Assignment brief: individual marketing audit & report (100% weighting)
Introduction
For this assignment you are required to adopt the role of a marketing consultant hired to conduct a marketing audit and identify and justify a strategic option for a ‘client’ (see below).
The marketing audit (presented in full in the Appendices of the report) will help clarify the client’s current competitive position.It will also help you to critically evaluate the current marketing strategy for one of the company’s major product or service categories.
The associated report should be drawn from the audit and its findings (and your work in developing it).It will identify the role and value of the marketing audit (in the context of the wider strategic marketing management process).Following this,it will document and interpret the key findings from the audit leading to the identification, and justification, of the way forward (from a strategic marketing perspective) for the organisation when it comes to the identified major product or service category area.The audit should also include any strengths or weaknesses that the organisation may have in relation to sustainable development goals (SDG’s) and how it may inform their future strategy to obtain a competitive advantage.
As a guide,the organisation should be chosen from one of the following industries:-
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Pharmaceuticals
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Holiday/travel
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Automotive
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Financial services
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Manufacturing industry
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Education/training
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Advertising
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Leisure
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Media
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Oil,gas,electricity
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Technology
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Telecommunications
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The organisation that you choose can operate globally, regionally or nationally. However, in making your choice, ensure that sufficient material evidence, with practitioner and academic reference and citation, with the emphasis upon ‘contemporary’. This will be available from reliable secondary data sources such as the Financial Times, Times, Telegraph and MINTEL and academic sources. This is essential to the conduct and documentation of your comprehensive marketing audit presented in the Appendix. Primary research is not permitted.
You should focus your research on one topic area for that company from the list below, plus the company’s approach to SDG’s:-
Big Data
Social Media Marketing
Corporate Reputation Management
Alliances/Networks
Marketing Innovation
Sustainability
If your chosen organisation is not from within one of the above industries – please discuss this with your Seminar Tutor.Either way, given the respective deadlines for the submission of assessments, you should have identified your selected industry and organisation and their product and service category by your Seminar session in Week 2.There will be a formative 1 in week 2 which will ask for critical reasoning for your choice of company and topic.It is essential that you make this choice as you present your initial findings and work in Formative 2 which takes place during the Seminar time in Week 5 in the form of a poster.
Please note that this assignment is based on available secondary data.Direct and personal contact with your chosen organisation is strictly forbidden.
Module learning outcomes being assessed
This activity is designed to test the following learning outcomes:-
Knowledge and understanding
After studying this module you should be able to:
a) Offer a detailed and comprehensive critique of the role of strategic marketing within an organisational context
b) Demonstrate a critical awareness of the current strategic marketing activities within an organisational context
c) Critically evaluate the strategic responses the marketing manager can make to the changing global marketing environment
d) Demonstrate a critical awareness of how the findings from a comprehensive marketing audit will inform the process of objective setting and strategy formulation
e) Critically reflect on the problems encountered in the implementation and control stages of the strategic marketing process and how these problems can be overcome
Skills, qualities and attributes.After studying this module you should be able to:
f) Conduct a comprehensive and critical marketing audit that can be used to inform choice of appropriate marketing strategy
g) Demonstrate an ability to synthesise and clearly articulate strategic marketing responses to complex and challenging organisational contexts
Assessment criteria
In the following pages, you will find a breakdown of the assessment criteria that will be used to judge your performance. This will give you a very clear idea about how your tutor will approach the task of assessing the written reports.
Assignment cover sheet
Following the grading matrix the assignment coversheet for this assessment is provided.
