MKT82210 – Marketing – Assignment 1 Report
Study Period 5, 2018
Due: 17 September 2018, 11:00pm (AEST)
1500 words (+/- 20%)
Background to the Assessment
The aim of this project is to identify strategic marketing opportunities of an organisation, and
develop a marketing plan for one of the strategic options. You can select any organisation of
your choice. It is strongly recommended that you use the same organisation for Assessment
1 and Assessment 3, so read the brief for Assessment 3 before selecting an organisation.
Furthermore in making a choice you should bear in mind:
 you will be assessed on your ability to apply concepts from this unit, and
 you need to be able to obtain sufficient current information to provide a
comprehensive evaluation of their current marketing strategy.
Referencing should be included where appropriate in your assignments to acknowledge
relevant information. The required referencing format is the Harvard style – refer to the
MySCU library site link for information on how to apply this style of referencing in your
assignments (https://libguides.scu.edu.au/harvard).
Assessment 1: Report (Strategic Marketing Options)
For this assignment, you are required to outline and discuss the strategic options available to
an organisation of your choice. If you choose a large organisation, you may then want to do
this in relation to a specific product line or particular service. If you have chosen a smaller
organisation, you may prefer to focus on their overall offering.
Page 2 of 4
Based on your analysis you are asked to consider alternatives for future marketing success
and to outline your recommendations. Using the concepts from Topics 1 and 2, you need to
address the following:
1) Introduce the business, its mission statement and product(s).
2) Present a comprehensive situation analysis which should include:
 Macro environment analysis: an analysis of the environmental forces that may
impact the business.
 Micro environment analysis: an analysis of the market they currently operate
in
3) Present a SWOT analysis – as a summary of your situation analysis.
4) Now define ‘the problem’ that your organisation faces in terms of ‘where do they go
from here?’
5) Use Ansoff’s Matrix to help you identify strategic alternatives for the future – that will
solve the problem. Evaluate these.
6) Make a recommendation, based on the above evaluation, of which of Ansoff’s four
options you believe the organisation should pursue – to solve the problem. Support
your recommendation with rationale. Outline briefly your recommendations for
implementation (next steps).
To support your analysis you are required to submit at least four different items of current
(i.e. the last 12 months) marketing material relevant to the business and/or product. So for
example: a copy of a web page, a media release, product or packaging information, an
advertisement, a survey and so on.
These should, of course, be addressed as part of your analysis. They should also be
included as an Appendix to your assignment (not part of the word limit).
Guidance for handling case studies
The brief of your Assessment replicates the steps in analysing a case study. A case study
should be considered as analogous to a real–world situation, where you are asked to
investigate a ‘problem’ and then to solve it by making recommendations for future action.
You may perhaps envisage that you are acting in the role of a ‘consultant’.
Page 3 of 4
Firstly you need to analyse the current situation, to understand the key issues and
contributing factors, so that you can clearly define the problem, as opposed to symptoms of
the problem. Next, you have to solve the problem by identifying alternative courses of action,
evaluating these and then making specific recommendations. More specifically a logical
approach to handling a case study follows six steps:
1) Problem discovery: We have a ‘problem’; it is recommended that you discover the
problem in broad terms at the outset (leaving problem definition to later).
2) Situation analysis: Analyse the current situation, concluding with a SWOT as a
summary of your analysis.
3) Problem definition: Make a succinct statement of ‘the problem’ that the organisation
faces and you are now going to solve.
4) Identification of alternatives and evaluation of these: Identify three or four (or more as
appropriate) alternative courses of action; evaluate each, listing the pluses and
minuses.
5) Recommendations: Make your recommendations from the alternatives and support
your recommendations with rationale – the ‘why’.
6) Implementation: Discuss briefly any implementation issues (e.g. timing, resources)
pertinent to your recommendations.
Academics and authors may differ in their approach to case study. If you refer to your
Introduction to Study and Writing Skills booklet you’ll see a slightly different approach in
terms of steps and sequencing. There is no one best way to analyse a case – the important
thing is to have a logical, structured approach and to ensure linkage between the different
steps. Some further tips for handling case studies:
 Analyse rather than describe. You need to present an analysis/evaluation. You need
to identify the key issues. You need to decide what is the most important and
relevant information.
 Use ‘evidence’ to support your analysis and subsequent recommendations; analysis
evidence can often be succinctly (well) presented as tables/charts/graphs.
 Use your analysis in your evaluation and recommendations and support your
recommendations with rationale (the ‘why?’). There is no one ‘right’ answer to a case
study and the marker is looking for you to support your opinion – ‘Have you explained
how you came to that conclusion?
 Your recommendations must come from your alternatives.
Page 4 of 4
School extension policy
Students wanting an extension must make a request at least 24 hours before the
assessment item is due and the request must be submitted to Student Administration, via
the following link:
https://www.scu.edu.au/current-students/student-administration/special-consideration/
Extensions within 24 hours of submission or following the submission deadline will not be
granted (unless supported by a doctor’s certificate or where there are exceptional
circumstances – this will be at Student Administration and/or unit assessor’s discretion and
will be considered on a case by case basis). Extensions will be for a maximum of 48 hours
(longer extensions supported by a doctor’s certificate or exceptional circumstances to be
considered on a case by case basis).
A penalty of 10% of the total available grade will accrue for each 24 hour period that an
assessment item is submitted late. Therefore an assessment item worth 20 marks will have
2 marks deducted for every 24 hour period and at the end of 10 days will receive 0 marks.
Extensions will NOT be approved because of problems with personal computers or storage
devices. Back up your work every day to a secure location.