INLS 237: MARKETING INFORMATION SERVICES

ASSIGNMENT - Market Audit

Due: March 1, 2006

Overview. Before undertaking a marketing campaign for an organization or one of its services, it's useful to study the organization in order to understand it "in the round." For marketing folks this means a market audit. This assignment will allow you to develop a specific case study and to attend to all the aspects that someone with marketing responsibility needs to know and understand. For this assignment you and a class colleague are to select an organization and to describe it from a marketing perspective. In the latter half of the class your team will be asked to act as consultants to the organization and to suggest a plan of action that will improve its market stance.

Select an Organization. Your first task is to select an organization of interest to you and a teammate. It can be a library of any kind or another kind of information organization or service. If you are familiar with a different kind of organization or service provider. You can select a part of a larger organization (for example, the library within a corporation or a university or even a single department of a large library, e.g., the reference/instruction department in an academic library). It will be helpful for one of your team to have had some experience in the organization, either as a worker or as a frequent customer, but it isn't necessary as long as one or both of you have (or have had in the past) the opportunity to observe it closely enough to answer most of the following guiding questions. Sometimes an organization will be pleased to cooperate with you in the interests of receiving detailed recommendations in return.

Guiding Questions for Your Market Audit. Name the organization (or provide a pseudonym) and then answer as best you can the following relevant questions. Note these questions are to serve as indicators; they are not a definitive list but identify the areas you need to examine and describe. For example, the first question asks you to talk about the environment. The particular questions listed are to give some ideas about what aspects to select to describe in your organization's environment. You will probably not be able to answer all of the questions asked -- the questions are intended to stimulate your thinking. Do the best you can and be creative about how you might find information (other than, or in addition to, asking a manager or other employee directly).

• Environment. What kind of an organization is it (e.g., profit or non-profit, library (specify type), government agency, corporation, independent business, etc.)? Is it part of a larger organization; if so, how would you characterize the larger organization? Are conditions surrounding your organization relatively stable or changing? If the latter, how fast are things changing? How does it affect the organization? Is your organization strongly impacted by technology, by shifts in the economy, by leadership changes? How politically sensitive is it? Does it have partners or other organizations with whom it is closely aligned?

• Customers. Describe the users of the services and products offered by your organization in as many ways as you can (e.g., age, socio-economic status, professional field(s) or occupation(s), geographic location, ethnic culture(s), etc.)? If you think there is a mix of several different kinds of clients (and there usually is), describe each subgroup and estimate roughly the proportion of each subgroup ti the total user population. Can you identify which group(s) is/are primary (that is, more important in some way, e.g., higher status, more influential on resource allocation, personally close)?

• Products and Services. What products and services does your organization offer? Services might include such things as information provision, retrieval, consulting, provision of database services, circulating collection, reference collection, instruction, systems analysis, systems set up, trouble-shooting, web design, etc. Products might include publications, software, web portals (the latter is an example that is hard to categorize as either a product, a service, or a channel -- perhaps it is a blend of all three. Which are the primary products and services and which are of lesser importance? How does the organization make it known what its offerings are? To what degree are these products and services standardized or tailored to meet specific needs of individuals or groups? Are the products or services "branded" in any way (that is, do they carry a distinctive name or logo or are they packaged in such a way that they are instantly recognizable as coming from the organization)? Note: The answers to the last three questions may and probably will vary for the different products and services.

• Place. Place in marketing terms is sometimes called "channel" because it refers to how and where products and services are delivered. Do clients come to one central location for service or are there different outlet locations? Do clients come in person to the organization (if so, what distances do they travel and how do they come (by car, on foot, by public transport)? Or are some services delivered directly to the client at their home or place of employement? Is there an Internet presence and if so, what level of interactivity is afforded through this channel? Do the products and services pass through an intermediary? Can they be delivered through the mail, telephone, email, instant messaging or fax services? Often an organization will have a mix of delivery systems and policies for different services. Describe the situation as best you can.

• Price and Cost. Are products and servics offered for a monetary price? If so, how flexible are the terms? Are there discounts or allowances? Do all customers pay the same amount? If products and services are not offered for a monetary price, what is the cost to the client to avail him/herself of the organization's offerings? Consider both actual cost in terms of time and energy and also psychological costs.

• Promotion. What kinds of promotion does your organization provide? Promotion is sometimes categorized as direct selling, advertising (usually paid but sometimes as public service), sales promotion (incentives, discounts, special events), and publicity (e.g., public relations). How would you describe the mix of promotional activities that your organization undertakes? Are some products and services promoted more heavily than others? Are some groups of clients more targeted for promotional activities than others?

• People. In service marketing, all the people who surround the delivery of a service have an impact. Describe the employees who interface with the clients -- how are they dressed? What is their customary manner when interacting with customers? Other customers or intermediaries may also have an impact. Comment on the personal appearance and behavior of other customer groups or intermediaries.

• Servicescape. This is a fancy word for the physical evidence surrounding the delivery of products or services. It includes the appearance of the building, its offices and public spaces, as well as brochures, signs, equipment, business cards and the like. Describe your impressions of these manifestations.

• Process. The delivery of services usually involves a number of steps which may provide evidence to customers on how to judge a service. Consider the degree to which the process of service delivery is visible. Is the service delivery process simple (few steps) or complex (requiring customer to follow a complicated and extensive series of action)? For many services, we talk about the "co-production" of the service, that is, the collaborative effort to produce the desired result of both the customer and the service provider. How involved is the customer in the delivery of the service? How much background knowledge is desirable for the customer to make the best use of services? How much training does he/she require to receive services?

• Competition. Consider who (or what) might be considered a competitor to your organization. Competition can be looked at in a variety of ways -- a similar organization or an organization that offers one or more similar services and/or products (e.g., the book collection and book-related programs of a library and the parallels in a bookstore), or an organization that offers a different way to accomplish an end (e.g., searching the Internet for information directly vs. asking a reference librarian for assistance).

Format for this paper. Format is not important here. You can use a Q&A format, a series of bulleted points, an outline, or you can write a narrative; the latter is probably the more professional approach. I'm looking for approximately 5-7 pages in length but it can be more (roughly a half page for each bulleted point). Please include some comment on each of the ten topics listed above. My preference for submission would be a link to a class webpage or as a Word document. You may submit your paper as a link or a .doc attachment on the designated Blackboard forum. Please let me know if you have strong feelings about not sharing what you have written with the rest of the class. We can learn a lot from one another through studying these cases so I encourage you to use a pseudonym of your organization, if necessary, in order to be able to share your work with your class colleagues.

In addition to the written paper, your team will be asked to present your case analysis to the class on March 1 or March 8.

Grading Criteria. A complete and analytic description of the various aspects of your organization will earn a high grade. Evidence of effort to obtain and describe good information is also important.

Page revised 1/10/2006.