• Conduct analyse and write the case according to the headings and instructions below.

It is important that you include current and credible information from our databases and industry reports.

Please do not just put your findings into tables and move on. Include discussions that critically evaluate your

findings and convince us that you have identified all potential opportunities and threats.

Following is the required details of the report.

Introduction

Please introduce the focal company and give a brief overview. Briefly describe the analysis you will carry out

and how the report will be presented.

Company Background

Analyse the company's history, development, and growth. A convenient way to investigate how a company's

past strategy and structure, affect it in the present, is to chart the critical incidents in its history - that is, the

events that were the most unusual or the most essential for its development into the company it is today.

Some of the events have to do with its founding, its initial products, how it makes new-product market

decisions, and how it developed and chose functional competencies to pursue. Its entry into new

businesses and shifts in its main lines of business are also important milestones to consider.

What insights can you draw from this analysis?

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Analyse the external environment.

The next step is to identify opportunities and threats by examining the (C)ontext, (C)ompetitors and

(C)ustomers.

To analyse Context, please do the following analysis:

• A PESTLE analysis.

• A 5 Forces Analysis.

• Please also analyse the relevant Complementors.

• What are the current drivers in the industry?

• What are the Key Success Factors in the industry?

• Does this appear to be an ‘attractive industry’?

What insights can you draw from this analysis?

To analyse Competitors, please use strategic group maps. There needs to be at least 2 group maps done,

using different variables. In addition, please use Porter’s Competitor Analysis framework to evaluate the

closest 2 competitors.

What insights can you draw from this analysis?

For the Customer analysis, please analyse:

How the focal company segments the market? How does this differ to how the 2 key competitors segment

the market? What other ways could reasonably be used for segmentation?

What is the size of the key segments, their profitability and their future prospects?

You also need to know why the customers buy the products or services and what factors influence their

decisions.

What insights can you draw from this analysis?

Analyse the company.

The next step is to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the Company you are focusing on. To do this:

• Please do a Porter’s Value Chain analysis.

• What are the key resources that the company has?

• Use the VRIN framework to analyse these resources.

Who does the company Collaborate with? What form of relationships are these? What value does the

company get from these relationships? How effective are these relationships?

What insights can you draw from this analysis?

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SWOT and TOWS.

Please provide a SWOT summary from your analysis. Explain how each item comes from your analysis. It is

important that you do not invent new analysis at this stage.

From your SWOT summary, please do a TOWS analysis.

It is important to clearly show how the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats relate together to

produce possible strategies for the focal firm.

Analyse corporate-level strategy.

To analyse a company's corporate-level strategy:

You first need to understand the structure of the organisation. This involves mapping out the different

strategic business units (SBUs) of the corporation. These SBUs will be owned (in some way) by the

umbrella entity of the organisation.

What are the corporation's mission and goals?

Insights into a company's corporate strategy can be gained by examining its line(s) of business and the

nature of its subsidiaries and acquisitions.

It is important to analyse the relationship among the company's businesses. Do they trade or exchange

resources? Are there gains to be achieved from synergy? Alternatively, is the company just running a

portfolio of investments? This analysis should enable you to define the corporate strategy that the company

is pursuing (for example, related or unrelated diversification, or a combination of both). Identifying the

corporate strategy is extremely important because it can influence business and functional strategies.

Tip: This section is typically shorter because you are not doing a corporate strategy course. Our focus is at

the business (SBU) level so provide a concise overview of the company and, in particular, focus on the

corporate parts that are most relevant for the business you are concerned with.

Analyse business-level strategy.

Once you know the company's corporate-level strategy the next step is to identify their business-level

strategy.

If the company is in many businesses, each business will have its own business-level strategy so select the

business unit or product you are focusing on and critically evaluate their current strategy.

What stage of the market lifecycle are they currently in?

What sort of strategy are they using?

Does this strategy complement their corporate strategy?

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Does their current strategy make sense given the opportunities, strengths, threats and weaknesses you

identified earlier? Does it make sense given the stage of the industry lifecycle? Is there a better strategic

option available? Use the information from your SWOT and TOWS to determine which strategy they should

adopt.

Here it is important that you strongly justify your decision.

Discuss any special requirements or implications that your company needs to consider if they adopt this

strategy. You need to discuss in detail what the company should do to improve the situation.

Please discuss any assumptions you have made in your analysis.

Tip: All team members should be involved here. Do not allocate one person to do this section. To get good

grades in this assignment you need to demonstrate that you know the relevant theory and you can apply

your TOWS / SWOT information to make decisions. Make sure you can convince the reader or a client that

you have made the right decision.

Make recommendations (Approx. 1 page)

Now that you have identified an appropriate business level strategy you are ready to start formulating

marketing objectives and recommendations. The e-reader can be helpful in this. Notice how each strategy is

suited for different stages in the lifecycle; prospectors are more suited for introductory / early growth

whereas defenders are more suited for mature or declining markets.

Finally, you should develop and include a plan for effective implementation of your recommendations.

What adjustments do you recommend that the focal company make to each element of its marketing mix?

This is where you can show off your creativity and originality.

Formatting requirements:

• Word limit: 3000-4000 words, not including words in tables and appendices.

• Font: Arial, size 11. Inside tables please use size 8.

• The report needs to list the group member responsible for each section, next to the heading for that section.

• Referencing style: Harvard or APA http://www1.rmit.edu.au/library/referencing

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Group Peer Review

At the end of the project period each group is required to complete and sign this Peer Review form. This is

to verify / authorise the submitted work. The percentage contributions by each group member is required to

be listed and the form signed by each team member.

Please attach it to your report.

In addition, the report needs to list the group member responsible for each section, next to the heading for

that section.

Please list the percentage (%) contribution of each team member to the relevant sections.

Group Member

1 2 3 4 5 6

Name

RMIT Student ID

Company history and development.

Context

Competitors

Customers

Company

Collaborators

SWOT and TOWS

The current Company Strategy

Recommendations

Final Report editing

Final Report layout

EXAMPLE ONLY:

Member 1 Member 2 Member 3 Member 4 Member 5

Name Lee Smith Chan Lee Ng Tan Lee Lee Lee Chan Louise

RMIT Student ID 3234567 3912345 3789012 3345678 3987654

Introduction 100% X X X X

Industry analysis X 50% 50% X X

Group Meetings

Name Signature (% of meetings attended).