hlp with proj 4 step 4 due in 24 hours
combs
Project4step4.docxProject 4: Developing and Implementing a Marketing Plan Step 4: Prepare a Situation Analysis Report
Required Readings
Chapters 1, 3, & 14
Lancaster, G., & Massingham, L. (2018). Essentials of marketing management (2nd ed.). Routledge
INBOX: 1 New Message
Subject: Company Case File & Questions to Consider From: Jillian Best, CEO, MCS To: Team Hi again. I wanted to provide you with the company case file and some pertinent questions for you to consider while you work on your B2B marketing plan.
As part of the preparation necessary to complete your business-to-business marketing plan, you and your team will need to do in-depth research on your client's company, including its operations, global reach, and range of offerings.
By the end of Week 8, I need you to produce a situation analysis report explaining your team's findings on the company. Be sure to include a value proposition, essentially the promise that is made to the customer, explaining the reason a customer purchases a product or uses a service (i.e., the value that a company delivers to its customers).
Start by reading the attached case file and be sure to consider the following questions while you do additional research:
· Where is the company headquartered?
· What are the company's major products and/or services?
· What is the company's annual revenue in dollars, and what is its annual production in units?
· Does the company own its own facilities or does it subcontract manufacturing to others?
· Who are the company's major suppliers of raw materials or parts, and where are they located?
· What is the distribution of the company's workforce by country?
· How does the company differentiate its offering in its highly competitive markets?
· Does the company have exclusive marketing or distribution agreements or partnerships?
· Who are the company's major global and US customers?
· What benefits does the company offer to its customers?
· Who are the company's major global and US competitors?
When developing your situation analysis, you should also understand the importance of vision and mission statements and then research the company's own vision and mission statements.
Write a four-page document detailing the main findings of your research about your client, including its mission and vision statement. Submit your document to your team’s study group.
That's it for now, Jillian
Attachments:
In the next step, you will complete your situation analysis by conducting an environmental scan that takes a comprehensive look at the many factors that you need to consider, exploit, or defend against in your marketing plan. This situation analysis will be incorporated into your B2B marketing plan later in this project, along with deliverables from the upcoming steps.
Learning Topic
Vision
Responsibility for articulating an organization's vision typically rests with the CEO and leadership team. While a mission describes the present purpose of the enterprise, vision is about a desired future. When done well, vision statements serve as a source of ongoing inspiration for all stakeholders, helping them see what is possible if everyone commits and performs optimally. In Vision, located in the Resources section below, Porterfield (2004) explains more about the purpose of an organizational vision and vision statement as well as how they should be developed and communicated.
Resources
· Vision
Collins and Porras (1991) examine the challenges of creating a single vision for large multidivisional and geographically dispersed organizations. They write about how difficult it can be for a leader to craft a compelling vision and how sometimes the resulting statement ends up being more about mission than vision. In presenting their proposed framework for vision creation, Collins and Porras emphasize the importance of agreement about core values and beliefs, sharing examples that are as relevant now as they were when their article was published.
Furthermore, an analysis of powerful vision statements led Kantabutra and Avery (2010, p. 3) to propose seven important characteristics:
· conciseness
· clarity
· future orientation
· stability
· challenge
· abstractness
· desirability or ability to inspire
Consult UMGC's online library to find out out more about how a vision should be developed, the appropriate role of leaders in formulating them, their relative importance for organizational success, and other questions related to the development of an organization's vision.
Namely, an organization’s vision statement should be powerful and serve as a compelling source of inspiration for stakeholders.
References
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1991). Organizational vision and visionary organizations. California Management Review, 34(1), 30.
Kantabutra, S., & Avery, G. C. (2010). The power of vision: Statements that resonate. Journal of Business Strategy, 31(1), 37-45. doi:10.1108/02756661011012769
Porterfield, R. (2004). Vision. In M. J. Stahl (Ed.), Encyclopedia of health care management (pp. 586-586). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781412950602.n837
Resources
Check Your Knowledge
Question 1
Briefly, what is the difference between an organization's mission and its vision?
Question 2
Why is a vision statement important to an organization?
Question 3
Which one of the following is NOT a goal of an effective vision statement?
conveys a broad sense of direction that unifies organizational direction
expresses the principles that guide behavior within the organization
aids in changing organizational direction and the rationale for redirection when internal resistance exists
provides executives with an opportunity for a clear, consistent compass for resource justification and allocation
rallies and energizes employees and stakeholders
Question 4
True or false: An organization's vision must be achievable, and the strategies needed to accomplish that vision must be known.
