bussiness studies
Fundamentals of
Successful Business Operations
The successful operation of any business requires the ability to accurately forecast future sales demand and then coordinate the company’s marketing and production efforts with the forecasted sales. This assignment will walk your team through the process of forecasting your company’s sales demand, assessing your marketing expenditures, and ensuring that your manufacturing capacity is adequate to meet the forecasted sales. The page limit for this assignment is two double spaced pages with appropriate headings and formatting (12 point font, one inch margins).
Part II: Coordinating Marketing Expenditures:
Research
3. Perform a cost-benefit analysis for your marketing expenditure in the segment you chose, by completing the following steps:
a. In your Capsim decision-making spreadsheet, click on “decisions,” then “marketing,” then “pricing and forecasting.”
b. Note the computer’s prediction for your product’s sales volume with your current Promo and Sales budgets.
c. In your Capsim decision-making spreadsheet, click on “decisions,” then “marketing,” then “promotion and sales.”
d. Change your promotion and sales budgets for your product to reflect an increase in marketing costs. Go back to “pricing and forecasting” and note the sales volume for this level of marketing expenditures.
e. Follow step “d” for a decrease in marketing costs.
f. Use the “Marketing Cost/Benefit” worksheet in the Excel template provided for this assignment (located on ANGEL in the Lecture Notes Folder) to determine the impact of these changes on your company’s profitability.
Respond
4. For the segment you’ve chosen, use the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix to determine whether your company’s product(s) in that segment are question marks, stars, cash cows, or dogs. Explain your reasoning for your product’(s) classification in this segment.
Note: For an overview of the BCG matrix concepts, please access the following link: http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/.
5. Given the results of your cost/benefit analysis, explain specifically how you will market your product(s) in the segment you’ve chosen. Discuss how and during which year of operations this strategy will position or advance your products in the BCG matrix (for example, moving from a current question mark product to a star by year 4 of operations).
? Enter your data in the gold cells.
? The aqua cells contain values that are calculated for you by the spreadsheet.
Comments from Support Team: Discipline: Business Administration