Walden WMBA6060 assignments

Week 3, Week 6, 7 and 8 assignments

Assignment: Application: Current Challenges and Problems in the Field of Marketing

In 2010, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected that by 2050, one in three Americans would have diabetes (HealthDay, 2010). On the one hand, for organizations such as food producers and restaurants specializing in high sugar, fat, or calorie foods, this health crisis is a problem that threatens the survival of the organizations. On the other hand, some organizations have perceived such problems as challenges they have turned into opportunities: For example, food producers may work to remove trans-fats and other “bad” ingredients from their product line. A company may also make more high-protein snacks and fewer high carb ones, for example. Or, other companies may be assessing the potential success of a new line of home exercise equipment, yoga studios, workout facilities, exercise software, calorie counters, step counters, juice bar franchises, etc.

Marketers must pay attention to marketing implications that differ across cultures and geographic boundaries as well as trends over time. How consumers react to a new product or service may determine a company’s success or failure.

For this week’s Application, you will examine a current marketing challenge faced by a business or industry. You will conclude your paper by proposing solutions to resolve or mitigate the challenge you have identified.

To prepare for this Assignment:

· Research reputable business publications for a marketing challenge or problem described in a recent (no older than six months) issue. Suggested publications include Bloomberg Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, or other respected business publications. If you are not sure if a publication is a good source, please consult your Instructor.

· Consider whether the challenge is related to a failure to utilize an innovative strategy correctly or whether a traditional marketing strategy has failed to innovate and adapt in the current competitive environment, for example.

By Day 7

Submit a paper that includes the following:

· A description of the challenge or problem (e.g., Why is it a problem? How long has it been going on? What may have caused the problem?)

· The stakeholders that are affected by this challenge or problem as well as how they are affected and why it matters

· The obstacles that may prevent the challenge from being resolved or that may make it difficult to resolve or mitigate

· The risks and consequences if the challenge or problem is not resolved or mitigated

· The effect of emerging trends on the marketing challenge or problem

· Innovative or current techniques in the field of marketing that could resolve or mitigate the challenge you have identified with a discussion of why those could be of benefit

· Two solutions that will resolve or mitigate the marketing challenge, with an explanation of why these solutions would be effective

Be sure to substantiate your analysis and position with examples and evidence from credible resources.

Refer to the Week 3 Assignment Rubric for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.

General Guidance on Assignment Length: This Assignment should be 2 to 3 pages (1 to 2 pages if single spaced), excluding a title page and references.

WEEK 6

Assignment: Application: Promotion and Digital Media

One key characteristic that distinguishes a service from a good is intangibility. A service, therefore, cannot be perceived by the senses as easily as a product.

Promotion often utilizes images and pictures in the process of achieving strategic goals. But with a service, there may not be anything physical to photograph. As a result, when promoting a service, a company must often use symbols to represent the offered service.

For this week’s Application, select three organizations that you have seen advertised (select at least one service and one product among the three organizations). For each of the organizations, review its website, specifically focusing on the digital media used to market its products or services.

By Day 7

Submit a paper using APA style that addresses the following:

· Explain how these organizations make use of digital media to represent their brand to specific segments of the market. Describe the symbols each of these organizations employs.

· Provide an explanation of the intended messages the symbols convey to potential buyers. Use specific, direct evidence and examples to support the assessment.

· Explain how the symbols being used in the digital media attract or align with the targeted segments. Your analysis may find that the symbols do not align with the targeted segment; if so, be sure to explain why.

Be sure to support all of your conclusions with references to this week’s Readings, your own research, and—if applicable—your own experience.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your paper will typically be 2–3 pages in length (1 to 2 pages if single spaced) (excluding title pages and reference). Refer to the Week 6 Application Rubric for this assignment for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.

WEEK 7

Assignment: Application: Financial Analyses

Have you ever wondered why a 16-ounce beverage costs only a little more than the 12- ounce serving? Chances are that the company producing the beverage conducted a financial analysis to determine the cost of the beverage versus what the market would bear as far as price.

An important aspect of looking at alternative courses of action in marketing strategy is performing a financial analysis. Before deciding on a course of action, marketing professionals need to understand the economic consequences of each alternative course of action. The Harvard Case Study, “Note on Marketing Arithmetic and Related Marketing Terms” by Star, Heskett, and Levitt (1974), defines several financial terms and explains formulas you might use to calculate the effects of changes to a marketing program. For example, by using the equations in this article, you could determine how many additional units of a product your company would need to sell to maintain profitability if you increase the variable cost associated with manufacturing it.

For this Application, you verify your understanding of several key concepts.

To prepare for the assignment:

· Read the Star, Heskett, and Levitt article found in this week's readings. At the end of the article, read the “Brand X” scenario contained within the Exercises (but do not answer the questions that follow).

· Review the calculations contained in the Marketing Arithmetic Calculations spreadsheet in this week’s Readings, which demonstrates how to arrive at the values requested in questions 1 through 4 of the article.

· Experiment with changing initial data values listed at the top of the spreadsheet, paying attention to the effects those changes have on the calculated values listed under each question.

By Day 7

Submit the completed Marketing Arithmetic Exercise Calculations spreadsheet. In addition, submit a separate Word document in which you answer the following questions:

· If the retail price is fixed at $1.00, what effect does increasing the retail and wholesale margins have on the manufacturer's selling price? Explain why this is the case.

· Define unit contribution in your own words. Is a high or low unit contribution preferable for profitability? Justify your answer.

· How do increases in the retail and wholesale margins (again, with a fixed retail price) affect the unit contribution? Be sure to explain why.

