You will describe the general situation for the product you are examining. You will identify the primary products/services of interest, your core business, its markets, its competitors, and the major variables at work in this industry.

Excluding your title page, please write paper addressing the following, and using the sections as subtitles in your paper:

1) NAME the ORGANIZATION or Company you have chosen to examine, and give its address and other background information in a 1-2 paragraph summary.

2) Give the organization’s MISSION STATEMENT.
If there is no mission statement, analyze information about the company and write a mission statement that includes what it does, whom it serves, and how it serves them (i.e., what value it provides, or what values underlie the organization).

3) Create an initial list or table of the major PRODUCTS, GOODS, or SERVICES (as categories) that the company produces and/or sells, with an explanation of each.
You will present more detail regarding what the company sells and to whom it sells what it sells in SLP02 #7-9.

4) Create a list of COMPETITORS for the business (if it is small) or a product category (if the company is quite large).

5) Discuss your company’s POSITION in the MARKET place relative to competitors. In doing so, explain your company’s strategies or COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES.

PART 2
Chosen organization, discuss its product mix and support services. Using the sections highlighted below as subtitles in your paper, please address the following issues:

6) List what you believe are TWO PRIMARY ATTRIBUTES on which your business competes (such as quality and availability), and create a positioning map showing where you place your organization relative to its primary competitors on these TWO criteria.

You should NOT use quality and price. Many textbooks follow this approach but this usually results in a linear arrangement of the products on a diagonal, with two empty cells! Either the products are of high quality with a commensurate high price or of low quality with a commensurate low price. It is hard to imagine finding products with high quality and a low price or low quality and a high price, i.e. Price and Quality are highly correlated and this invalidates a fundamental assumption of positioning maps, namely that the dimensions used are independent.

Therefore, choose more interesting and useful dimensions. For example, look at the underlying dimensions or attributes on which quality might be based. This approach is not easy but it is far more useful. For example, if you are describing the market for colas, you might choose TWO of the following: carbonation, sweetness, and type of sweetener. Or if you are describing the market for ice cream, you might choose TWO of the following: creaminess, sweetness, and type of sweetener. Though meaningful positioning is multi-dimensional (that is it requires more than two dimensions, for this exercise, so that you get a feeling for the process, you are being asked to use only two dimensions. In terms of the above examples, you might even want to think in terms of presenting descriptions of customers in terms of their motivations to choose one product vs. another.

Part 3
Chosen organization, you will discuss its distribution systems. Be sure to refer to the taught materials thereby illustrating your learning.
In that regard, using the issues as subtitles in your paper, please address the following issues:

12) If your organization manufactures a product or products, describe how products get from manufacturer through the DISTRIBUTION channel to the final consumer.

13) If your organization manufactures a product or products, describe LOGISTICS or how products are transported (land, sea, air, etc.)– or even how component parts are obtained for manufacturing.

14) If your organization is a retailer, describe the retail PHYSICAL FACILITY. From a distribution perspective iinclude its location, its exterior and interior appearance, and related place issues such as the decision-rules used to decide where products are located in the facility.

15) If your organization manufactures a product or products OR is a retailer, with regard to the product(s) (good(s) and/or service(s)) your organization offers, does your organization have a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE with its DISTRIBUTION channels or issues? Your answer should be a “Yes” or a “No” followed by your defense of why you chose Yes or No. Be sure to include references to the background materials to support your response.

Part 4
analyze Promotion by the organization you chose for your Session Long Project. Promotion encompasses
Advertising,
Personal Selling,
Sales Promotion,
Publicity, and
Public Relations

Be sure to bring in illustrative materials to demonstrate your understanding of the marketing principles your company is following.

16) Recalling that promotion includes: Advertising, Personal Selling, Publicity, and Sales Promotion, describe the PROMOTIONAL MIX of your chosen organization,

17) Analyze the promotion of your chosen organization relative to your products and markets as if you were making a report to management. Be as specific as possible and be sure to draw on Module 4 background materials in describing the INTEGRATION of the MARKETING MIX..

18) Briefly (1-4 paragraphs), explain if and/or how your organization has COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE in PROMOTION? If it does not have competitive advantage in promotions, explain why it doesn’t have that advantage.

Part 5
19) Describe the PRICING STRATEGIES and TACTICS of your chosen organization using the proper marketing terminology. Pricing strategies can be simplistically referred to as ?above-the-market (higher than competition); at-the-market (same as competition); or below-the-market (lower than competition). You also can use terms such as ?skim pricing?, ?penetration pricing? or other terms you will learned in this module.

20) Analyze the pricing strategies and tactics followed by your organization. Be as specific as possible and be sure to draw on Module 5 background materials in describing the INTEGRATION of the MARKETING MIX. (This is the same question as you answered for product, distribution, and promotion; but for pricing).

21) Briefly, explain if your organization has COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE relative to PRICING.