I walked into my COMM 363 (Marketing Analysis) not knowing what to expect from it. I realized that it was one of the most intense courses I have ever taken in my entire university life. However, I learned a lot of things about marketing, which I can use in other courses and the real working environment, as well as certain soft skills that I have acquired while working in groups.

Overall, the course COMM 363 (Marketing Analysis) has taught us the proper format and structure of analyzing cases. The first step includes determining the main and sub-issues of the case. A main issue would be the general problem that the company must solve. An example of a main issue would have to increasing market share by 16% in 2011. Moreover, the sub-issues would include share declines, growth in private label merchandise, expansion of health and organic products, dwindling customer loyalty and the trend of consumers focusing on value. After determining these issues, we then proceed to developing alternatives or marketing strategies in order to address these issues. An example of an alternative that we can use to address the main issue mentioned above would be having to compete more aggressively on price. This alternative involves reducing the prices on most products throughout the store, thus appealing to budget-conscious consumers (implementing lower prices relative to competitors). We would usually list down the advantage or disadvantage of each alternative and rank them from low to medium to determine if the benefits of the alternative would outweigh the cost.

We don’t just evaluate the alternative on the basis of ranking its advantages and disadvantages. We come up with qualitative and quantitative tools, which serves as a decision criteria for determining which marketing strategy is most optimal for the company. It also serves as a way for further analyzing the company and industry. For every case, our team would usually come up with a SWOT analysis, Porter’s Five Forces analysis, and a marketing mix strategy of a company and a list of pros and cons for each alternative in order to get better insight of the industry and better evaluate the decision. We also employed these tools by analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the industry during the beginning in order to come up with a main strategy for succeeding in Markstrat. We also used the pros and cons tool when choosing decisions among alternatives when conducting a decision to make each week for Markstrat.

In addition, we also used quantitative tools when making decisions of which alternatives to choose when analyzing cases and when making a decision in Markstrat. Examples of tools we used include coming up with a positioning map of estimated total sales and current estimated market share and a comparison of a chart of household penetration between two countries. As for Markstart, we would often calculate ROI and come up with Excel calculations in order to decide how much sonites to produce for each location and customer.

Learning how to properly analyze cases would be useful in future marketing and business courses, which require us to create business plans or conduct extensive market research and analysis. An example would be how we would be able to use our knowledge on how to use quantitative tools when conducting the market data analysis project required for COMM 365 (Market Research) project. The majority of the commerce marketing courses also require us to employ our analytical, decision-making, and verbal skills (oral and written) as we would probably be required to engage in projects, which would require us to identify target markets, position products, develop alternatives, and evaluate alternatives based on a certain decision criteria. Conducting this type of marketing analysis would also be useful in courses such as COMM 390 (Business Writing) where we are required to come up with a business plan. Hence, we could use the structure and format of conducting marketing analysis when writing up the marketing section of the business plan, or when playing with the numbers in order to determine optimal strategy for the business.

This structure of conducting marketing analysis can be applied when we work in a company, which requires us to conduct extensive analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. A friend of mine used to intern in a company called Tealeaves, where she was required to create an excel data of how much packaging of tea has been shipped in their various warehouses around the world. Moreover, knowledge of how to create an Excel data and play with various numbers was used in her job. The COMM 363 (Marketing Analysis) course has definitely strengthened our marketing, analytical, and decision-making skills, and knowledge of how to conduct extensive market research, which we will use when the companies we work in, and positions we attain in our future jobs require us to do certain tasks, such as compiling excel data, analyzing household penetration, whether a new product will be successful in the market, and in other tasks.

The marketing in the news portion of the class where our classmates would report a news about marketing every week before we begin class discussions has helped me develop a desire to become more aware of what is happening the marketing and business segment as I used to not pay attention and be aware of these things before I took the course. I also learned how to think more critically and analytically in terms of analyzing how marketing trends are changing from past to present times.

Lastly, the main take away I was able to get out of this course was being able to develop excellent time management and teamwork skills. Our group first started out very disorganized, and we would usually meet the day before a case is due or three hours before a Markstrat decision would need to be made. I finally learned that we needed to do better in managing our time and set goals and objectives in order to do better in this course. Hence, I took the initiative to come up to my group mates and tell them that we need to set goals and consistent meeting times in order to do better. Hence, we decided to meet every Friday before a case is due with ideas brainstormed and researched, and every Thursday for Markstrat. Overall, I learned how setting goals, objectives, and consistent meeting times is very important in order to succeed in group projects.