What companies must be outgunned if you are to establish or maintain that position?

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1. On the Basics:

a. We have asserted that marketing is really the strategic idea of connectedness with

customers. From the perspective of your final project company, identify and discuss how

your company connects with its customers – select from either the marketing concept or

the selling concept. Be sure to define each concept and be detailed in your response.

b. Referring to your project company provide a well-developed characterization of your

market segment and your target market.

i. Identify the most urgent issue necessary for you to penetrate or protect your

desired market space.

c. Lastly, concisely address each of the following central positioning questions pertaining to your project company/brand:

i. What position, if any, do you already have in the prospect’s mind?

ii. What position do you want to own?

iii. What companies must be outgunned if you are to establish or maintain that

position?

2. On the Marketing Mix: Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your company’s marketing mix and offer strategic recommendations on how the company should handle the most burning marketing problem/opportunity impacting the strategic performance of the ‘mix’. Consider shaping your answer with the 5Cs in mind.

3. On Consumer Buying Behavior:

a. Referring to your company, describe a scenario of your typical customer using the buyer decision process when considering purchasing your company’s product/service. Use the language from our readings.

i. Consider pulling from your database research offered in our library workshop to

authenticate how your customers behave in your market environment.

b. Additionally, from the criteria that influence the rate of adoption, in what area does your company/product excel and what area does your company/product require attention to strengthen the adoption process? Be detailed in your response.

4. On Branding and the Product Lifecycle:

a. Referring to your company, identify the one major strength and weakness of the brand.

i. What are your recommendations to strengthen the competitiveness and equity of

the brand?

ii. Lastly, identify at what stage your brand falls within the product lifecycle model.

What is required for you to ensure that the customer remains eternally

‘connected’ to your brand?

Please comment on this taxonomy. Do you agree with their classification? Why or Why not? Please explain.

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In the traditional approach, we usually classify a new product on a single dimension, from incremental innovation (minor changes such as adding new flavor to your existing yogurt line), to radical innovation (completely new product such as the first microwave in the world). However, such simple classification seems insufficient to capture all the differences.

Chandy and Tellis (1998) review the literature on radical innovation and note that two common dimensions underlie most definitions of the construct—that is, (1) the extent to which the product incorporates a new technology and (2) the extent to which it fulfills key customer needs better than existing products do. They propose a taxonomy that differentiates innovations along these two dimensions (the above table).

According to this taxonomy, a radical innovation is a product that is high on both the technology and the market dimension; it involves a substantially different technology while offering a substantial increase in customer benefits.

A market breakthrough provides substantially greater benefits than existing products, but its core technology is not significantly new.

A technological breakthrough uses a substantially different technology than existing products without considerably increasing the benefits to consumers.

Please answer the following two questions.

  1. Please give a real world example for each category (i.e. one example for radical innovation, one for incremental innovation, one for market breakthrough, and one for technology breakthrough).
  2. Please comment on this taxonomy. Do you agree with their classification? Why or Why not? Please explain.
  3. Use Business Week source (http://www.businessweek.com/), find a business week article discussing a firm’s Marketing strategies to launch a new product (it could be a radical innovation, or an incremental innovation, or a market breakthrough, or a technology breakthrough etc). Please copy and paste the web link, and use your own words to summarize the article findings.

Identify (and bookmark) professional societies and certifications that interest you. Identify a career path, building on your current position and future goals.

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As you begin your academic work in management, career considerations must be a part of your development process. Now is the time to explore career options and supporting subjects such as internships, volunteer opportunities, and professional certifications. The more you learn now about career-related opportunities, the better your choices will be in the future.

