Your Scorecard

Here are your group scores for your midterm exam:

These are low scores, alright but don't get discouraged. Remember that your papers are works-in-progress. You can still get a good final grade if you do things right.

Midterm Madness

We have crossed the half-mark of the semester. In two weeks, you will be presenting your Strategic Marketing Management Paper to CBE Faculty for critiquing.

As I have previously emphasized, reading your textbook will certainly help you catch up with the lost class time. I do really hope that you are reading your reference book.

Your midterm papers are way below my expectations. To be honest, most of the papers that were turned in are not 3rd year college level outputs. I'm sorry to tell you this but I think it is time to step up. I can see your potential to excel, or at least to submit a respectable output but I think most of you are not yet into this class. Papers like this one need time, effort, and a lot of brain work. There are 7-9 people in your group, use  that to your advantage. More importantly, as what Steve Jobs said above, puso, kelangan may puso!

I shall be posting your scores soon. Meanwhile, you may check your Google Doc to see my comments. Some of you have seen it already, and has started asking questions. Let's get the ball rolling.

Here are my general observations on your submitted documents:

1. Many of you don't write in prose. This is an academic paper, so it is expected of you to discuss each of the assertions that you made. Do not write in bullets. You need to explain and expound. Use bullets, graphs and tables only to emphasize or to summarize an idea.
2. Be intellectually honest. Many of you do not cite your sources. It is not a point against you if your data comes from others as long as you use footnotes or end notes. Make original analysis from the data you have.
3. Use recent data, 2010-2013 are most helpful. Remember, you should be spotting a trend here for your market and industry. Data from 10 years ago is not as helpful as recent ones, especially if a recent one is available.
4. The Analysis of External Environment should be looking at current forces or factors that may affect your firm/industry. External means outside of the firm. Focus on the things, events, trends that are currently happening or will happen in the near future. Your analysis of external environment will help you predict the future. A correct prediction of the future scenario will help you come up with a more appropriate and responsive strategy. You should be able to identify your correct industry and get to know the factors that affect the firm: buyer power, supplier power, barriers to entry, power of substitutes, and extent of industry rivalry. To be able to do all these, you must know the size and characteristics of the industry where your firm belongs, the competitors, and the customers.
5. The Analysis of Internal Environment on the other hand looks at the present capability of the firm- on what is INTERNAL to the company. Look at the company's tangible and intangible assets, evaluate each one and identify whether it is a strength or a weakness. Look at the company's value chain- how they transform inputs into outputs- and what activities are supporting this transformation. Identify their strong and weak spots. Having done both SWOT and VCA, you may proceed with finding the competitive advantage of the firm.

Your papers will be rated based on what you have submitted so far. But I expect you to continue working on revising, improving, and adding more substance to these sections of your paper. On our next meeting, we will be discussing the rest of the sections moving towards submitting a draft document that is ready for presentation to the panel.

See you on Saturday!

PS. Please rename your Google docs using this protocol: Mark106-<section> <Company Name>

Countdown to Midterm Paper Deadline

Hi folks,

I don't want to scare you but at the rate things are going, here is something to serve as a reminder.


It is coming and it is real. Again, the Analysis of Macro and Micro-Environment paper is your midterm exam.

To date, no group has added me to their Google Document. This is a collaborative work and I intend to rate you based on your contribution to the total output. I would also like to track your progress, and be able to provide feedback immediately.

Let's get this done. I can only help you if you'd allow me.

Cheers!

Strategic Marketing Class Recap: Day 2

Dear fellow learners,

By now you should be ready to undertake an analysis of external and internal environments - the first step to any strategic management process. 

Below is the topic outline that is due on Sunday, 26 January 2014, 12MN 11:30 p.m. or before midnight strikes. This should be prepared in a Google Doc/Google Drive document. All members of your group should have editing access to the document, including me. I will track your progress online and will give feedback as soon as I can. To better understand how Google Drive/ Google Doc works, you may view the tutorial video below, or click here for Part 1 (Introduction) and here for Part 2 (Composing Google Docs). Your group's output shall serve as your midterm examination.

Below is the topical outline and writing guide.

ANALYSIS OF EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL ENVIRONMENTS

I.                 

          Market Situation & Analysis

External Audit or analysis of the macro-environment.

