Project 1: Situation Analysis

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Project 1 Situation Analysis

• Secondary research in action

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Timeline for the project

• 9-3 proposal due (email)
• 9-12 pre-submit feedback (email)
• 9-17 project due
• 9-19, 9-22 present findings

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The Proposal

• 1. Research objectives (1 or 2 paragraphs)
• Describes what you expect to know or understand
  from your research. Your objectives for each
  project will actually be quite clearly specified
  by me before each research project.

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Purposes of this project

• To summarize useful information about your brand,
  the brand category, its market, its competitors,
  and consumers
• To offer your opinion about the strengths,
  weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the
  brand
• To propose questions that must be answered in
  subsequent research projects

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Research Proposal

• 2. Research method (1 or 2 paragraphs)
• Each project has a method. The secondary project
  involves systematic searching of secondary
  sources for useful information.

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Research Proposal

• 3. Data analysis (1 paragraph)
• How you will analyze and interpret your data
• For project 1 how you will combine the elements
• 4. Research reporting (1 paragraph)
• How you will present the data. (Hint you will
  write a report and prepare a short presentation
  for each project).

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Research Proposal

• 5. Time and costs (1 page minimum)
• A crucial section. A blueprint for your time and
  energy. Forces you to plan, commit to goals, and
  budget human resources.
• Time costs (human time resources for all aspects
  of the project, including but not limited to
  meetings, travel, data collection, analyzing,
  writing, copying, presenting, etc.).
• Make sure everyone understands Who will do what?

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Research Proposal

• 6. Calendar (one page)
• A set of specific deadlines for key tasks during
  the project (see part 5 above for some of these).
  Requires that you decide a) what are the key
  tasks, and b) when should they be completed.
• Proposal approval
• You cannot start work on the project unless I
  approve your proposal. I will do this in class
  Friday

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Project 1 Secondary Research

• Objectives
• To summarize useful information about your brand,
  the brand category, its market, its competitors,
  and consumers
• To offer your opinion about the strengths,
  weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the
  brand
• To propose questions that must be answered in
  subsequent research projects

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Title page
TEAM NAME Team Project Date Team Members
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Executive Summary

• Written last!
• Usually no more than a single page
• A condensed version of what is important, what
  the busy decision maker needs to know
• For project 1, heavier emphasis on SWOT than
  given in the report.

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Company Section

• History of the company, founding, mission,
  product lines, current leadership
• Companys profitability, growth, problems,
  presented as trends

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Product (brand) market

• Brand
• History, market share, sales trends, stage in
  product lifecycle, brand extensions
• Product attributes (special design,
  differentiating features, qualities (hidden and
  obvious), packaging, sizes
• Intangibles Brand essence, value of brand,
  likeability of brand, strength of brand
• Marketing activities (4ps)

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Product (brand) market

• Market
• Market history, growth, trends (new products,
  innovations)
• Environmental, regulatory, social issues
• Primary, secondary competition

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Distribution and Competitive Analysis

• Distribution how is the product delivered to
  consumers?
• Competitive analysis
• Select two or three most important competitors
  (justify choice)
• Present greater amount of info on these brands,
  including their marketing activities,
  expenditures, pricing, sales growth,
  profitability, strength, essence, likeability

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Advertising of the brand

• Advertising expenditurestrends, breakdown by
  media
• Advertising efforts of competitors, brands share
  of voice

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SWOT

• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• These are inferences, not facts. Should be clear
  from your earlier analyses.
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

Inside company Its competencies
Environment
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SWOT example

• Strength
• Brand x has more retail dealers than any other
  computer company
• Brand x computers receive 5 star reliability
  ratings
• Weakness
• Brand x is more expensive than its closest
  competitor
• Consumers unaware of reliability differences

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Opps, Threats

• Opportunities
• New operating system software will increase
  likelihood companies will buy computers in next
  12 months
• Threats
• Recession may postpone sales
• Direct channel sales are growing faster than
  retail

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Questions for future research

• What do you need to find out?
• Pose as broad questions rather than specific,
  i.e.
• What do consumers look for in a computer rather
  than do consumers like Dells Web site?

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SWOT

• Approach here is
• Examine critical issues
• Uncover problems
• Identify opportunities
• Test assumptions and goals with research

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Guidelines

• Double space everything except parenthetical
  quotes.
• Number all pages except the cover.
• Proofread everything--style and polish matter!
• Tables and figures in the back, all tables and
  figures numbered, titled, and referenced.
• One inch margins.
• Indicate through footnotes and references where
  all statistics or facts come from.

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Guidelines

• Everything you write is one of three things
• A fact you learned somewhere
• A fact you know through your own experience
• An inference or idea
• All facts you learned must be cited
• All inferences or ideas should be expressed as
  such

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Citation style

• Use APA or similar style
• APA manual is available at HUB
• Or use links at course Website