Marketing Plan Assignment for the Managing Marketing Processes course in the MGM program at the Stockholm School of Economics, http://www.hhs.se/EDUCATION/MSC/MSCGM/Pages/default.aspx

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MANAGING MARKETING PROCESSES
Marketing Plan Group Assignment (40%)
Introduction
In your teams, you will assume the role of a “marketing manager” and select an
existing Swedish company within a specified industry and develop a marketing plan
for a product or service not currently offered by your company to be launched on the
Swedish market. The product or service can be completely new-to-the-world or can
be new just to your company. You are to write a comprehensive marketing plan
profiling the competitive strategy to bring that product or service to the Swedish
market.
Choosing your company and product/service
In this class, we will work with a variety of industries, companies, and offerings. Send
me by email (robin.teigland@hhs.se) your first and second choices of the industry,
company, offering combination. I will assign teams on a “first come, first served
basis”.
Industry Company Offering Team
Business-to-Business Fortune 500
Multinational
Product
Business-to-Business Fortune 500
Multinational
Service
Business-to-Business SME (<250 employees) Product
Business-to-Business SME (<250 employees) Service
Business-to-Consumer Fortune 500
Multinational
Product
Business-to-Consumer Fortune 500
Multinational
Service
Business-to-Consumer SME (<250 employees) Product
Business-to-Consumer SME (<250 employees) Service

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You may choose any company (either a publicly-held or private company) within
your chosen industry, company, offering category. However, you must make sure
you can get access to the company’s financial data since this is necessary to fulfill
the integration requirements for the “Using Accounting Reports” course.
As for the offering, it may already exist in another market than Sweden or you may
invent it.
Your company can be a company that has employed or employs a team member, a
friend, a family member, etc. or a company that you would like to learn more about.
You are welcome to contact company representatives to gain more information, but
please respect their time. You may even work with a company on a “live” marketing
plan, e.g., Company X would like to launch product A in Sweden and needs your
help. Please keep in mind, however, that you will need to disclose information in your
report. In general, I assume submissions are not confidential.
A sufficient amount of secondary research is generally available on the internet and
through the library to complete the project. As part of the course, you will learn how
to use the library’s resources. Your choice of industry, company, and offering should
be based on being able to locate the relevant information to complete the Marketing
Plan.
Marketing plans often cover a full year, although some may cover a longer period,
e.g., when covering new-product introductions. The planning process usually starts
many months before the marketing plan is scheduled to go into operation.

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The Marketing Planning Process
Marketing Planning is a systematic, structured process. It includes the following:
1. Researching and analyzing the current situation
2. Developing and documenting the firm’s objectives, strategies, and programs
3. Implementing, evaluating and controlling marketing activities
“The Marketing Planning Process” adopted from The Marketing Plan Handbook
(Wood, 2008) by C. Melian (2009)
Marketing Plan Format
Although the exact contents, length, and format may vary, most marketing plans do
contain the following sections, not necessarily in this exact order:1
1. Executive Summary and Table of Contents – a condensed overview of the
marketing plan briefly reviewing highlights and objectives of the plan, linking
the marketing effort to higher-lever strategies and goals, then followed by a
table of contents.
2. Summary of Current Situation - Provides a description of the business;
product/service analysis. The situational analysis encompasses internal and
external factors, e.g., mission, offerings, the economic climate, financial status
of the organization, demand trend, political environment, and competitors.
Discuss Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, i.e., SWOT and
1
Adapted
from
Creating a Marketing Plan: An Overview (2006), Harvard
Business School Press

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PESTEL.
3. Focused Assessment of the Market Opportunity - Explains the
segmentation, targeting, and positioning decisions. Discusses which segments
are to be targeted, with an overview of customer and prospect needs, wants,
behaviors, attitudes, loyalty, and purchasing patterns as well as the
competitive challenges faced by the company and its offerings.
4. Financial and Marketing Goals and Budgets - Details on expected revenues,
budgets, and profits based on the marketing programs in the plan as well as
marketing goals in unit sales or market shares. Forecast month-to-month
marketing budget and unit sales and revenues.
5. Marketing Strategy - Shows the overall strategy to be used in achieving the
marketing plan objectives by creating, communicating, and delivering value to
the target market through positioning, distribution, and pricing. Lays out the
programs supporting the marketing strategy including specific activities,
schedules, and responsibilities related to product, price, place, and promotion.
6. Implementation and Controls – Indicates how the plan will be implemented,
monitored, and evaluated and shows how adjustments will be made to keep
programs on track toward objectives, and includes contingency plans as
needed.
In addition, I suggest that you take look at a number of external sources to help you
develop your marketing plan. There are a considerable number of guides and
templates online as well as reference books and software:
1. Creating a Marketing Plan: An Overview (2006), Harvard Business School
Press (on Courseweb).
2. Marketing Planning: Principles into Practice (2004) by Marian Burk Wood,
Pearson Education/Prentice Hall.
3. The Marketing Plan Handbook (2008) by Marian Burk Wood, Pearson
Education/Prentice Hall.
Data Collection
A working understanding of the electronic databases available at SSE Library is
required to successfully complete the project. Part of the project also involves reading
and interpreting current business events.
All data sources, including interviews, websites, company reports, magazine articles,
and others, must be referenced in the written report. Any material taken directly from
another source must be placed in “quotes” or properly reworded and sourced. The
failure to give full credit can be grounds for plagiarism. In addition, you are expected
to share resources and links found outside of class with each other.
SSE also offers the free use of an online survey tool, Qualtrics. For more information,
please see the information at the end of the Managing Marketing Processes course
description.

