Prior to beginning work on this assignment,

Read

• Chapter 9: Managing the Marketing Effect, Sections 9.1 and 9.2 of the course text, Principles of Marketing

Watch

• How to Use SWOT Analysis (Links to an external site.)
• The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy (Links to an external site.)

This week, you will be creating components of your capstone marketing plan assignment. You will then finish your plan in Week 5.

Using the company you selected for your marketing manager internship, you will complete a situation analysis with the goal of identifying a new product/service to develop your marketing plan against.

+Describe the selected company and it’s brand. Include a brief history of the company.

+List the core products and services the company offers.

+Identify the key current competitors.

+Complete a SWOT Analysis

+Propose the product or service line you want to develop a marketing plan for.

+Justify your proposal with a SWOT-based argument for why it warrants marketing investment.

+Describe the core product, extended product, and the product concept.

+Explain how you plan to achieve competitive differentiation through creating customer value in four areas: branding, packaging, support, and quality

 

The Marketing Plan: Product Identification and SWOT Analysis paper

• Must be three to four double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA Style (Links to an external site.) as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA Formatting for Microsoft Word (Links to an external site.) resource.
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper in bold font
    • Space should be between title and the rest of the information on the title page.
  • Student’s name
  • Name of institution (Ashford University)
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Due date
• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least one scholarly orcredible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center’s APA: Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA Style as outlined in the Writing Center. See the APA: Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Writing Center for specifications.

 

 

This assignment has two options. Please see below and choose the option that best suits your current situation. PLEASE HAVE THE PERSON THAT YOU ARE INTERVIEWING ANSWER ALL 9 QUESTIONS AND REMEMBER TO WRITE A 2-3 PARAGRAPHS ASSESSMENT ABOUT YOURSELF AS DESRCIBED BELOW.

Option 1 – Lesbian, Homosexual, and Bisexual

A lot of people know someone who identifies as lesbian, homosexual, or bisexual. Choose someone who is comfortable being interviewed and conduct an interview. You will not need to provide their identity. This exercise will get you familiar asking questions that may be considered uncomfortable.

1. When did you first think you might be gay?
2. When was your first crush?
3. First date or sexual activity?
4. Did you try to live the straight lifestyle for a period of time?
5. Were you ever in denial?
6. Have you come out to your family?
7. How did they react?
8. Have you ever been the victim of homophobic comments?
9. Have you ever been discriminated against?

Option 2 – Heterosexual

Interview someone who you know that is Heterosexual with the following questions and complete your self-assessment.

1. Are you sure you are straight?
2. How do you know?
3. Have you ever seen a member of the same sex and found them to be attractive in a sexual way? Ever?
4. How long have you been straight?
5. Were you born that way?
6. Or was there something that happened in your childhood that made you straight?
7. Were you straight before you had your first sexual experience?
8. How do you know you were?
9. Does your family know you are straight? Have you “come out?”

After you complete the interview, complete a self-assessment (2-3 paragraphs) on how comfortable you felt asking such sensitive and personal questions. What did you learn about discussing sensitive subjects? What will you do differently next time?

 For this small group discussion, assume the role of an HR professional who has been assigned the task of improving the success rate of your organization’s expatriate program.

Using what you read on pp. 11–13 of “Keys to Expatriate Success: A Toolkit for Diversity Management,” create a data-gathering tool you would use to audit the organization’s current expatriate process. This data would be used to develop recommendations for change to improve the success of the process. 

need critical outline and analysis 

Discussion 10

CLASSMATE 1

Why is strategic planning and goal setting critical to an organization?

Change can be challenging within organizations. It is vital for leaders and organizations to have a plan developed in the event that challenges arise. It is not wise for leaders and organizations to wait until the challenge arises before knowing what to do. However, it will be beneficial for leaders and organizations to plan ahead.