True
False
Question 5
How should a vision statement be communicated?
Question 6
The following two vision statements belong to pharmaceutical companies.
· Which of these vision statements qualifies as most effective and why?
· In which of these companies would you want to invest, work, or serve as a board member?
If your answer to the second question is different from the first you will probably want to reflect on the reasons.
Company 1: Our vision is to be a trusted leader in changing the practice of medicine.
Company 2: To make a difference in the lives of people globally through our innovative medicines, vaccines, and animal health products. We are committed to being the premier, research-intensive biopharmaceutical company and are dedicated to providing leading innovations and solutions for today and the future.
© 2024 University of Maryland Global Campus
All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.
Learning Topic
Mission
An organization should have a clearly defined mission that guides decisions and (along with an organizational vision) future directions. While organizations’ missions are typically stable, changes in scope and sometimes even purpose do occur. Sometimes these changes are intentional, and the rationale is easy to discover. but sometimes this is not the case. A common occurrence known as mission creep can happen when an organization’s scope expands, often incrementally, in a direction that was not originally intended. You will also see changes in mission caused by market expansion or contraction, mergers and acquisitions, innovation, changing societal needs, and so on.
Another common occurrence, known as mission proliferation, can happen when different parts of the organization articulate and publish independent missions, often to help inspire and direct those working in subunits. In theory, each subunit mission statement should align with and support the organization’s mission, but this is not always the case and deviations from the organization's mission may contribute to confusion. This outcome may be especially true in organizations that are large and complex, or in ones where decision making is decentralized.
An organization's mission may be found in a formal published statement or explained verbally be the CEO or another senior leader. Public sector organizations sometimes have two organizational mission statements—an official version that is long and detailed, and an abbreviated version used for public dissemination. A mission can change over time, and it can be instructive to examine the process used the bring about that change. It is also useful to ask whether there is evidence an organization's mission is having a positive impact on its performance.
Resources
· Benefits, Characteristics, Components, and Cxamples of Customer-oriented Mission Statements
· Missions and Mission Statements
· A Mission Statement Analysis Comparing the United States and Three Other English Speaking Countries
· Does Company Size Affect Mission Statement Content?
Check Your Knowledge
Question 1
What purposes should an organizational mission serve?
Question 2
What is mission creep?
Question 3
One of the potential challenges associated with organizational missions is mission proliferation. Explain what this means and why it can be problematic.
Question 4
What are some of the things that a mission statement should accomplish?
Question 5
What are some of the problems that can occur in the absence of an effective and organizational mission and well-written mission statement?
Question 6
Below are mission statements for Coca-Cola and Pepsi published on their corporate websites in 2016. Apply what you have just read about effective missions and mission statements to an analysis of these two examples.
1. Which statement does the best job describing the company's purpose and why? What about if you were an investor?
2. Would your conclusion change if you were looking at this from the perspective of a customer? What about if you were an employee?
Coca-Cola Our Mission Our Roadmap starts with our mission, which is enduring. It declares our purpose as a company and serves as the standard against which we weigh our actions and decisions. To refresh the world… To inspire moments of optimism and happiness… To create value and make a difference.
Pepsi As one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, our mission is to provide consumers around the world with delicious, affordable, convenient and complementary foods and beverages from wholesome breakfasts to healthy and fun daytime snacks and beverages to evening treats. We are committed to investing in our people, our company and the communities where we operate to help position the company for long-term, sustainable growth.
© 2024 University of Maryland Global Campus
All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.
Learning Topic
Value Proposition
Companies address their customers through their value proposition, which is the totality of the benefits offered to satisfy customer needs and wants. The product or service will only be successful if it delivers value and satisfies the target customer. In other words, the value proposition is more than just the core positioning of the product or service; it represents the whole set of benefits that a company promises to deliver. Accordingly, astute product or service positioning will result in a successful customer-focused value proposition (i.e., a clear reason why the target customers should buy the offering) (Kotler & Keller, 2015).
References
Kotler, P. & Keller, K. L. (2015). Marketing management (15th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Resources
© 2024 University of Maryland Global Campus
All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity of information located at external sites.
