BX2084: describe and analyse how marketing research contributes to effective sales, services, and business development activities and revenue development: Sales, Services, Business Development and the Digital Frontier Assignment, JCU, Singapore

Questions: describe and analyse how marketing research contributes to effective sales, services, and business development activities and revenue development

ASSESSMENT TASK 2: DESCRIPTION

The scenario based learning activity provides a safe and conducive environment for trial and error, it allows students to accelerate time and engage critical thinking to improve knowledge retention and engagement and to develop student reasoning, problem-solving and decision making skills.

Instructions:

Students are required to criticize, assess, analyse, synthesize, evaluate, and act on a scenario.  The scenario may be case study or workplace based and will solve common issues or a critical incident.  Students may look beyond the marketing rulebook to solve the issue.  Students are required to a do a full assessment of the situation and utilize their scenario-based problem-solving skills before delivering their course of action.

 Useful Information:

Case studies and scenarios will be discussed in class.  This assessment must be completed as a group.  A PDF of a scenario based learning activity by Kathryn Meldrum (2011) Preparing pre-service physical education teachers foruncertain future(s): a scenario-based learning case study from Australia, Physical Education andSport Pedagogy, 16:2, 133-144, DOI: 10.1080/17408981003712828is provided on LearnJCU to assist with comprehension of the activity.  This assessment is based on this formula.

Information required

You will need to call on information from all reading topics, tutorials, and secondary research to complete the assessment.  You are not required to read chapters from cover to cover, rather it is expected that you will use them as a reference resource to increase your understanding and apply solutions to the case study/scenario. We suggest that you use the chapters(and all readings in the subject) in the following manner:

• Use the text to look up any unfamiliar terms, concepts or ideas, then use the library (and the readings tab) to look up other journals, grey literature and other textbooks to expand your knowledge.
• Complete tutorial activities – use the textbook, journals, and other resources to complete secondary data collection to fulfil the requirements of the assessment.

Asking the question and identifying driving forces

As a groupyou are required to develop and respond to a question from a case study or personal scenario.  The question must be time limited i.e. over the next 6 months, 1 year etc.  Once the question is developed, you must identify the driving forces (environmental, managerial and transformational) that might impact your question.  Driving forces are external drivers for change and for this assessment are sales and services driven. Environmental forces in sales focus on behavioural, technological and managerial (Jobber et al., 2019) and in services include government policy, social changes, business trends, advances in information technology and globalisation (Wurtz& Jobber, 2018).  You should also consider the action of other institutions including competitors, political parties, and government agencies, regional and international bodies (Phillips 2003). It is important for students tomake the types forces visible in order to consider all influences on the question. Studentsshould use their collectiveimagination to envisage the effects of the driving forces.

Coding the driving forces

Students need to code the driving forces to so as to think more widely about the action ofexternal drivers that they have no influence over, but may significantly impact on their questionover the stated time period. Forces are to be coded as either predictable (green) orunpredictable (red). Predictable implies the influence was relatively stable over thestated time period, while unpredictable forces were thought to be unstable and less ableto be controlled or anticipated.Ifthe predictability of the force cannot be determinedthe students need to research further on its potential impact. Students must engage in group discussion during coding to consider different points of view in light of the question to accurately code the force.

Identifying two important driving forces and constructing the grid

Good knowledge of business trends

To explore the interaction of the forces, students are required to construct a grid byselecting two unpredictable forces which were least certain and most

important to the question

Good adaptation to the problem/opportunity

Writing the scenarios and providing a provocative titleThe quadrants (indicated by the letters A, B, C, D) locate the nexus of the forces andtheir interaction with each other. For example quadrant A demonstrates high (good) knowledge of business trends and a good adaptation to the problem. In contrast, quadrant C signals the oppositeenvironment, low (poor) knowledge of business trends and a poor adaptation to the problem. Each quadrantleads to different ideas about how the particular state was attained and presents adifferent scenario in relation to the original question.

Students are required to write onescenario about a defined problemidentified in one quadrant. Students should consider questions like ‘What would it be like to be working in this quadrant? What mighthappen between now and then to get there?’ to envisionthe problem in that space. Predictable forces must be written in the same way in each scenario i.e. unpredictablescan only appear in one way in each scenario. For example, if adaptation to business trends was poor it has tobe poor throughout the scenario and vice versa – it cannot change as a result of circumstances.  The final step is to give the scenario an evocative title in order to capture its essence, andgive focus to the solution.

Providing a solution

Students need to provide 3-5 recommendations/solutions to the problem.

Presentation

Students should present a written scenario and 3-5 recommendations/ solutions to the problem using a report based structure including: student names and ID, description of the questions and the forces identified as affecting the question, summary of the coding and justification of how the two forces were selected, title of the scenario, the scenario, recommendations/solutions.  There is no strict word limit, but students should work towards 1000 – 2000 words as a guide.

Case Scenario – The Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM)

The Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) https://www.aithm.jcu.edu.au/ is a flagship research institute of James Cook University based in the tropics of northern Australia.  Australia’s only dedicated tropical health and medicine research institute, AITHM is focussed on solving problems of importance to the tropics, leading to improvements in health systems and healthcare delivery, improved biosecurity, and enhanced health outcomes for Australians and our neighbouring tropical nations.

A member of the AITHM will present the product in the Master Class on Wednesday 26^th August at 9am.  Students will use the information provided to create a scenario and a solution to the problem identified.

Forces related to Covid-19

The scenario or case study forces may be limited to the impact of Covid-19 (negative/positive) on a business of the student’s choice. In the scenario students should identify how Covid-19 and other forces have presented threats/opportunities, then outline how the business of their choice can manage the threat or exploit the opportunity bearing in mind other factors at play.  Other case studies will be discussed in class.