Students will begin to formulate conclusions and recommendation. These will be based on thorough research inclusive of what the student has discovered as “best practices.” The rough draft will be submitted and outlined in paragraphs and/or bullet points to be reviewed with the instructor in class Week 8.
Conclusions should be a tight recap of what has been researched and analyzed. These are the student’s “take-aways” based on the research developed throughout all the assignments and should highlight the most important factors impacting the retailer’s current business. The conclusions should lead right into the recommendations. To help identify conclusions from the research throughout the quarter, a SWOT analysis may help to provide a “snapshot” of their business. A SWOT is not required but can be used as a tool and is allowed for this rough draft. However, the SWOT will not be used in the final pitch deck presentation. Bullet point “take-aways” will be used on the final project slide.
Recommendations should be strategic and future focused to improve their retailer’s current business strategies and/or add new strategies. Students should consider any or all of the following for potential recommendations –
Does the retailer need to be re-positioned and how. Include target market opportunities.
Is the retailer in a strong competitive position – what needs to change to be in a stronger competitive position and how can they accomplish this.
What is the effectiveness of the retailer’s digital marketing strategy going forward – what needs to be updated or implemented?
Areas for the financial growth opportunities – new products, pricing, increased volume of products, technologies to improve performance, expansion opportunities.
Students need to demonstrate their use of critical thinking skills to analyze and formulate the use of “best practices” of industry strengths and opportunities as well as their case study retailer. The recommendations should be fully supported and convincing. The recommendations should be innovative and creative solutions. Recommendations should also provide a competitive edge while meeting or exceeding the customers’ expectations. Information to support both of these should be included.
In addition to the one-on-one instructor meeting, students will also present their recommendation concepts to the class for additional feedback.
The weekly Assignment master rubric is attached below. Please take a look at how this assignment will be assessed based on the required criteria. Your graded weekly assignments will be returned to the related Canvas assignment site with comments for possible revisions along with the graded master Assignment rubric. Please keep in mind that the content developed in each assignment will be transformed, extracted, or used as is to complete the final pitch deck to be presented and submitted on the last day of class.
