Augsburg College - MBA 550 Cohort 20 - Minneapolis

Marketing Management – Mondays, January 5, 12, 26, Feb. 2, 9

Saturday, January 10

Tuesday, January 20

Professor:  Professor John N. Weis

Phone:  (507) 289.4149    Email: profweis@me.com

Instructor's Background Information

Professor Weis has been a member of the faculty of the Mass Communication Department of Winona State University in Winona, Minn., for the past 14 years. He is immediate past chairman of that department, having been chair for six and a half years. He taught for 12 years for Baker College’s multi-campus system in Michigan, 10 of those years entirely in the online environment. He has taught more than 80 courses for Baker, including business leadership, management, business administration, corporate communications, integrated marketing communication, marketing management, labor/management relations, advertising and information technology systems. He is also president of Weis Associates, a firm providing consulting services in the areas of strategic planning, marketing and integrated marketing communications. He was vice president of strategic planning and marketing for 20 years for two healthcare systems in Illinois and Michigan. Prior to that, he spent 10 years in the journalism profession, holding positions from general assignment reporter to that of a news editor. He was trained in Total Quality Management and Continuous Quality Improvement, perhaps the ultimate in inter-disciplinary team endeavors, personally by W. Edwards Deming and has provided consulting services in that area for several years. He has served as Police Commissioner of Lansing, Mich., an elected member of a public school district board of education, president of a community mental health center and of a  two-county family counseling service. He has been a member of boards of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Salvation Army and has served on more than 25 other boards and committees. He is a former Catholic parish council president and president of a parish elementary school board. He has won more than 75 state and national awards for communication, promotion, advertising and community services. He is a veteran of the armed forces.

Note: This is the current text offered by McGraw

Text: Mullins & Walker (2010) Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision-Making Approach, 7^th edition, McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 13-978-0-07-338116-9

Major Case: HEB Brands, Harvard Business Review.

Course Description:  Understanding markets and creating customer value through the analysis, planning, and implementation of marketing decisions in the areas of product development, promotion, pricing, and channel selection.  Emphasis is placed on the development of competencies in marketing situation assessment and strategy formulation.

Course Perspective: This MBA-level course is concerned with the evaluation, development, and implementation of marketing strategy in a complex business environment.  The course covers the following topic areas:

          ▪ Acquiring marketing information through sound research practices.

          ▪ Strategic marketing planning and implementation.

          ▪ New product innovation.

          ▪ Segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

          ▪ Product, pricing, promotion, and distribution design and management.

Plus: Selling, presentation, critical thinking, systems analysis, and persuasion skill development.

Course goals and learning objectives:  This course is intended to help you:

1.    Develop an in-depth understanding of the role of marketing within the total corporate context.

2.    Acquire skills in the areas of marketing diagnosis through a total marketing audit.

3.    Become familiar with a wide range of marketing strategies essential in strategic marketing management.

4.    Develop your skills to investigate and assess consumer behavior and thinking.

5.    Develop a consciousness about the importance of ethics in the marketing discipline.

6.    See how the pieces create the whole when viewing sales and marketing within the context of organizational effectiveness.

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• Describe the core concepts and theories within the marketing discipline.
• Describe the role of the marketing function within today’s organization and explain the relationship between marketing and other functional areas.
• Apply marketing skills to a wide range of “real life” marketing cases/situations.
• Communicate their analyses of marketing problems and recommendations of marketing strategies to the instructor and fellow students.
• Address ethical and leadership issues marketing practitioners face.

Course Format:  The format of the course will be a mixture of lectures, case analyses, small group discussions, written assignments, a team marketing project, and oral presentations.  Through case studies, presentations, and specific marketing activities, students will have the opportunity to use the concepts, ideas and strategies presented in class.  Preparation will include use of Moodle and meeting outside of class. Moodle will be used to support most course meetings and activities.

Active Learning Approach:

In the active learning approach students play an active role in learning by exploring issues and ideas under the guidance of the instructor. Students learn a way of thinking, asking questions, searching for answers, applying content, and interpreting observations.  Knowledge is more important than facts and definitions; it is a way of looking at the world, an ability to interpret and organize future information.  An active learning approach will more likely result in long-term retention and better understanding of the nature of your own knowledge.

