Assessment Assignment task 1 and 2:

Strategic Marketing Plan

All students of this subject are required to attempt the marketing plan as a group. Groups should self-select and self-manage themselves and should not change unless members drop out of the class. Students are therefore urged to consider their choice of groups carefully. Students may be asked to leave a group, and work individually if they are deemed by the lecturer not to be performing in the group context at an appropriate level. Peer review is an important part of this marketing plan and you will be required to complete the peer review form when submitting your assignment. This gives an indication to the examiner of each students group performance and marks will be allocated in proportion accordingly.

Due date:	TBA	ASSESSMENT
Weighting:	25% (10% assignment task 1 & 15% assignment task 2)
Length:	From 3,000 to 5,000 words both tasks
Topic:	Marketing Plan

Assignment Focus:

As part of this assignment, you will be required to write a strategic marketing plan for Dell. When writing the Strategic Marketing Plan you will be required to access, analyse and take decisive decisions in complex situation drawn from this real life setting, taking into consideration the sustainable, social and ethical concepts of a firm.

Aim: The objective of this assignment is:

• To enable you to understand marketing strategy and the elements of marketing analysis: customer analysis, company analysis and competitor analysis.
• To enhance your problem solving techniques and decision making skills by learning how to leverage strategic marketing analysis
• To inform tactical strategic marketing decisions while allowing you to consider a comprehensive framework to evaluate marketing decisions and to create successful marketing planning initiatives.
• To expand your knowledge in the area of marketing strategy while increasing your awareness of the different strategic and tactical that are available
• To be able to identify and act on sustainable, social and ethical concepts required in planning.

A major and very important requirement is that you strongly link marketing theories and concepts to the issues identified for your case organisation. Theory provides the framework from which to look at and understand the assignment question and to provide a perspective for examining the research data. The text and lectures provides the basic theory about marketing and the terms used such as an explanation of the marketing environment and specifically the macro-environment.

Students should aim to start thinking about the marketing theory they have been learning and to begin using that marketing perspective to better understand specific Consumer Products organisations that are operating in the marketplace.

Rationale: Students will gain knowledge about marketing and also see that there is a wide range of information available from a range of sources that can be used by organisations for analysis. In writing the report students will be able to understand the concepts behind strategic planning and the need to be coherent, concise, clear, well-argued, and well-presented.

Process: The plan should be aligned to the following structure:

Assignment Task One

1. Table of Contents

2. Introduction (Provide background information on the company itself and include a brief discussion of the market in which the company operates. Also state what the report is going to achieve and how that is going to be done)

3. Mission Statement.

4. Situation Analysis

a. Internalenvironment

i. Products

ii. Channels

b. Externalenvironment

i. Markets

ii. Competitiveenvironment

iii. Technologicalenvironment

c. SWOT analysis

d. Critical issue (Major problem)