The assigned articles for this week contribute an appealing expansion to the utility of the Walker and Mullins research. What are the basic propositions offered? What research design did each article employ? What did they find? Did they prove their case? How important is this research to the theory and practice of marketing strategy development? Respond to at least two of your classmates' postings. **Assigned Articles: McKee, D.O., Varadarajan, P.R., & Pride, W.M. (1989). Strategic adaptability and firm performance: A market-contingent perspective. Journal of Marketing, 53(3), 21. (Document ID: 584931). Noble, C.H., Sinha, R.K., & Kumar, A. (2002). Market orientation and alternative strategic orientations: A longitudinal assessment of performance implications. Journal of Marketing, 66(4), 25-39. (Document ID: 218622311).  

"Concerning this case of the General Motors, the managers and the teams involved should take tough measures and choices of the market to compete and which not to; this suggests that the company should exit the current market segments and opportunities for technologies, services, and products where it will be impossible for the company to generate positive cash flow." True. In times such as these, tough measures and choices are called for. Where would you start as the marketing manager? What would you look at in human resources? Happy to see this, "In the marketing point of view, the 4Cs model that consists of Convenience, Cost, Communication, and Consumer has slowly replaced the 4Ps.  This type of model is a consumer oriented and works better in a corporation that is changing from mass to niche marketing." Slowly but then again, not too slowly. Which of the 4Cs do you believe is vital for a company and why?

Final Project Part II Complete the Marketing Plan Exercises at the end of each assigned chapter. These exercises will be the building blocks for your final project, a marketing plan. You will do each exercise on the same enterprise. Your enterprise strategy may be: 1) real, emerging, or imaginary; 2) product or service oriented; and 3) for profit or non-profit. The target market may be anywhere in the life cycle from innovation to maturity. Read each Marketing Plan Exercise description in its entirety, below is a brief description of what is required. ·  Chapter 4: Conduct macro-level market and industry analyses of the market offering on which your plan is based. For the market offering on which your marketing plan or consulting project is based on, use Internet and other available secondary resources to conduct macro-level market and industry analyses.  Your analyses should include a macro trend analysis encompassing all relevant macro trend categories and should uncover quantitative data that provides evidence of the size and growth rate of the overall market, as well as qualitative data regarding the five forces.  You should also identify, if you can, the few critical success factors that apply in your industry.  ·  Chapter 5: Prepare a detailed plan for conducting the primary research required to complete your final marketing plan. Prepare a detailed plan for conducting the primary research required to complete your project.  The research plan needs to do three things: 1.   Precisely spell out the research objectives the research is intended to meet. 2.  Design the research to get you there.  Identify your methods, your sample, and any statistics (means, etc.) you will employ.  Prepare drafts of questionnaires, guides for focus group sessions or in-depth interviews, plans for how you will conduct observational research, etc. 3.  Describe how the combination of your secondary research and your planned primary research will lead to your estimate of target market size and your sales forecast for your marketing plan.  Precisely spell out the mathematics that will do this, connecting it to specific secondary data or specific answers to questions or observations from your primary data.  Your research design should clearly identify and satisfy your research objectives, and appropriate qualitative and/or quantitative research should be competently designed.