Marketing Team Assignment Part One: Analysis and Assessment of the 5Cs
This first Marketing assignment draws on your previous company strategy assignment as a foundation to further your understanding of your company's product/service, its customers, collaborators, competitors, and the context (i.e., marketing environment). A thorough understanding of the 5Cs will then guide your appraisal of marketing challenges/opportunities.
1. Company (NOTE: you can draw information from your strategy paper on core competencies and value propositions)
In a veryshort paragraph, summarize the following:
• What need or function does your product serve? What problem does your product solve (motivation, need)?
• What are customers currently buying to satisfy the need and/or solve the problem for which your product is targeted (consider substitutions, or doing without if this is reasonable)
• What differentiate your product/service from competitors?
2. Customer
• Describe the customers (briefly): does this type of product/service appeal to a broad or a narrow market? What's their general characteristics?
• Determine how the consumer learns, understands, feels about and purchases this type of product. What's the general level of involvement and what type of purchase is it?
• Map the purchase decision process: how a consumer might move through each of the three stages of the purchase decision process. Are there variations across different customers (e.g., different decision processes for different customers, e.g., people who really care about it vs. who don't; people who buy it often vs. people who buy it for the first time)?
• Identify any resources or decision tools (research, referral, marketing, online ratings, etc.) a typical consumer might utilize in their buying and consumption process of your product.
NOTE: think of this from customers' perspective. And think of realistic scenarios.
3. Context (50% - this is the heavy part of the assignment. Need a lot of research and synthesis)
Your team will conduct a macro environmental analysis of the business, reporting on keytrends/factors that are impacting or will have an impact on the company's industry. Note that not all of these are significant influences forevery company. Instead of generally discussing all factors, focus on the factors that are most critical for your company/product'sfuture growth and go deeper on them. For each factor you discuss, identify the trends and analyze how they are influencing or may potentially influence your company down the road. Use your library skills and support your analysis with data/information.
NOTE: these are external, environmental factors. DO NOT only talk about what your company is doing. For example, demographics refer to general trends regarding the population, not your company's target market. Economics does not refer to your company's economic situation. All factors are regarding those uncontrolled factors in the environment. The analysis is mostly at the industry level. Only briefly discuss what your company is doing in response to these environmental factors.
Macro-Environmental factors (context) include:
• Demographic - changes in human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, gender, race,occupation or other statistics (for example: aging of Americans, growth in Hispanic and Asianpopulation, increased diversity)
• Economic - factors affecting consumer buying power & spending patterns (for example, gaps in income and patterns in wealth distribution).
• Natural - natural resources that are needed as inputs by marketers or that are affected by marketingactivities (e.g. weather, gasoline, certain rare minerals)
• Technological - forces that create new technologies, new product and market opportunities (NOTE AGAIN: this refers to technology in the environment, not the company's in-house technical capabilities. Also not only technology influences your company's product development, but also aspects such as communication with customers, customer services etc.).
• Political - laws, government agencies, and pressure groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals in a given society.
• Cultural - institutions and other forces that affect society's basic values, perceptions, preferences, andbehaviors (e.g., the rise of shared economy, the shift from possessions to experiences, integration of technology in everyday life etc.)
4. Competitors and Collaborators (15%, be very brief, especially with collaborators)
• Competitors:
o Which products/companies are your product's major competitors? Provide market share data for your company and its competitors (if available). Assess the competition situation in this industry. Are competitors sufficiently differentiated? How is your company "different" from the competitors identified? Are the competitors doing anything new and different to market their product to the consumer?
• Collaborators
o Key suppliers (upstream) - Determine the raw materials, services or components that are vital to theproduct.
o Key intermediaries (downstream)- Identify the critical distribution partners that provide services orexpertise between the company and end user (e.g. Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Wegmans forStonyfield Farm Yogurt). What "value" do they add? What would happen if this relationship was‘interrupted'?
o Employees - What role do employees play in creating value for the consumer? How integral is theirrelationship with the customer to the overall product or brand value? Does the company compete forhigh demand talent that could affect its ability to deliver its product?
5. Key Marketing Challenges and Opportunities
NOTE: this is not to have you repeat your SWOT. The challenges and opportunities should be those related to the macro and micro environmental factors you discussed above.
Based on your findings, analyze potential future issuesand briefly discuss the following:
• Where the industry is heading? Growing? Shrinking? due to the environmental factors' influence?
• Any anticipated ‘future' consumer needs? Could there be new alternatives appearing (e.g., due to disruptive technology)?
• How can the company leverage their strengths to gain an advantage over these threats?
Length Guideline: 5 to 7 pages maximum (plus graphs, tables, etc. as needed); use 1-inch margin and 1.5 line space.
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also Include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.
Attachment:- Benand-Jerry.rar