Solved by a verified expert :Marketing Plan Assignment Instructions
This is a semester-long team project focused on developing a
marketing plan for an innovative product/service. Each team will come up with
one innovative product/service and develop a comprehensive marketing plan,
following the template provided in this Assignments Conference (under the
Marketing Plan Template main topic heading). Each week your team is responsible
for completing sections of the marketing plan corresponding to the week’s
topics. Although individual team members may take on certain management and
editing tasks in the Team Work Plan, all team members are collectively
responsible for understanding and preparing materials for this assignment. Peer
evaluations will be administered at the end of the course.
Step 1: Coming up with Innovative Product/Service
In developing your idea for your team Marketing Plan for a
new product/service, assume that you are presenting your product/service idea
to the New Product Development (NPD) department of an existing
organization. This is not an
“entrepreneurial” exercise, but rather a “marketing
management” one consistent with the AMBA 650 course title, Marketing
Management and Innovation.
The organization you choose may be your own, but it must be
an existing, well-known, and easily researched organization (usually one can
find more information on publicly traded companies). The NPD Committee of the organization has
asked you to come up with an innovative, imaginative idea that upon further
review can lead to a new avenue of growth for the organization. This NPD Committee organizational review
takes the form of The New-Product Development Decision Process.
Keep in mind that the products/services ideas have to come
from one of the following categories:
1. New-to-the World
(new products/services that create an entirely new market)
2. New
Product/Service Line (new products/services that allow a company to enter an
established market for the first time).
3. Additions to
existing product lines (new products/services that supplement existing brands
and product lines)
The really creative, “premium,” new
product/service idea should ideally come from the “new-to-the-world”
category, but your particular organizational situation might warrant
considering other categories.
NOTE: Improvements and revisions of existing
products/services, repositioning, or cost reduction alternatives should not be
considered.
To successfully generate viable ideas for your organization,
make sure you first know and understand the organization and its position in
the marketplace. Start your research by
looking at the existing services and product lines that your organization
currently carries. Consider the target market for each product and service line
while thinking of the proposed new offerings.
There is no need to report on this now as your proposed product/service
idea will reflect your understanding of the company and environment it operates
in. Note that you will also need much of
this information in the team Marketing Plan you will be developing this term.
In addition to screening your proposed organization, new
product ideas can come from interacting with various groups and from using
creativity-generating techniques such as Attribute Listing, Forced
Relationships, Morphological Analysis, Reverse Assumption Analysis, New
Contexts, and Mind-Mapping. Ideas can
come from interacting with others such as customers, scientists, competitors,
employees, channel members, and top management.
Customer needs and wants are the logical place to start the
search. One-on-one interviews and focus
group discussions can explore product needs and reactions. Technically oriented organizations can learn
a great deal by studying customers who make the most advanced use of the
organization’s products and who recognize the need for improvements before
other customers do. Employees throughout
the company can be a source of ideas for improving production, products, and
services.
Organizations can also find good ideas by researching
competitors’ products and services. They
can find out what customers like and dislike about competitors’ products. They can buy the competitors’ products and
take them apart. Company sales
representatives and intermediaries are a particularly good source of ideas.
These groups have firsthand exposure to customers and are often the first to
learn about competitive developments.
New-product ideas can also be gleamed from inventors, patent attorneys,
university and commercial labs, industrial consultants, advertising agencies,
marketing research firms, and industrial publications.
When you have a viable new product/service idea, please post
it, along with a short description of your reasoning for choosing it, into your
team Study Group conference. The entire
team will then discuss the merits of each idea and choose the one idea to use
in developing the team marketing plan assignment. You have to agree on your new
product/service by end of W2. Please let your faculty member know your idea and
listen carefully for his/her feedback.
Step 2 – Developing a Marketing Plan for a new
product/service – your semester long team project
By start of W3 teams have to agree on product/service
selection and confirm it with their faculty. For the rest of the
semester–W3-W10–teams will be working on developing a marketing plan for that
product/service (template is posted in this Assignments conference). Each week
your team is responsible for completing the sections of the marketing plan
corresponding to week’s topics. Although individual team members may take on
certain management and editing tasks in the Team Work Plan, all team members
are collectively responsible for understanding and preparing materials for this
assignment. Peer evaluations will be administered at the end of the course, and
faculty will review individual inputs to determine if the team grade is
appropriate for all members.
Below are some resources that may be helpful. Additional resources are posted in the class
Webliography; and your faculty member or FA may point you to additional
sources. You should also feel free to add to these resources as you discover
some new links.
Sample Marketing Plans and Resources
There are links to several good marketing plan examples or
templates.
Sample plans and good resources: http://www.mplans.com/
How to write a marketing plan (good info including Porter,
SWOT) – http://articles.mplans.com/category/how-to-write-marketing-plan/
The Hurdle Book of Business Planning is available for free
for online reading
(Special thanks to Ms. Anita Schmied for finding these
resources.)
Format Requirements
Your final paper should be approximately 25 pages in length,
excluding cover page, references, and appendixes. (When in rough draft mode, it’s generally
better to write longer and edit down at the end than to try to write short and
have to come up with more material at the end; so don’t worry too much about
length until you’re putting together your final draft. That is when you can
edit to present your ideas more succinctly.)
Please include all contributors’ names on your cover page; and please remember
to number your pages.