Issues which may have an indirect effect on your company. Some of the most significant opportunities and threats for the business may be found through analysis of changes and trends in the macro environment.

Tools: PEST: Political, Economic, Social & Technological; may include other factors such as Ecological, Legal/Regulatory, Cultural depending on the market that your company serves.

II.              

          Competitive Environment & Market Analysis

Audit of the industry and market environment.

Evaluation of the competitive environment in order to develop and sustain competitive advantage for the business. This section should identify where the main current competition stems from and where it may come from in the future. In addition, this section looks at likely actions from competitors in reaction to moves your business may take.

Tools: Porter’s 5 Forces

III.      

          Situation Analysis

Audit or analysis of the firm’s internal environment.

Process of internal appraisal, examining elements of the business and their effect on the organisation. This should include appraisal of all functions of the business and also includes the profit-making potential of the company and the facility to exploit identified opportunities.

Tools: SWOT, Value Chain Analysis, Sources of Competitive Advantage, BCG 

Send me a message on Twitter or Google+ if you have questions/ clarifications. We can also have a Google Hangout if you wish to have a live online consultation. Just let me know in advance.

Good luck!

PS. The presentation materials used in our last lecture can now be accessed in Google Drive or by clicking this link. I divided the slides into 3 parts.

Marketing Management Reference Text

Since not all sections have given me their class directory, and not all of you have added me to Google+, I decided to post here instead the link to your reference text. Please be responsible in using the link, making sure that no one will use it for a commercial purpose.

Happy reading!

Strategic Marketing Class Recap: Day 1

Hello! Welcome to your virtual Strategic Marketing Class. This blog aims to provide you a summary of our class discussions, and shall serve as additional channel for posting announcements and other class assignments. This space is also open for everyone to discuss class topics, and other related topics.

https://twitter.com/notty_romero

Last meeting I had the opportunity to meet all of you. We did not have the luxury of time so I dispense of the usual individual introductions. But since you very well know each one of your block mate (except for the irregulars), I don’t see any real need for introductions anymore. Your individual performance in class will help define who you are.

As for me, I presented an interactive biography that I created through Vizify. You should try making one yourself, and track your progress as you graduate from university and enter the “real world”. But first, you have to start creating your own presence in multiple social media platforms.  (Apologies to the morning class, in as much as I want to, there were no way we can use the multi-media projector as there was no adopter available at that time. But you may click the link above to see the online bio).

There was also a video that I wanted to share to the class but only one section was able to see it. Again, due to tech limitations. Click play to see the video.

I wanted to show this to class as a way to start our strategic marketing study. I'd like you to remember that this world is both old and young, and the opportunities out there is vast and limitless. It is also to remind you that our world started from nothing, that from various "goldilocks conditions" came "threshold moments". Now look at your world, here we are trying to understand and respond to people's various needs and wants. From nothing, this world, the humans specifically, now want a lot of things in order to live a comfortable life. As a marketer, we must find these "goldilocks conditions" in order to create a breakthrough. We are also being reminded that our world is on a crossroad- we can either contribute to its progress or cause its demise. 

In summary, what we did on our first meeting are the following:

1. Preliminaries, which include the introductions, collection of class cards, formation of groups, introducing the course (read: syllabus), and leveling up on the requirements of the course.
2. Review of your Principles of Marketing course, and as I noted, you need to read back your notes from this class and re-familiarize yourselves with the basics of marketing.
3. Introduce Strategic Marketing Management.

Preliminaries

• Those who were not present during our first day of class (11 January) should have a very valid and compelling excuse for your absence.

• We already divided the class into work groups, for classwork and for the Strategic Marketing Plan. The Strategic Marketing Plan is tentatively set to be presented to the CBE panel on the first or second week of February.

• You have also chosen a team leader for each group. The primary task of the team leader is to be the focal person of the group for the Marketing Plan, and other class assignments. Your team leader may also assign 1 or 2 members of the team as focal persons for a specific class assignment or specific chapter of the marketing plan. In principle, the output of the group will determine the grade of the group members. BUT- at the end of the class, each one of you will have the chance to rate your group members’ contributions to class assignments, including the Marketing Plan. This peer rating process aims to discourage you from being a freeloader of the group.

• We will be using Marketing Management by Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller (14^th edition) as main reference of this course. Any previous edition of the book is also acceptable.

