Service Marketing Total Marks 40 The focus of this assignment is a secondary research exercise in service sector where you have to collect a wide-range of different data sources, evaluate the quality & accuracy of the data from the different sources and apply relevant analytical tools to analyze the data in a structured format. As a professional marketer you will use this skill each and every day. PLEASE NOTE:- IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO COPY ANALYSIS (whether PESTLE/SWOT/PORTER etc) THAT HAS BEEN PREPARED BY ANOTHER PERSON OR ORGANISATION whether from a website or a market research report. YOU NEED TO PROVIDE REFERENCES TO SUPPORT EACH PIECE OF INFORMATION YOU PLACE IN A PESTLE/SWOT analysis etc. Assignment guideline: Please prepare a report answering the following questions. This should be a maximum of 4000 words excluding references and appendices. Please only include material in the appendices that is mentioned in your answer. 1. Research and analyze current trends within SERVICES sector. Critically evaluate which, are the three most important trends, justify your choices using evidence from your research. (25%) 2. Based on the research you have completed select two companies to research from within the area of services e.g. two consultancy firms, two advertising agencies etc. Compare & contrast how these companies are responding to the changing external environment. Critically evaluate the key opportunities and threats these companies face at present. (35%) 3. Assess the current competitive positioning of these companies. Compare and contrast their current competitive strategies. Make at least two recommendations for each company as to strategies these businesses can use to further develop their competitive advantage to address the issues you have identified in question 2. Please consider which contemporary marketing theories may be useful in developing your recommendations as well as the research sources you have already found. (40%) Please justify why you have selected particular tools or models during your analysis in each section. Provide a list of the references used after each section and ensure you use Harvard Referencing. You many also introduce additional reading if relevant. Over all brief on assignment question: Due to reports of contract cheating taking place on this module, I have given a very detailed introduction indicating that using other people’s ideas/analysis is not acceptable for this assignment. It is a Secondary research assignment meaning that students are expected to find credible references including market research reports, trade press reports in The Marketer, The Economist, Financial Times, and other major marketing and news press. Additionally there may also be academic journal articles. They MUST NOT use material from ESSAY BANKS or sites that provide prepared PEST, SWOT or other analyses. Unfortunately my recent moderation has found many examples of unacceptable sources being used. Current trends are required which means in the last three years, 2013, 2014, 2015 some may even have 2015 examples. I would not expect text books to be used as these are 5/10 years out of date. A lot of out of date material from as far back as 2001, 2006, 2007 has been submitted in previous submissions. Breaking down the sections of the assignment:- 1. I am expecting that students will find a large number of trends say 8-10 from at least 5/6 different sources, which I expect them to list with references. They then have to justify how they have chosen the top three. Are these the top across all service sectors? Or perhaps several of the sources mention the same trend? They should then give a clear description of these three trends with relevant references. Better students may use a PESTLE framework for the service sector as a whole (which with appropriate references move then into the 60/70 area). 2. The student’s then need to justify why they have selected the two companies they have chosen. A PESTLE/STEEP or DEEPLIST analysis for both organizations is expected. Each point needs to be fully references. This is evidenced based research NOT their personal opinion. As this is the external environment only opportunities and threats are asked for. 3. The third part leads to the internal environment here students may use Porters 5 Forces and/or perceptual mapping. However they must explain any diagrams given and again fully reference all points. Also a perceptual maps shows all the competitors not just the two they are talking about. Finally they have to make two recommendations for strategies. From the Marketing Mix approach they could use the 7’ps or alternatively they may use strategies linked to relationship marketing such a loyalty programs, CRM, key account management etc. They need to indicate the theoretical approach they are using and justify it in respect of the business. I don’t expect a large amount of material to be appendices. Anything within the appendices must be discussed within the report. Report Format requirement: Please refer and implement the format guide lines below for this assignment: The assignment must be electronically prepared Use a default margin for the paper with font Times New Roman or Arial, size 12, and line spacing 1.5 Executive summary (200 words) an overview of the whole assignment Introduction (100 words) Just explaining what is in the report Section 1 References for this section Section 2 References for this section Section 3 References for this section Conclusion 100 words References are not counted in the word count. If you take away 400 words that leaves them 3,600 for the rest of the report. You can then work out a rough word count for each section based on the 5 of marks for each section. .