strategic marketing week 11

{Week 11

Lessons from StratSim

Lit Review Wrap Up

StratSim Report Tips

Student Presentations

What interesting things have you learned from:

StratSim or;

Your Lit Review?

2 things you learned

Due: Monday, 18 October 2010, 5 PM

Value: 20% of final mark

2500 words

Audience: Stephen (the marker) and perhaps a fictional target audience (e.g. shareholders, the CEO acting as a consultant or manager, etc.)

Main objective:

Demonstrate that you can apply the models, theories and concepts of the course to critically analyse your StratSim experience

StratSim Report

1. Your starting business position and initial strategy (250 words)

2. Your firm’s performance objectives and actual performance (750+)

3. Key strategic moves that led to your success (or demise) (500+)

4. How you left the company positioned for the future (250 words)

5. Important lessons learned from the simulation experience (500+)

StratSim Report Structure

Your starting business position and initial strategy

‚Our overarching strategy throughout the eight-year period was a concentrated marketing strategy focusing solely on young families who most value safety. This is based on market niche strategy and reflected in companies such as Volvo.‛

StratSim Report Examples

Your firm’s performance objectives and actual performance

‚Initial forecasts of 10% per annum profit growth seemed ambitious but were met or exceeded in every year bar one. In period six, severe and unforseen drops in GDP led to the firm yielding a loss. Our team reacted by cutting prices temporarily and focusing more on the budget market.‛


Key strategic moves that led to your success (or demise)

‚Deciding to focus solely on safety meant a sacrifice to other dimensions valued by our customers. In order to properly pursue our market niche strategy, we had to focus all our efforts on serving the niche (Hooley et al, 2008). The sacrifice did start to pay off though as we captured market share in all safety-conscious segments‛


How you left the company positioned for the future

‚Auto Co. is well positioned to maintain a strong brand around safety. Our continued investments in R&D and advertising will help develop vehicles perceived as extremely safe. The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind (Ries & Trout, 1994). The way that Coke owns the word ‘cola’, or Xerox owns ‘copier‘, Autos Co. will continue to own ‘safe’.


Important lessons learned from the simulation experience

‚During the great recession of period six, Auto Co. learned a hard lesson about advertising during periods of slower sales. Kamber (2002) finds that maintaining advertising expenditure levels during a recession tends to correspond to better rates of sales growth in future years. This theory and our experience cutting our advertising in period six showed we forfeited opportunities for growth in period seven.


1. Post Mortem: a review of a project after completion

2. Shareholders Report:upbeat but still honest about mistakes

3. Succession Plansguidelines for future employees

4. Stepping out of the Simyour personal reflections/ lessons

StratSim Report Styles

Read the case

Practice applying the case by:

Writing questions for yourself

Re-drawing a diagram from the book and relating it to Dunlop Volleys

Discussing the case among classmates and others

Case Study: Volleys

Next week

• No more presentations

• Assignment and presentation debrief

• Internal branding exercise

• Game show style quiz to assess your knowledge gaps for week 13 revision

strategic marketing week 11

Education