Innovative Product Project: Management- Report Writing Assignment

Report Writing Assignment:

Working in groups of no more than 4, students are to examine the external influences (topics covered in weeks 6-10) on buyer behaviour as they impact on the decision-making sequence(topics covered in weeks 11-13) used by consumers, for an innovative product. This product must exist but as yet, not to be introduced to the Australian marketplace. In your groups you need to evaluate the need and acceptance of the product for the Australian market in light of the external influences on consumers.

Students must furnish the following information for this assessment:

1. Describe both the company and the product. Include details about the company history, the product’s features and benefits and current sales figures for the product.
2. Explain what the current trends are for the product related industry in Australia (size, growth/decline of the industry, actual or potential competing products) and why the product would interest Australian consumers
3. Choose a target audience on which to initially focus a marketing effort for the product. Justify why you have selected the target audience. Develop a profile by creating a persona of the typical consumer for this product (their demographic, lifestyle and consumer behaviour) and explain why you have chosen this target audience.
4. Identify and describe each of the five(5) steps in the consumer decision-making sequence, and evaluate the impact of external influences on each step of the sequence and the consequent effect on the target audience’s desire and decision to buy the product.

A marking guide will be made available detailing the specific requirements.

This assessment should be built as the learning occurs. It is recommended not to make this a divided project; the learning experience and outcome will be better if the topics and questions are collectively discussed and worked on. To assist in assessing the contribution of each student in the group, brief minutes of group meetings should be kept that detail what activities have been undertaken and by whom. This is used in cases of complaints or disputes about the performance of a group member. The manner in which these records are kept is to be determined by the group. Strategies to assist with group work, may be found at the Learning Lab

https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/assessment-tasks

The format for this assessment is a group presentation. This following items need to be included:

• Title slide including product name, student names and numbers, name of the course and date
• Introduction
• Structured body section, with information organised under headings as determined by the assessment requirements
• Conclusion
• Reference list

The presentation should be approximately twenty (20) minutes in duration including no more than five (5) minutes of question time.

Guidelines to assist with presentations can be found at the Learning Lab at https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/assessment-tasks

When referencing sources such as textbooks, journals, websites, newspaper articles, industry reports and so on, the Harvard Referencing system must be used. To assist with this process, a document ‘RMIT Business referencing guidelines’ can be found on the Learning Hub. Additional guidelines can be found at

https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/writing-skills

Students are required to read beyond the text and to incorporate other credible sources into their academic work.