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Mullins Court Situation Analysis
Project Objective:
The report is to be a situation analysis for Mullins Court.
This report should maintain focus on the marketing environment and should
be suitable (with minor modifications in its objective) as the first part of a
larger strategic plan.
Our client's interest is in ensuring that the most immediately promising market
segments are selected and that a product portfolio is designed to make the quickest
use of these three buildings in the short run.
Your strategy could include a phased roll-out of three components of the product
portfolio, or your analysis could suggest that the most optimal solution is a
single product that serves multiple segments or even a single segment.
Your report should focus on an analysis that leads to a strategic recommendation,
but you should also include some brief suggestions regarding the implementation
of your strategy.
Some Important Rules:
Please take special precautions if you discuss this project with anyone outside
of the class.
Some information that is distributed or discussed in class might be
confidential.
Equally important, we do not want anyone outside of the class to be misled by
our activities, especially since several organizations in Texarkana are working
on some of the same issues.
We must be especially careful that anyone outside of our class understands that
this is a learning exercise for the class and that the university otherwise has
no association with the project or the client.
Please exercise restraint when expressing personal opinions about project issues
outside of our class meetings.
For a variety of reasons, you are prohibited from conducting primary research
excepting some kinds of observational research that would not reveal the nature
of our project.
This has caused serious enough problems in the past that I will
immediately drop you from the course if I have reason to suspect that you have
interviewed or surveyed other organizations or report participants, business
leaders, prospective property buyers, etc.
Engaging in these activities could, for example, jeopardize our relationships
with other business school clients, could jeopardize relationships with college
donors, and if running surveys, would jeopardize federal funding that our
institution receives.
You are, however, expected to do outside secondary research for this project.
This could include, for example, finding demographic information that is related
to estimating the size and location of potential target markets for this product
or organization, finding information regarding industry trends, and such.
Keep copies of all information that you find because you will be required to cite
all sources of information and to submit copies of all cited information with
your final report.
General Report Structure:
The attached generic outline might provide some guidance with regard to
writing an environmental analysis in general, but strict adherence to this outline
is not expected where not appropriate for our client's target area.
This is not a creative writing assignment; it is a technical writing
assignment.
Length is expected to be no more than about 25 pages of text (exclusive
of appendices).
All reports must have some sort of introduction that explains the nature,
focus, and objective of the report to the reader.
The body of all reports must in some way address opportunities and
threats in the environment and address the strengths and
weaknesses of our client or client product.
All reports must also end with some sort of recommendation.
That is, the report should lead to some speculation regarding the outlook for
our client organization or product, the direction which should be set for the
organization or product, and possibly some suggestions regarding how it is that
the organization could go about heading in this direction.
Although some sort of recommendation is required, most of the text of
the report will be associated with a scan and assessment of the current
environment that logically leads to a recommendation.
The Assignment:
- Students will work in teams of five members.
An individual team member evaluation form will be
distributed in another class.
- This is a real world assignment.
The report will be scored in large part on the
professor's perception of the usefulness and acceptability of the report to the
real client within the framework that this is to be a situation analysis.
A common problem is that students tend to include irrelevant and inappropriate
material in a report to show evidence that some particular concept has been
learned in the course.
Note that a minimal requirement is that reports be relatively free of
problems of grammar, spelling, typing, and such.
Do not fabricate material for the sake of creating a report.
Remember that this is not a creative writing assignment but is a technical writing
assignment.
- The exact format of the finished report is of the team's own choosing.
Although a general format for a situation analysis is attached for guidance, it
is unlikely that you could follow this exactly.
HOWEVER, the attached outline does cover the major issues that are often
important in a situation analysis; whatever format that you choose must be
appropriate for this assignment.
For example, Texarkana, as a portfolio of products, offers a portfolio of
benefits that could possibly meet the needs and wants of multiple constituencies;
the client organization does not have customers as buyers of tangible products,
but it does have to consider the different needs and wants of a variety of
constituencies who must buy-in to whatever you propose.
Other published report formats commonly called "situation analysis,"
"market analysis,"
"environmental analysis," "business plan,"
and such might or might not be appropriate and acceptable.
No two finished reports would be the same, and it is unlikely that a report
could ever be constructed to exactly fit an imposed outline.
- ALL facts in the report must be substantiated except those that are
obviously common knowledge.
This necessarily requires that the source of information be cited
(footnoted).
Watch for statements that lend themselves to red-ink comments such as,
"says who" or "I disagree."
For example, if a statement is made that the local economy is likely to get
better or worse over the next five years, then the report MUST indicate the
source of this expectation.
Additionally, related questions associated with substantiating this statement
might have to be answered,
e.g., Who expects this?
How did this person or organization or publication arrive at this
expectation?
How many others agree with this expectation?
How many others disagree?
If the speculation is your own, be sure that it is substantiated with charts,
graphs, tables, or figures that indicate the source of the information contained
therein.
- Information sources must be as close to the original source as possible.
For example, reporting population statistics that you found on a Chamber of
Commerce or real estate agency Web site is not appropriate in a professional
report and these third-party compilations are very often in error.
Such demographics, for example, are easily obtained directly from Census Bureau
and you have absolutely no excuses for not citing directly to an exact page at
this original source.
- You are required to cite all sources of information.
A less obtrusive method of citing in a business report is to list the references
at the end of the report in a numbered list:
List all sources at the end of the report in alphabetical order.
Number them in this order, starting the list with number 1.
Whenever a statement is made that must reference that source, indicate the
source by a number in parentheses after the statement, like this (12).
Note that the first time in a report that a source is referenced, the number is
not necessarily (1), the second is not necessarily (2), etc.
Also note that the same source may appear multiple times in the same report,
like this (23).
If several sources support the same statement, they should all be included like
this (4, 7, 12, 15); a greater number of sources often strengthens an
assertion.
If several statements are made in the same paragraph that use the same source,
list that source only once after all such statements within a single
paragraph.
That is, do not source this (8) and this again (8) for two separate issues that
are included in the same statement.
- If you cite information that was obtained from a Web site, your reference
list must provide a complete URL to the exact page that you
cite.
Since Web pages sometimes disappear, you must also indicate the date on which
you accessed the page.
(Assume that I WILL look up those references to verify information and that I
will seek out cached and archived pages if I cannot find them.
The more work you make for me, the lower your grade.)
For more information on citing Web sources, see a recent style manual such as
APA - this information can be found online if your notes and books from a
writing course are getting too old.
- You must submit a folder with your report which contains a copy of any
documents that you reference.
For example, if you reference demographic statistics which were obtained from
the US Census web site, then you must include a printed copy (clearly identified)
of the web page which contained that information.
- Please do not use any sort of report folders; use plain white paper
with a single staple in the top left corner.
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