• I also asked your class secretary to create a Google Doc of the class directory. This should be completed by next meeting, with everyone’s required information completely filled out.

• To further systematize class communications, I also required everyone to create a Gmail account. Our class will heavily rely on web and social media technologies- because they are there, and because these technologies should be making our lives better, right? Once we all have our Gmail account, each class can then get connected as a circle in Google+. I know you all have your own Facebook Group. Let us keep that your own exclusive social network while the Google+ circle will serve as our virtual classroom. That means I should be part of that circle. Add me up notty79@gmail.com.

• Lastly, I encourage you to create and manage your own Twitter account. This is not required, but desirable. I already explained why marketing students should be present in social media platforms. You will gain more understanding of this as we go along. If you are on Twitter, you may follow me (@notty_romero) and tag me a message using hashtag #MARK106 (+ your Strategic Marketing Class section) so I’d know which section you belong.

Review of Principles of Marketing

In a group activity, I asked you to answer the following questions: 

• What is Marketing
• What is Strategic Marketing
• What are the competencies of an effective Marketer

Most of you gave satisfactory answers to these 3 questions. The first question asked you to go back to your previous class in Principles of Marketing while the second question asked you to remind yourselves of the attributes that you should have, as future marketers. These two questions asked you of what you think is the ideal. You should always remember your answers to these questions.

The last question is actually a jump off to the core topic of the semester: Strategic Marketing Management. Many of you provided a good answer, but only a few actually hit the mark.

Introduction to Strategic Marketing Management

So here we are. But first, the definitions:

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. Marketing management is the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.” - Philip Kotler, Marketing Management 14E

But what makes marketing management strategic? We defined strategic as a game plan for the future. We said that it should be both outward-oriented and introspective, looking at the external environments (market, industry, global) for trends and projections of future scenarios. Strategic also means looking at a future desired state while assessing its past performance (historical) and internal capabilities (tangible and intangible assets, internal business processes, human resources, etc).

In our next class, we will discuss the strategic planning process (Chapter 2 of our textbook) and the outline of a strategic marketing plan.

Class Assignments (All due next meeting - 18 January 2014)

Assignment #1- Group:

As a group, I asked you to read the case study on Google, and answer the following questions: 

1. With a portfolio as diverse as Google’s, what are the company’s core brand values?
2. What’s next for Google? Is it doing the right thing taking on Microsoft with the concept of cloud computing, and Apple in the fight for smart phones?
3. What is Google’s corporate mission, vision and values?
4. Identify Google’s strengths and weaknesses (internal capabilities)
5. Identify threats and opportunities to Google (external forces)
6. Identify and describe Google’s competitors

Assignment #2- Group:

Submit the name of the company (your client) that your group will work on in developing the company’s strategic marketing plan. In choosing your client, you should make sure that your group will have easy access to company information of at least 5 years (2009-2013). Second, as much as possible, choose a Manila City-based business. 

If choosing a company becomes very difficult, I am widening your options by allowing you to choose a subject matter (client)  based on any of the following:

Institutional Marketing – these are non-profit entities like a museum, a school, a park (Manila Zoo), or a hospital. It could also be a tourist attraction (Intramuros) or a business district (Ermita/ Malate/Binondo). As scholars, what best way to pay it forward than by applying what you have learned in class to your immediate community!

Social Marketing- marketing a cause, an advocacy, or a social good

Marketing for Start- ups- these are small or medium enterprises founded and operated by entrepreneurs with less than 5 years of operating experience

Assignment #3- Individual:

Each of you will have to review your notes in Principles of Marketing. Plus, start reading Chapter 1-4 of your textbook (see above).

Assignment #4- Individual:

To keep ourselves abreast with what is happening around us, we will start each class session with a roundup of Marketing News from around the world. You must pick one that interests you and tell the class of its marketing implications. As I said, everything in the world should be of interest to a marketer. That is how we can find the "goldilocks condition".

I will randomly call 2-3 students to share your news to the class. For everyone else, share that story in your social media feeds- Twitter, Facebook, what-have-you.

See you on Saturday!

Postscript: Thank you for agreeing to abide by my 2 rules: respect everyone and be responsible. Let these 2 rules guide us throughout our learning process, both online and offline. I also encourage you to call me by my first name (Arnold) or nickname (Notty). If you feel uncomfortable, Teacher will do. This article from Rappler partially explains why.