Several student presentations have been associated with issues of service product characteristics, evaluation, and quality.  Additionally, several presentations have been associated with quality assurance sorts of issues - accreditation, ISO9000, six sigma, and lean manufacturing.  We also had presentations on issues of promotion, diffusion, and utility.

Downtown Texarkana - the Broad Street area that is the focus of our term project - certainly is a product that needs to be defined and designed for a mixture of markets / constituencies.  Importantly, it needs a promotional strategy to ensure that an appropriate new image diffuses through members of these markets.

Changing the image of downtown from "broken down" to "cool and vibrant" cannot happen immediately.  The image will have to diffuse over time through a marketplace that has watched a long and slow decline and many failed attempts at revival.  Indeed, the objective of our term project is to figure out where this image transformation should begin from a physical perspective. 

In trying to figure out how to start transforming the downtown image, we can consider a number of issues related to our class presentations:

• Who are the "innovators" with regard to "adopting" a new image of downtown?  What are their needs and wants?  What about the early majority, laggards, and such?

• What are the product qualities that each of these adopter categories would want to see as a new image diffuses through the marketplace?

• What kind of utility is derived from downtown features for any particular constancy market with regard to form, time, place, and possession utilities?

• What would make downtown a "quality" product to these various adopter classes?  (Define quality, of course.)

• How could the Main Street program certify or assure quality to potential adopters of a new and improved image?

Write a report in which the objective is associated with deriving a strategy to transform the image of downtown (Main Street program area).  A requirement is that your report must be based on the sorts of issues that were addressed in the presentations, but you should not reference or cite these (or the textbook), nor should you feel compelled to force the inclusion of every topic that was discussed.  Within this constraint, your report will otherwise be critiqued on how persuasively it meets the above stated objective, not on your ability to prove that you can talk about or even include each and every presentation. 

Note that this is not a research project; it is an exam in which your assignment is to write a report with strategic recommendations based upon the sorts of issues that have been discussed in this class during this semester. 

You may hand write your exam during the class period of 16 NOV or you may submit a typewritten exam electronically by the date and time listed above.  If submitting electronically, limit your entire report to five double-spaced typewritten pages (I won't read anything after page five).  Note that issues of spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and such are important considerations at the MBA level (whether handwritten or typewritten).  Be sure to print your name at the top of your submission.

The report is due by 8:00 AM, Friday, 25 NOV 05 (morning after Thanksgiving day).  You may e-mail as a word-processed attachment (I should be able to open a file saved as an MS Word document) or submit a hard copy personally before the university closes on Wednesday morning.  If you e-mail, you will get a reply saying that the attachment has been received and successfully opened; send a reminder or call if you do not.  Submit to:

robert(dot)owen(at)tamut(dot)edu

phone: 903-223-3010