College of Business Marketing Practicum Skill Set Development

College of Business Marketing Practicum: Skill Set Development Dr. Maria E. Barua. Marketing Management 5133 Assignment objectives * How to use tools *Solve real world problems This assignment helps students to: set Apply knowledge from prior classes (tools) by learning a new skill Solve real-world problems Become attractive to employers The professor should talk to industry experts and employers to know which skills they are looking for in graduates. The course assignments should teach the students to link prior knowledge with the new skill(s) so they are better prepared to succeed. It should make everything come together for the student in a meaningful, tangible skill-set that differentiates them from the rest. Assignment instructions The assignment presents students with business scenarios, financial statements, industry standards and competitors’ information. The student is then asked to: 1. Use their new skills to assess the performance of the firm by analyzing and comparing financial statements, Strategic Profit Models, calculating ratios, break even figures, market share and sales growth rate. This careful analysis will show where the firm is outperforming or underperforming. 2. Once the student identifies the cause (not symptoms!) of possible performance problems, they propose specific changes to the firm’s strategies. It is here where the student matches qualitative business strategies (tools) with performance and uses their new skill set to manage a business. 3. In the second part of the assignment, students learn how to manage and make decisions about a portfolio of products. By analyzing simple financial data, students can identify which products should be kept, which products should be invested on, and which products should be discarded from the company. 4. In the final part, students learn how to use a “deal-sheet” to estimate final prices along the channels of distribution. They calculate discounts, final prices, margins, and pricing basics such as mark-up and mark-down. Example of completed assignment Students turn in their practicum and show income statement and financial ratios comparisons, strategy identification (Strategic Profit Model), product portfolio analysis, deal and pricing sheets and their proposed solutions (changes to strategy). Here are some examples: In this example, beginning and ending inventory are higher than the standard. The discounts are particularly lower (10% lower) than the norm. The manager should review the purchase discount policy. Feedback to/from students and faculty While some students may feel overwhelmed at first with an assignment that integrates knowledge from prior classes and asks them to make business decisions, many students end up feeling confident about their skills and their capacity to use them in the real world. To the faculty: Embrace the opportunity in every class to teach the students how to apply the course material in a real job situation. To students: Demand assignments that put you to the test and give you a skill set you can take. Now is the time to learn, not later!! DON’T BE THAT PERSON #CAREERGOALS Based on their sales growth and relative market share the company is advised to reinvest in products #1, 2 and 3 (identified as “Star” and “Challenge” products). The company needs to decide the future of product #5 which has low market share and low growth. “This was a great assignment and helpful in looking at marketing from a numbers perspective” – Donna S. student in Fall 2018 “it was a real world assignment for a job in marketing or administration” – Student who nominated this assignment Acknowledgements Thank you to the Center for Faculty Excellence at TWU for sponsoring this poster, to Dr. Michie at UTEP (for teaching me marketing management!!) and to my students that with their effort and dedication encourage and inspire me to make improvements to this and other projects. Be fearless! MB Clipart and images from pendujatt. me, visually graphics, freedigitalphotos. net