My Expectations:   

This is a college GRADUATE course designed to increase your awareness, understanding, and strategic application of solid marketing principles.. The benefits from doing the readings, adding to discussions, completing assignments, and doing a great deal of thinking and reflection will help to grow your business strengths, and enhance the development of your decision making capabilities and ability to think at higher levels. I promise to use my experience, abilities, and creativity to help make this the most interesting and rewarding class that you will experience in your academic career. In return, I expect the commitment, mutual respect, and performance levels that a graduate college student can and should provide.

Grading/Evaluation Criteria:

Overview:  The final grade will be based on the following:  midterm, final exam, marketing audit, and case analyses.

Activity                                                  Points                                     Percent

Marketing Reflection Paper                       25                                           25%

Marketing Team Project                          40 (25-paper, 15-presentation)  40%

Team Case Analysis                                20                                          20%

Class Participation and weekly assignments        15                                          15%

Marketing Reflection Paper: You will analyze the way your company (if you are not working, a company can be chosen) markets their products and/or services and you will develop suggestions and recommendations for improvement. Determine how your company:

·        analyzes the competitive environment

·        performs market research for customer needs, trends, fads, and changes.

·        develops and markets their products from research

·        Incorporates the 4 – P’s into an effective marketing mix

·        sells, promotes and advertises

·        assesses marketing effectiveness

·        employs marketing continuous improvement

Or, don’t they do these things?

Determine what is good and what may be missing, deficient, anemic, or haphazard. Based on your findings, detail what you would do to improve on these marketing actions. Base your improvement ideas on what the great marketing scholars recommend as “best practices” in marketing. Use at least 3 - 5 current (not older than 10 years) references in your recommendations. Think like a marketing manager assessing the strategic marketing structure and methods that exists and how you would fill in the gap between this present state of marketing at your company and the desired state.

6-8 pages (double spaced, APA format).

Investigation can include interviewing people involved in marketing, customer perceptions if possible, and your own introspection of gaps and effectiveness. In any case, try to get data that will help you build your analysis and data-driven recommendations.

Paper sections will follow a system approach and can include:

1. Company background
2. Description of your research and means to collect data
3. Findings and interpretation
4. Recommendations (please use 3 – 5 references for your recommendations)
5. Effectiveness Measurement (if your recommendations were used, how would success be measured?)
6. Conclusion

Case Study: HEB Brands

It is imperative that a businessperson be competent in the process of problem solving. Through the use of this case study this course will develop your skills in analyzing various business problems. Therefore, a basic methodology for situation analysis and decision-making is presented which will be useful in most areas of policy making. The major steps in this process are:

1. Define the problem

2. Determine which information is relevant and organize it into separate issues

3. Analyze each issue

4. Formulate viable alternatives

5. Evaluate the alternatives

6. Make a decision

7. Devise a plan for implementation

In preparing yourself for the case analysis, the following case analytical process may be helpful:

1. Thoroughly familiarize yourself with all the information given in the case. As you go through the information take notes and/or highlight and be sure you differentiate between fact and opinion.

2. Conduct a thorough industry analysis and SWOT analysis of the company in the case.

3. State the central problems in terms of the decisions to be made. Your problem statements should be very direct and very succinct. (Take care not to identify a symptom of the problem as the problem itself. For example, low sales volume is a symptom of a problem.

4. Divide the problem into logical areas of consideration. For example, a decision on whether to enter a new market may involve analysis of issues such as size and growth of the market, existing and potential competition, competitive fit of current marketing programs.

5. Decide the course of actions you recommend and justify why. Know the weaknesses as well as the strengths of your chosen plan. Ensure your plan for implementation is realistic. An implementation plan is often a listing of who is going to do what, when, and how. Your implementation plan might include a set of action priorities, time-lines, personnel recommendations, policy changes, and/or organization and system changes.

Suggested Paper Headings:

1. Introduction – Company and industry
2. SWOT and major competitor analysis
3. Major problems and challenges
4. Recommendations and Implementation Plan
5. Measuring Success (how would you know if your recommendations would work? KPI’s)
6. Conclusion

6 pages (no more) double spaced, APA format.

Marketing Team Project (Presentation and Paper)

Realizing that any product or service can be improved, companies need to constantly improve their products and services, and find new and creative ways to market their offerings. Many factors must be considered such as product quality, brand recognition, product utility, pricing, promotion, etc. If a company does not improve what they have and how they market it, their competition most certainly will.

