Marketing Plan Assignment for my Managing Marketing Processes course in October 2014 at the Stockholm School of Economics

1. September 30, 2014
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MANAGING MARKETING PROCESSES
Marketing Plan Group Assignment
Introduction
In your teams, you will assume the role of a “marketing manager” and select a
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
Sweden. 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
You may choose any company (either a publicly-held or private company) within
your chosen industry, company, offering category.
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 explore. 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 SSE library resources to complete the project. Your choice of industry,

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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).

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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., the company’s mission, strategy, offerings, and financial
status; the economic and political climate; demand trends, and competitors.
Discuss PESTEL, five forces, SWOT.
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. Describes the
programs supporting the marketing strategy including specific activities,
schedules, and responsibilities related to product, price, place, and promotion
as well as people, processes, programs, and performance.
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 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.
1 Adapted from Creating a Marketing Plan: An Overview (2006), Harvard
Business School Press

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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. See www.plagiarism.org for
more information. 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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Submissions (See Course Description for due dates)
1. Choice of industry, company, offering for Marketing Plan: “First come, first
served”.
2. Initial Presentation: See “Group Assignment for Seminar 5” for information.
3. 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
their presentation. 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. Final Presentation: Prepare a 15 min max Final PPT Presentation on your
marketing plan.
5. 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 s tudents
during the Final Presentation. 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. Submit the Marketing Plan of maximum 15 pages (MS Word Doc not
including title page, executive summary, table of contents, references or
appendices).

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Assessment Criteria
Below are the criteria I will use to assess both your written and oral communications.
Professional Written and Oral Communications (10%)
 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
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 (60%)
 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

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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
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and its market relationships.
Creative and Original Content Yet Feasible Plan (30%)
 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.
 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 inter fere 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.