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Due Dates and Submissions
1. September 5, 12:00 – Choice of industry, company, offering for Marketing
Plan: “First come, first served”.
2. September 12, 17:00 - Initial Presentation: See “Group Assignment for
Seminar 5” for information.
3. September 13, 17:00 - Feedback on Another Team’s Initial Presentation - See
“Group Assignment for Seminar 5” for information. Submit Feedback on
another team’s Initial Presentation. The Feedback should add value to the
other Team’s presentation content and the communication of the Team’s
message. Your Feedback is also to include a summary of the main points
made by the other students during the presentation on September 13. Your
Feedback is to be in MS Word Doc (max 2 pages) format and have points on
both strengths and weaknesses regarding content and communication style.
Feedback teams will be assigned in class.
4. September 26, 8:00 am - Final Presentation: Prepare a 10 min max Final PPT
Presentation on your marketing plan.
5. September 27, 17:00 – Submit Feedback on another team’s Final
Presentation. The Feedback should add value to the other Team’s presentation
content and the communication of the Team’s message to help them finalize
their Final Report. Your Feedback is also to include a summary of the main
points made by the other students during the presentation on September 26.
Your Feedback is to be in MS Word Doc (max 3 pages) format and have
points on both strengths and weaknesses regarding content and
communication style. Feedback teams will be assigned later in the course.
6. October 4, 17:00 - Submit the Marketing Plan of maximum 15 pages (MS
Word Doc not including title page, executive summary, table of contents,
references or appendices). As part of the integration component, the plan
should also include a separate 3-page appendix discussing how the financial
consequences of your proposed marketing plan will affect the company’s
financial statements and evaluating the proposed investment using capital
budgeting techniques covered in “Using Accounting Reports”.
Assessment Criteria
Below are the criteria I will use to assess both your written and oral communications.
Professional Written and Oral Communications
• Professional presentation (in MS Word or MS PPT only when applicable) and
when applicable, with title page, executive summary, introduction, layout,
figures, tables.
• Easy to follow, well written, and logical storyline that keeps the reader’s or
listener’s attention. Make your deliverables eye-catching by using headings,
bullet points, figures, photos, videos, etc. Make PPT slides well structured and
provide a clear, logical storyline. Make sure each slide has a concise,
convincing key message that is supported through data or detail. Make the
slides well designed and clearly visualized.
• Stand-alone, self-explanatory document, i.e., if anyone looks at the presentation

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or final report, he or she can understand what it is about without having it
explained or presented. For presentations, more information can be provided
in the speaker notes of each ppt slide but no more than can fit on the page
when printed (12 pt Times New Roman minimum size in notes).
• Strict adherence to the assignment format guidelines
o Include title page with SSE logo, name of program and course, names
of group members and emails.
o Include 1-2 page executive summary on MS Word report.
o Include page numbers.
o Include sources and bibliography.
o Use minimum 18 point Times New Roman (or the equivalent of
another font) on the ppt slides and minimum 12 point Times New
Roman (or equivalent) in the slide notes.
o Use single-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman for MS Word
documents, margins minimum 2.54 on all sides.
o Submit only one document for each assignment and in its original
program format, i.e., ppt - No PDFs.
• Any props/other media appropriate and integrated in presentations.
• Well-delivered presentation and strict adherence to time requirements when
presenting.
• All sources documented in proper manner - see www.plagiarism.org for more
information on how to cite and document sources.
Critical Thinking Involving Analysis and Understanding of Theoretical Concepts and
Frameworks that Build Your Argument
• Understanding of relevant concepts from readings and class discussions,
providing definitions when applicable.
• Ability to incorporate various concepts in an integrated, comprehensive
approach.
• Analysis clearly related to the assignment.
• Ability to critically conduct consistent and logical analysis - supporting
assumptions with sound argumentation/rationalization. For example, does
your plan clearly show how goals are linked to situation analysis factors, and
how action plans are linked to goals? Perhaps tables or diagrams will
occasionally help convey your ideas.
• Specific facts from the company, external sources, readings, and/or from
personal experience analyzed and used to support your assertions and
statements.
• Provide convincing evidence that you understand the dynamics of the company
and its market relationships.
Creative and Original Content Yet Feasible Plan
• Originality and creativity in your analysis and plan, bringing fresh perspectives.
But creative does not mean style-artistic creative. Rather, creative refers to
whether you drew interesting and non-obvious conclusions, or perhaps
whether you analyzed something in multiple ways that was clever and added
value to your plan (as opposed to clever but so what). Being clever and
creative is essentially the art of making insightful observations and then using
these observations meaningfully.

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• A plan that is sound and feasible and that flows from the analysis.
• Assumptions used in analysis presented.
• Limitations that could impact the plan incorporated in presentation.
• Answer questions during oral presentations (again using all the data you have
presented from the case study and other sources).
Teamwork
The success of your team will greatly depend on the ability of the team members to
work together. Working well as a team requires that each member learn to cope with
different personalities of the other team members. A strong team does not let
differences in schedules, age, gender, or experiences interfere with their performance.
If a team member does not carry his or her share of the work, that individual should
be warned of the need for improvement. I should be considered an ex officio member
of each group and kept apprised of developments, especially when the team is
considering removing a team member for non-performance.