You will be part of a team of four or five students who will investigate a selected company and one of their products or services, and develop and market an improved product or service that you will create and name. Your goal is to offer something better and market it more effectively. The major components of your project;

1. Select a company and a product or service they provide.
2. Analyze the product or service quality and how it is marketed.
3. From the analysis, create an improved product or service by “your company.”
4. Complete a marketing plan for your improved offering (use marketing plan provided).
5. Submit and present your marketing plan. The marketing plan should be 15-18 pages and the presentation to the class should be approximately 30 minutes including Q & A.

Once you have selected a company and an individual offering by that company, your primary responsibilities will be to:

·        Do research to determine how the company markets the product or service (marketing mix). Design a competitive grid that details the three or four largest competitors and their marketing mix. Also, gather and analyze customer perceptions of product or service quality, performance, pricing, advertising, etc. This may include surveys, interviews, secondary research, or any other way to collect data from customers about the selected product or service. 

·        Design an improved product that will better serve the expressed needs of customers and decide the best means to market it and get it in their hands.

·        Incorporate your creative offering and strategic marketing thinking into the marketing plan template.

·        Present your findings, offering, and marketing strategy to the class.

Use the resources presented in your text, this class, and the marketing literature to fulfill the expectations of this project.

Class Participation:  Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned material and/or cases each week.  Your participation will reflect your preparedness for these discussions. Your learning is dependent on absorbing the course content thoroughly and then applying it in creative and challenging ways.  

Class Attendance:   Due to the small number of class meetings and the intensive nature of the course, it is highly recommended that you attend each class meeting.  In the event that you cannot make it to class, please tell me, and you should also make arrangements to get the material covered. Typically, all material will be posted on Moodle.

References

Belch, G. E. (2004). Advertising & Promotion (6thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cateora, P. (2001). International Marketing (11thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Coughlan. (2001). Marketing Channels (6thed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cravens, D. W., & Piercy, N. (2003). Strategic Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ford, D., et. al. (2002). The Business Marketing Course. New York: Wiley.

Hair. (2002). Marketing Research: Within a Changing Information Environment (2nded.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hawkins. (2001). Consumer Behaviour (8thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hutt, M. D. & Spech, T. W. (2004). Business Marketing Management. (8thed.).

Mason, OH: Thompson South-Western.

Johansson, J. (2002). Global Marketing (3rded.). New York: McGraw Hill.

Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management (11thed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice

Lamb, Hair, McDaniel, (2004). Marketing (7^th.ed) Thomson, South-Western.

Kotler, P. (1998). “The Marketing Audit Comes of Age,” Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp.49-62.

 Lehmann, D. R., & Winer, R. S. (2002). Analysis for Marketing Planning (5thed.).

New York: McGraw-Hill.

Quelch, A., Farris P. W., Oliver J. M. (1987). “The Product Manager Audit,” Harvard Business Review, March-April.  pp.30-35

Stanton, W. J., et al. (2002). Management of a Sales Force (11thed.). New York:

McGraw-Hill. 

Stern, L. W., El-Ansary, A. J., & Coughlan, A. T. (2001). Marketing Channels (6thed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Walker, O. C., Boyd, H. W., Jr., Mullins, J., & Larrech, J-C. (2003). Marketing

Strategy: Planning and Implementation. (4thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Weitz, B. (2001). Selling Building Partnerships (4thed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Appendix E--APA Writing Style (Additional Information at www.wsuprof.com)

The American Psychological Association (APA) has established a style that it uses in all of the books and journals that it publishes. APA style refers to the writing and editorial style that many of the social and behavioral sciences have adopted to present written material in the field. Many others working in the social and behavioral sciences have adopted this style as their standard as well, including many colleges and universities.

Editorial style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. Editorial style concerns uniform use of such elements as

• punctuation and abbreviations
• construction of tables
• selection of headings
• citation of references
• presentation of statistics
• as well as many other elements that are a part of every manuscript

APA's style rules and guidelines are set out in a reference book called The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Below are general guidelines for our purposes.

Wording and Composition

• Avoid flowery wording. Often scientific writing is dry. Avoid the temptation to "spice it up".
• Write simply and clearly. Avoid too much jargon, especially if you do not understand it well.
• Do not write informally, and avoid colloquial expressions or jargon.
• Avoid one sentence paragraphs.
• Write in the past tense. Remember you have already conducted the study/analysis.
• Do not use the word "prove". In psychology things are never proven. 
• Avoid biased language. Use the term "he" only if you are referring to males only.

