Higher College of Technology Sultanate of Oman Marketing Management Paper

The Task:

To enable a valid category and company brand selection:

• Choose a retail category that has been frequently researched and reported by business/academic research
• Choose a company that has a website with published annual reviews and has frequently been researched and published by business and/or academics.
• Check that your selected brand has also been researched and published.

Please, note the following:

• You must use at least two other academic journal articles for your discussion
• Your arguments must be balanced and supported by marketing literature of marketing management, marketing planning, marketing and market research, retail marketing and trends, and consumer behavior.
• You must demonstrate and apply your marketing knowledge
• Your references must reflect a balance between academic and internet sources

Structure for your Assignment

While marking your assignment we will be looking for evidence for how well you have addressed the question/issues. The following part explains the structure and key points you should consider in preparing your assignment.

• Introduction: A brief introduction as to what you intend to do in your essay including your choice of category, company and specific brand.
• Interpreting the task – your summary should be clear and should ideally lead to the key issues identified for discussion.
• Main body of your work where key issues are addressed. (This part may have a few sections such as situation analysis; external analysis and internal analysis). The key criteria here include:
  • Research – evidence of systematic research approach, depth of research undertaken; application of conceptual (theoretical/empirical) framework(s).
  • Analysis – well focused, depth and clarity of argument, organizing and summarizing key and relevant issues stemming from your research, identifying at least two other journal articles and integrating the discussion. Your understanding will be demonstrated by your ability to provide relevant examples based on the Omani retail market.
  • Scholarly practice – appropriate referencing within the report (citations), employing appropriate International Business vocabulary and the quality of the Reference section. (Harvard style of referencing).
• Conclusion: A clear, concise, and relevant conclusion to the discussion. Your conclusion should contain a summary of the key points that have emerged from the discussion and consideration of the implications.

Report Structure:

Introduction:

this section should be brief and should indicate to the reader how you are going to approach the assignment (approximately 150words)

• a brief background mentioning what the assignment will discuss,
• What the aims and objectives of the report are,
• What the report will cover and why?
• your summary should be clear and should ideally lead to the key issues identified for discussion

Body:

•An overview or summary of the selected article (retail category) – briefly discuss the article; highlight key marketing issues stemming from the article. Such as consumer behavior, Branding and Competition (you can use journal related to branding or customer behaviors and so on as references). (Approx. 300 words)

•An evaluation of the article using other articles – Your evaluation should include at least two other related journal articles. Your choice of the other articles to use in your evaluation should be dependent on how well these articles will help you put forward a balanced critique of the article, especially the authors’ concluding statements. (Approx. 450 words) evaluate /argue the article by other related articles

•An application of your evaluation to the Omani market. In this section, you have to demonstrate your ability to relate your arguments in section 3 to the Omani market. Such as competition, consumer behavior, and branding relating to this market. (Approx. 300) in this section link your above arguments of selected article to the actual Omani market interim of Omani customer behavior, branding and others.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Your conclusion and recommendations should stem from your main deductions from your evaluation.

What was the report aim and objectives??contain a summary of the key points that have emerged from the discussion and consideration of the implications

Usually, most of your recommendations would emanate from your viewpoints on the main contentions of the article. (Approx. 200words)

*** Words count = 1400 words.

*** In-Text Citations and References using Harvard style.

*** Note that you should choose any company inside Sultanate of Oman that works in Retails Products.