Demonstrate a critical awareness of how the findings from a comprehensive marketing audit will inform the process of objective setting and strategy formulation

Nottingham Business School 

Contemporary Issues in Strategic Market Management BUSI31138 

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:-

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.

Summative task

You are required to submit your findings in the form of a 4,000 word business report plus reference list and Appendices. The format of your report may include the following areas (although you can choose to adopt an alternative structure – discuss this with your tutor as necessary):-Order now

· Executive summary (approximately 200 words not included in the overall word count)

- a summary of the key findings from your report

- It should contain Keywords

(NB do not confuse this section with an ‘Introduction’, it may be the first thing read but it should be the last thing written)

· Introduction (approximately 600 words)

- short explanation of the task that you have been set

- concise background details relating to your chosen organisation that will help provide a commercial context for your marketing audit

- justification of the reasons for conducting a comprehensive marketing audit (the ‘gap’)

- detail of the approach taken to conducting the marketing audit with full justification of the analytical frameworks chosen with limitations

· Key Findings - Marketing audit (approximately 1,600 words)

- the key macro-environmental factors relevant to your client

- the key micro-environmental factors relevant to your client

- the key factors deriving from a critical review of your client’s current marketing strategy and marketing capability (i.e. internal analysis)

- A hypothesis of the likely organisational culture and business orientation with evidence and ramifications for the organisation

- Making reference to the company and SDG’s

· Strategic Choice(s) – Grounded by the Marketing audit (approximately 1000 words)

- a critical analysis and justification of way forward (from a strategic marketing perspective) for the organisation in the chosen product or service category area

- it is essential that the strategy is grounded in the outcomes of the audit, your insights to contemporary theory and your associated analysis/ critique

· Strategy Implementation and Control (approximately 500 words)

- an evaluation of, and insight to, implementation and control related the strategic marketing planning process overall and your selected strategy option

- justified examples of two tools to support implementation and control (again related to your selected strategy option)

· Conclusion (approximately 300 words)

- outline indications of how your findings might impact your client’s future strategic development and the contribution made

· Reference list

- NTU Harvard standard (not included in word count)

· Appendices

- additional material from your research that you were unable to include in your marketing audit (e.g. a full STEEPLE/PESTLE analysis, SWOT analysis etc.)

- the appendix material must be limited to twelve A4 sides.

Please note that the 4,000 word limit for this report is an absolute maximum. There is no safety margin of +10%. So, you need to ensure that your report contains only the most important pieces of information. This is very much an exercise in developing your ability to focus on the key issues and communicate opinions clearly and succinctly. These are valuable business skills.  Please ensure you use the coursework cover sheet included in this brief and on NOW.

Submission deadline (to NOW Dropbox) for your written report is 23:00hrs on the 11th January 2024. Don’t forget: your marketing audit and report will need to be submitted to the Dropbox in PDF format.This is important because it ensures that the reader will see the information laid out in exactly the way you intended it.

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.

 Demonstrate a critical awareness of how the findings from a comprehensive marketing audit will inform the process of objective setting and strategy formulation