Format General Requirements

• Use a standard size font (no smaller than 12 points), use the same font throughout the report
• Do not use bold or italics
• Make sure the report is ONLY left-justified, NOT fully justified
• Double-space the entire report. There should be no additional line spaces inserted.
• One inch margins should be on all four sides of the page
• Put a page number in the upper right hand corner of each page.
• Paragraphs should be indented a standard 5 spaces. Use Microsoft Word ® formatting tools to ensure proper indentation. 

Page Ordering

• Title page with running head for publication, title, byline, and institutional affiliation (separate page, assumed as page 1, but not numbered)
• Abstract (if applicable, separate page, numbered page 2) 
• Text (separate page, numbered page 3)
• References (start on separate page)
• Appendixes (start on separate page)
• Tables (start on separate page)
• Figures captions (list together, starting on a separate page)
• Figures (place each on a separate page)

Citing References

Probably the most important feature of APA style is its manner of citing references in text. Quoted material must be cited, including page number and source.  Proper documentation for published material may be accomplished in any one of three ways:

1.    The sentence containing the cited material begins with the author and date:

Kahn (1997) suggested that the partying styles of college students affected their grades.

2.    The date is included in the sentence structure with the page number at the end:
 In 1997, Kahn demonstrated that the partying styles of college students had a direct effect on grades (p. 1513).

3.    The author's name, the date and the page number (if a quote is involved) may be placed in parentheses at the end of the sentence:
One researcher even went so far as to assert that the partying styles of college students “had a direct effect on grades” (Kahn, 1997, p. 1513).

Citing of Personal Communications

Includes letters, memos, email, electronic bulletin boards, interviews and telephone conversations. Do not include personal communications in the reference list, but cite in the text as follows (first initial, last name):

(T. Leary, personal communication, November 5, 1990).

Quotations

• Fewer than 40 words should be incorporated into text and enclosed by double quotation marks
• More than 40 words double spaced block of typewritten lines with no quotation marks
• Do not single space
• Indent 5-7 spaces or 1/2 inch from the left margin without usual paragraph indent
• If the quotation is more than one paragraph, indent the first line of second and additional paragraphs 5-7 spaces or 1/2 inch from the new margin
• Period at ending quotation marks place BEFORE the marks and comma, colon or semicolon OUTSIDE quotation marks

Reference Page

• • Start on a new page and type the word "References" in uppercase and lowercase letters, centered at the top of the page
  • Use hanging indent format
  • Double space all reference entries
  Start on a new page and type the word "References" in uppercase and lowercase letters, centered at the top of the page
• Use hanging indent format
• Double space all reference entries

Use the following formats as appropriate:

An article in a journal:
List the author(s) (using initials for first and middle names), the year of publication, the title of the article (no quotation marks and only the first word capitalized), the name of the journal and its volume number (in italics), and the pages where the article appears.

Kahn, L. & Wanamaker, D. (1998). The effects of study styles on the grades of college students. Journal of Normal Psychology, 3, 220-223.

A book with multiple authors:
In addition to the authors and title, include the city of publication and the publisher.
Gruner, J., Culley, V., & Robinson, C. (1990). Studies in frustration (3rd ed.). Bellevue, WA: Laboratory Press.

 

An article in a magazine:
For magazines, include the month (and day for a weekly periodical) within the parentheses after the author(s).
Melvoin, P. (1985, June). Social disorganization goes institutional. Psychology This Month, pp. 33-35, 37.

An electronic source:
As for magazines, include the month (and day for a weekly periodical) within the parentheses after the author(s). Then, list the page numbers (if available), the word “Retrieved” followed by the date of access, and the address (e.g., an ftp server, the World Wide Web), the path and file name.

Jaconson, J.W., Mulick, J.A. & Schwartz, A.A. A history of facilitated communication: Science, pseudoscience, and antiscience. American Psychologist, 50, 750-765. Retrieved January 25, 1998 from http://www.apa.org/journals/jacobson.html.

A newspaper article:

For newspapers, include the section (A,B,C,D, etc.) and page number.

Schmaltz, E. (2003 April 1.) Disturbing new study finds that studies are disturbing. The Daily Bugler, p. A1.

For other information regarding APA style guidelines, refer to the fifth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.