Your task in the project is to
apply the theoretical knowledge in practice by reflecting it to the company and
analysing their business-to-business activities. The project must take an area
of debate from the B2B marketing literature and explore the arguments in the
company and their sector.
You will be presented some
background on the case company and their business as well as the current
challenges the company is facing in the second lecture. Your task is to frame
the key challenge or issue you wish to focus on, select a suitable theoretic
area of the module and apply it to the case to be able to provide
recommendations and suggestions for the company regarding how they might
develop their business in the future. You should search for information on the
company and the markets they are operating. For example, look in the library
databases (market/industry reports etc.), FT and other papers as well as on the
web to develop knowledge about what’s going on and
what matters to the company’s
business development. Therefore, there will be a literature review and
synthesis section, and a practice based section. The following would be a
possible outline:
Introduction to the company
and the key issue/challenge, briefly
outlining the markets where they operate, types of customers served, critical
changes in their environment, introduction to the key challenge/issue you will
be focusing on (and why?).
Development of an
understanding of the area of challenge.
The literature section MUST include a minimum of eight scientific journal
articles relevant to the issue you are looking at. Ideally your literature
review will identify different points of view and suggest why there might be
such differences (eg relating to the industry that the authors have looked at,
the types of companies they investigated etc). You should focus on relatively
recent articles and articles of good quality (these are normally published in
research journals such as Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of
Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management) but you may find them elsewhere
(ask if in doubt). You should synthesise the readings to identify their
contribution to the situation that you are looking at.
Excellent use of literature
will clearly identify different views on a topic and develop a ‘framework’ for
you to look at your company and industry. Based on the literature you can draw
out an idea of what you are looking at the company or what you would need to
see to evidence a specific question/issue in your company. Poor literature
reviews will use poor literature (ie the textbook or other very general
writings, the module slides). Poor reviews may also just describe/summarise the
literature without linking the pieces together (e.g. how they differ/complement
each other).
Analysis of the area of
challenge in the company – in this
section you will analyse the current or likely consequences of the
challenge/issue at hand, and apply the literature to analyse the situation. The
section does not require very extensive or insider information on the company
but should show that a range of sources have been used (the trade press,
company website, industry reports etc). An excellent practice section will not
just tell a story but clearly identify relevant points that support your
conclusions. Ideally your lit review will tell us what you are looking for and
your practice section will tell us whether you have found the evidence that
supports or contradicts your expectations. Weak practice sections will provide
detailed data with no explanation of its relevance, and a lengthy description
of the company or its history with little analysis and connection to the
literature review.
Conclusions – What would you want to communicate to the company
about the theoretic insights that you now have? You should suggest possible
actions and recommend certain actions. How has the literature enabled you to
understand the case? What did the literature say and what do you think on the
basis of your case? If they are different, why do you think this is?
Do not find a project in a
web-bank of student essays (for example SCRIBED) and use that as the foundation
of your report. Students elsewhere will have been set other questions so your
work will not address the question set. Additionally the quality of work in
such banks is often very dodgy and well below that which I would expect of
students. Remember that if you do not look at a B2B situation it will be judged
irrelevant and get a very poor mark. Finally, look at something that interests
you – that way you are likely to perform better. In the workshops we shall be
looking at how to approach literature and also how to approach practical data.
The surgery sessions will allow you to test your ideas.
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