Strategic planning can provide organizations with a set of concepts, procedures, and tools that are developed to assist in accomplishing the identified tasks (Bryson, 2004, 2010). Strategic planning is essential to organizations, as disclosed above. Strategic planning can be an essential factor that contributes to leaders remembering the mission, vision, objectives, and goals of the organization. The needs of an organization may change. As the need changes, leaders want to ensure that they are in a position to adhere to the needs. Manning (2020) identified three fundamental stages of strategic planning. The stages are establishing strategic direction, enhancing management and organizational capacities, and inspiring long-term change in the organization’s performance. The first stage consists of reevaluating the mission and purpose, assessing, and prioritizing the issues at hand, and developing strategies that will be beneficial to the organization in the future (Manning, 2020). The second stage entails organizations having a stronger foundation and improvements within the organization. The last stage involves the effective functioning of the organization shifting. The shift within the organization will be beneficial as it will produce great results. With strategic planning being the foundation of an organization, I believe it is also critical to develop goals.

As with strategic planning, goal setting is quite imperative. Having an established goal and identified objectives to achieve are essential. Goals are the driving force of a strategic plan. I like to envision a strategic plan as the vehicle and a goal as the driver. You can have a vehicle, however, if there is no driver, then the vehicle will not move. Meaning without the goal, it is hard to push forth the strategic plan.  Both, the strategic plan, and goal is essential factors that are critical to the success of an organization. Without those factors, it can be hard to navigate the organization in a pivotal direction.

Bryson, J. 2004. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide for

Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 

Bryson, J. 2010. “The Future of Public and Nonprofit Strategic Planning in the United 

States.” Public Administration Review 70 (S1): S255–67, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02285.x.

Manning, S. R. (2020). Strategic Planning in Emergency Management: Evaluating the Impacts

on Local Program Quality. Journal of Homeland Security & Emergency 

Management, 17(3), 1–37. https://doi-org.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/10.1515/jhsem-

2019-0051

CLASSMATE 2

Discussion 10

Topic: Why are strategic planning and goal setting critical to an organization?

Strategic planning and goal setting are critical to organizations as it demonstrates what employees should focus on and it assists leaders in prioritizing tasks. Richardson (2014) reported that, “an organization that is growing and hopes to sustain that growth needs a set of strategies to guide its program development, build a solid financial foundation, and prepare for challenges that lie ahead”. More specifically, an organization must have strategies formulated to assist in determining productive future, within the organization. “Strategy may be thought of as a pattern of purposes, policies, programs, projects, actions, decisions, or resource allocations that defines what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why it does it” (Bryson, 2011). The development and implementation of a strategy can further assist the organization in carrying out their mission and vision. “Strategies should be formulated that can be adopted in politically acceptable, technically and administratively workable, results-oriented, and legally, ethically and morally defensible form” (Bryson, 2011). An effective formulated strategy can aid companies in dealing with the many issues that arise, within the organization. 

In regards to an organization developing and supporting the sustainability of their strategic plan, Richardson (2014) states “to ensure that your plan is and remains ever present in the minds of your staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders, your governing committee (or its equivalent) should be tasked with monitoring progress toward the goals and objectives laid out in the plan”. The author also mentioned that the setting of directions and the act of monitoring those directions are the responsibility of the board. “Instead, the board as a whole should review the plan at regular intervals and, if necessary, suggest adjustments to keep the organization on track” (Richardson, 2014). Things are always changing within an organization Therefore, it is vital for the company to re-evaluate their business strategies to see if the current plan is working and/or needs modifications. “Strategies may need to be maintained, superseded by other strategies, or terminated for one reason or another” (Bryson & Alston, 2011). This review is significant in that it assists the organization in utilizing current strategies and lessons learned to continue building organizational success.

Bryson, J.M. (2011). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Richardson, C. (2014). Strategic planning: five steps to a more secure future. Retrieved from philanthropynewsdigest.org/columns/the-sustainable-nonprofit/strategic-planning-five-steps-to-a-more-secure-future