Situation Analysis- Putting all the information in the case together to produce a coherent picture or “map” of the situation. You may need to draw upon personal sources or information about business practice, human behavior and marketing, in in order “understand what is going on” in the case. Construct the most complete and accurate analysis of the situation that you can. In “real life” business situations, managers rarely have all the information they would like, “facts” are subject to differing interpretations and differences (sometimes bitter) will occur in the how different managers analyze the same situation. The analysis of the situation might include:
What are the organizational goals?
What resources does the organization have?
What are the organizations intended, actual or potential customers?
What customer needs or wants is the organization attempting to satisfy?
What is the organizations basic product/market strategy (i.e. how is the organizational attempting to match its resources with customer needs).
How are the organization’s resources organized into a marketing mix?
Who are the organization’s competitors and what are they doing?
What other environmental (i.e. social/cultural, economic, etc.) variables exist?
Evaluation- Evaluate the action and plans of the company and identify and describe the business problems or dilemmas that seem to be responsible for the current state of affairs. Marketing problems are frequently interdependent therefore, it is important to look for logical interrelationship among problems.
Do several problems result from the same basic cause or “root problem”?
Are problems linked together in a chair of cause and effect relationships?
Identify what was “wrong” with the design or administration of the controllable marketing management variables (i.e. basic marketing strategy, elements of the marking mix, etc.).
Recommendation- Recommend a coordinated plan of action to correct business problems through marketing solutions. As well as you can determine the recommended changes should be economically rational. Actions recommended should be “applicable” to the problems you identified in the case. Once problems are identified, alternative courses of action that management can take are identifiable. The list of alternatives that should be considered is sometimes choices that are being argued in the case. In other cases, the student need to consider alternatives that are not being discussed in the case.
Conclusion- Provide a summary of the major points from each section above and provide a justification or rationale for the recommended plan of action. In some instances, the clear definition of the problem will lead to recommendation of a course of action that appears logically obvious. But, in other cases the problem may be sufficiently complex or the number of feasible alternative courses of action are so great that some justification or rational is required to explain why the particular course of action is recommended and the best alternative. For this case study analysis, you must use your judgement concerning how much, if any justification or explanation is needed to support any particular recommended course of action.
Professionalism and Presentation- It is necessary to use a professional style/format with headings and sub-headings. Use literature to support your discussion. Use APA style (6th edition) to cite any references and include a References page.
The ultimate goal for this paper is to demonstrate the ability to research and respond professionally to an assignment. Keep in mind that this may be similar to an assignment your employer may give you, so make sure your paper reflects thorough responses to each one of the questions that applies the material we have covered in class!