· If you increase any of the fixed cost factors, what happens to 1) the number of units the company needs to sell to break even and 2) the market share necessary to break even? If fixed costs rise, is this good, bad, or of no importance? Explain your answer.

· What change (increase or decrease) to the following factors increases the profit impact and why?

o Retail margin/unit

o Brand market share

o Advertising budget

· Many marketing decisions have multiple implications. For example, while increasing price improves profit per unit, too large a price increase may decrease unit sales, ultimately decreasing profits overall. Keeping this kind of tradeoff in mind, explain how changes to the three factors mentioned in the prior question could potentially conflict with one another in terms of strategy for increasing the profit impact.

Tips for working with the spreadsheet:

· The sheet has been set up so the initial data values remain at the top while you scroll down through the remainder of the sheet. For this exercise, you should only need to edit initial data values, not the formulas in the cells below.

· Read the cell comments to the right of cells C25, C32, and C40 for tips on understanding the formulas.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your Word document will typically be 3–4 pages in length (1.5 to 2 pages, if single spaced). Refer to the Week 7 Assignment Rubric for specific grading elements and criteria for this assignment. Your Instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.

WEEK 8

Assignment: Individual Reflection: Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth: Your Future as a Manager, with Executive Summary of Class and Collaboration Skills

As you begin this assignment, review the broad range of topics presented throughout the course related to marketing for competitiveness. Clearly, 8 weeks does not provide enough time to explore all the topics of this course as deeply as you might have liked.

For this Individual Reflection, select concepts or topics that resonated with you during this course and commit to learning more about them. To bring this commitment to life, identify concrete action items that will support your goal to deepen your personal learning experience in the coming year. Then, consider the following:

· What can you do now to integrate the experiences and insights you had in this course with your personal and professional development goals?

· What are the most important things you are taking from this course that will shape your future and enable you to make a positive difference?

By Day 4

Submit all of the following components as one document:

· Executive Summary: Write an executive summary of the course (2–3 paragraphs) that addresses the following questions:

o Which content and assignments in this course improved your understanding of marketing for competiveness within your organization (or one with which you are familiar)?

o What impact has your improved understanding had or do you anticipate it will have on the value you will bring to your role within an organization?

o How have the content and assignments changed the way you think of the role of marketing within the organization?

o How can the knowledge you gained in this course enable you to make a positive difference?

o In what ways do you think the knowledge and skills covered in this course can influence positive social change within an organization, community, or more broadly?

o How have the content and assignments shaped your goals now, and how do you anticipate they will shape your goals in the future?

· Personal Brand: In this course, we have considered the four key components of marketing (4 Ps). Now, it is time for you to apply one of the concepts—promotion—to yourself. In this week’s resources, you read about how important it is to have a personal brand, especially considering your online presence. Within the promotion component, you examined branding, and now it is time to establish a personal branding goal.

o Describe what you want your personal brand to be. In the next step, you develop an action plan for creating or enhancing your personal brand. Provide at least one clear example of an experience in this course that has helped, or may help, you move toward embodying the personal brand desired.

o How do your values and ethics integrate with your personal brand?

· Action Plan: Write a detailed action plan for one new goal for professional and personal development. (You will continue to build on the list of goals you started in your previous course). Include the following in your action plan:

o Your specific goal for professional and personal development with an explanation as to why you selected the goal. Be sure to provide concrete and specific examples of why the goal is important, the extent to which this goal enables you to be an agent for positive social change, the personal or professional value you expect from achieving each goal, and how the goal relates to the resources you reviewed in the course.

o At least two objectives for the goal you have identified. Provide a rationale that explains how your objectives support the goal. Then, develop your action plan/goal to relate to your personal brand.

o In what ways or to what extent do you think your personal brand will allow others to see you as an agent for positive change within your organization, your community, or more broadly?

Refer to the Week 8 Individual Reflection Rubric for this assignment for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.

Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth (BPPG): A Potential for Self-Plagiarism

When developing your Blueprint for Professional and Personal Growth (BPPG) for this course, you may find that you are utilizing some information that you presented in the discussions or assignments in this course or information that you have presented in previous courses, including previous BPPG submissions. Walden recognizes this situation with the caveat that you may use only small portions of your previously submitted work as background or foundational material for additional development in a subsequent assignment or research project Refer to Section 3 of the Student Handbook, Academic Integrity section in the Code of Conduct: found athttp://catalog.waldenu.edu/content.php?catoid=155&navoid=51011. However, when doing so, you must be careful not to commit a form of academic integrity known as self-plagiarism. If you reuse sections of your previously submitted work without providing the proper citation and reference, you are committing self-plagiarism. This is a violation of Academic Integrity as defined in the Student Code of Conduct.

To ensure that you follow the Academic Integrity standards you must take care to properly cite and reference any reused sections of previously submitted work. For example, if Johana Smithe reuses a section of their BPPG from the previous class, they would cite this section as a quotation: (Smithe, 20xx, p.y) and provide a reference in the Reference page: Smithe, J. (20xx). Blue print for professional growth for WMBA60xx. Unpublished manuscript, Walden University. Please take some time to review the information at the Writing Center concerning self-plagiarism and how to properly cite yourself. Link to the Writing Center on Citing Yourselfhttps://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/apa/citations/citingyourself.

Guidance on Assignment Length: Your Assignment should be comprised of the following:

• Executive Summary: Typically 2–3 paragraphs in length and no more than 1 page if single spaced

• Personal brand: 1–2 paragraphs

• Action plan: Typically 1 to 2 pages (0.5 to 1 page if single spaced)