Business finance - accounting week two assignment 3

PROFESSORSNOTESFORWEEKTWOASSIGNMENTS3_4_5_6.docx

PROFESSOR’S NOTES FOR WEEK TWO ASSIGNMENTS 3, 4, 5, & 6

Marketing Strategies & R&D

I. Marketing Strategies Overview

· Marketing connects products with customers.

· Strategies have evolved from traditional advertising (TV, radio, print) to digital marketing (websites, social media, email, online ads).

· Organizations must adapt their marketing strategies as technology and consumer behavior change.

II. The Digital Marketing Transformation

· Customers have more access to product information than ever before.

· Businesses now have access to customer data through analytics and CRM systems.

· This information helps companies better understand customer needs and create targeted marketing campaigns.

III. Marketing and Organizational Collaboration

· Marketing works closely with:

· Research & Development (R&D)

· Production

· Sales

· Understanding products and customer needs is essential for successful marketing.

IV. Research & Development (R&D)

· R&D focuses on innovation, product improvement, and new product development.

· Companies use R&D to stay competitive and meet changing customer demands.

· R&D can result in:

· Incremental improvements (new smartphone features)

· New products and technologies

V. CAPSIM Connection

· In CAPSIM, teams made R&D decisions to improve or create products.

· Marketing and R&D decisions work together to position products effectively in the marketplace.

Key Takeaways

· Marketing strategies must evolve with technology.

· Data helps companies better understand customers.

· Marketing and R&D must work together for success.

· Innovation is critical for long-term growth and competitiveness.

Assignments 3, 4 & 5 are based off of the results that you get from your CAPSIM rounds. This week is about R&D, Financial Statements and Key Performance Indicators. (KPIs) Financial Measures can be found in the various reports that Capsim creates after you have completed a round.

Evaluate financial statements from the Courier (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flows). Organize these from the perspective of the end-user.

Assignment 6: PowerPoint presentation that you will deliver at the next corporate board meeting, analyze the marketing strategies used by the company

You are working together as a team on the CAPSIM simulation. The assignments are individual assignments.

Prof. Marilyn Taylor

WeekTwoAssignment3InstructionsHM.docx

Assignment 3: Complete Round 1 in CAPSIM - Company Performance

Instructions

Background

You will work in the same teams as you did in Module 1. In Module 2, you will begin serious competition with the other teams in the course – the game is afoot!

The focus of this assignment is to begin the Competition Industry in the CAPSIM simulation and analyze the results from this round to report on the Key Performance Indicators you identified.

This was the beginning of the competition industry. You will be making decisions that position your team's products against customer requirements, building a production process that allows you to meet the market demands for your products, how to finance those operations, and how to improve processes and products through Research and Development.

Finally, you will learn to read and interpret a full set of performance documents, including Cash Flow Statements, Income Statements, Production and Sales summaries, and the Balanced Scorecard. For Round One, you will have access to functional areas R&D, Marketing, Finance, and Production for decision making.

Remember, what you want to do for each product, at the minimum, is make incremental increases to Performance in R&D and incremental decreases in Size in R&D. You will also note that the Price Range in the Customer Buying Criteria decreases slightly every round. You made the calculations for PFMN and Size in the training segment “Perceptual Map – Ideal Spots”, but here’s a refresher. If you look at how those numbers changed between Rd.0 and Rd.1 and then Rd.1 and Rd.2 in the practice industry (See pp.5-9 in the Courier, Customer Buying Criteria), you will be able to figure out how much those changes should be for each product.

For example, in Rd.1 Able has 5.7 for Performance and 14.3 for Size. In Rd2, performance increases to 6.4 and size decreases to 13.6 – an increase of .7 for performance and a decrease of .7 for size. This industry has continuous linear growth, so those changes in customer expectations will be the same in every round. Do the same calculations for the other five products. Remember to focus on the customer and the Perceptual Map drift!

Instructions

The instructor will check the simulation dashboard to confirm that you have completed this round and will also provide feedback to you to help you with the remainder of the competition industry.

Please note that your grade in the course does not depend on how well you do in the simulation. In that sense, the "competition rounds" are a misnomer. You can do well or poorly in the rounds. What matters is that you can understand and explain the effects that your decisions had on the financial results, which you will track weekly as you report on your Key Performance Indicators that you identified in Week 1. You will also report on a new financial measure that you have not yet examined.

· Examine your three financial measures (KPIs) that you will track through your simulation (note – this assignment will repeat for every round that you run). Financial Measures can be found in the various reports that Capsim creates after you have completed a round.

· Include a 4th financial measure of your choice that adds to your understanding of the company’s performance. See page 1 of the Courier for some ideas for different financial measures to examine.

· In each round, you are making some of your decisions based on the Customer Buying Criteria – what do the customers expect in the products that they purchase? This information for each of your products in the five product segments can be found on pages 5-9 of the Courier.

· Report on a different Customer Buying Criteria each week. For example, for look at Size for your product Able in the Traditional segment. Identify the criteria, define the criteria (the Capsim Help & Support can help with this). Then explain what the customer expectations are and what you set for your product on that dimension. Finally, compare your position with the Customer expectations and how the competitors set that number for their products.

Length: 1-3 pages, not including title page and references

References: Include a minimum of 2 scholarly references (from 2020 to present).