In this assignment, review the information and resources available at the Student Career Center (Links to an external site.). Using these resources, complete a personal and career evaluation, begin to assemble (or update) your Career Portfolio, and explore internships and volunteer opportunities. While you will not turn in your Career Portfolio as part of this assignment, you should begin to build your portfolio to help you complete this and other career-development assignments in future courses. You will have career-development assignments throughout your degree program as a required activity. It is important to understand the connections between your learning, your career, and your ability to pay back any financial obligations connected to the costs in obtaining your degree. CSU-Global works hard to keep tuition and course materials costs as low as possible and provide you with relevant content to support your career choice.

Assignment Preparation/Activities

  1. Go to the CSU-Global Career Center (Links to an external site.)and get familiar with the kind of information and resources available there.
  2. In the Career Center, explore the Careers and Majors (Links to an external site.) Download and complete any worksheets that will help you complete your assignment.
  3. In the Career Center, read the information on the Internships/Experience (Links to an external site.)
  4. Conduct an online search in areas related to your career goals:
    • Search for volunteer opportunities in your community.
    • Identify (and bookmark) professional societies and certifications that interest you.
    • Identify a career path, building on your current position and future goals.
    • Visit O*Net (Links to an external site.), from the Department of Labor, to identify trends, as well as the skills, experience, and education requirements for your career path.

Assignment Requirements

Develop a well-written 3- to 4-page paper that includes the following:

  • One internship position: Include a link to the internship description and provide a summary of how this position relates to your career goals.
  • One volunteer opportunity: Include a link to the description for the volunteer opportunity and provide a summary of how this opportunity relates to your career goals.
  • One professional certification: Include a link to the description of this certification and summarize the qualifications required to obtain certification, as well as the value the certification provides.
  • Identify a Career Path building on your current position and future goals. Include your alignment between your Myers-Briggs personality type and your future career goals and two actions you can take to leverage your personality type with the desired career goal.
  • Provide a summary of your Personal and Career Evaluation. Include why you are interested in a career in organizational leadership, and describe your experience completing the evaluation.

Your submission should be 3-4 pages (excluding cover page and references) and formatted according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing & APA (Links to an external site.). Review the grading rubric to see how you will be graded for this assignment. Utilize headings to organize the content in your work.

Create a project management plan for your client that outlines how you will implement the HRIS in Gladwell Grocery Stores.

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Project Management Roadmap

With the justification of an HRIS solidified, you need to show your client how you will implement the HRIS by providing a project management roadmap, explaining the costs associated with implementation, and discussing metrics that you will use to measure the success of the HR function.

Write a three to four (2-3) page paper in which you:

Project Management Process

  1. Create a project management plan for your client that outlines how you will implement the HRIS in Gladwell Grocery Stores. Explain the various steps that should be included to ensure that the implementation runs smoothly.
  2. HRIS Cost Justification
    1. Create a cost benefit analysis matrix for the HRIS vendor you have chosen. Analyze the cost justification strategies that you will use to justify the cost of the HRIS, including data that identify each benefit and cost component examined, estimates of the dollar amount for each, estimates on when the organization will incur each cost and receive each benefit, and documentation justifying each decision you made in listing these benefits.
    2. HR Metrics
      1. Recommend the HR metrics that you believe will bring the most significant value to the HR function that the HRIS will be supporting. Justify your recommendation.

      Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:

      1. Typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.

      Gladwell Grocery Stores Case Scenario

      Gladwell Grocery Stores has ten (10) stores in upstate New York. They have approximately 400 – 440 employees. Most of the employees are part time, with approximately 45% of them full time. The operations manager, Tom Bell, also acts as the HR manager and travels to each location each week to take care of recruiting, scheduling, hiring, and answering questions for the employees as needed. He also takes care of payroll using Excel spreadsheets and has computer software to print payroll checks.

      Mr. Bell approaches you, an independent HR consultant and owner of your own consulting firm, for a proposal. He would like to greatly reduce his travel to each location each week, due to the increase in gasoline costs. He is curious to know if there is anything you can suggest in helping him complete his HR tasks more efficiently and in a cost-effective manner. He hopes there is some way he can do part of his HR tasks from his office instead of traveling to each location every week.