The final project is a strategic marketing plan for a new business idea. This group project gives you an opportunity to test and advance your ability to understand and analyze marketing situations, identify an opportunity, design a marketing strategy and implementation plan. It requires a good grasp of marketing concepts, strong decision-making and team-work skills.
While the marketing process and specific responsibilities of a marketing manager vary across industries and firms, developing a strategic marketing plan involves three main activities:
- analysis of market situation;
- marketing strategy formulation;
- implementing strategy through marketing mix.
The course will cover all three areas and will equip you with the necessary concepts and skills.
Each plan will be prepared and presented by a group of students. Each team has to identify an existing opportunity (an unfulfilled need, perhaps) in the market, propose a new business (or product, or service) that can address it, and design strategy and related tactics for launching it.
Each team will present its plan to the class during Ses #20. Time for each presentation will depend, in part, on the total number of projects, but will be no more than 3 minutes. That is, we will use the format and will practice the "elevator pitch." Effectiveness of the verbal presentation is key in communicating your concept and receiving quality feedback from your classmates.
The written plan for your final project is due few days after your presentations to allow you to incorporate any feedback you receive for you "pitch" following your in-class presentation. The final project should be a maximum of 15 pages, including any charts, graphs, and figures.
The plans will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
- the quality of the analysis — were the right questions asked?
- the feasibility of conclusions or recommendations — do they follow from the analysis?
- evidence of mastery of the frameworks, concepts, and methods developed in the course
- the effectiveness of the written presentation of the report