Evaluation of Marketing Plan Instructions Unlike traditional cases, a simulation provides you the opportunity to revisit your prior analysis, examine the impact of your decisions, evaluate competitive response to your strategy, and redevelop your strategy. You have developed and implemented your marketing plan, now it is time to evaluate the success of that plan and reflect on what you have learned. Part 1: Overall Evaluation of Results What is your cumulative net income, share of manufacturer sales, and stock price (including your class rank) at the end of Period 4? You can find this information under comparative results in PharmaSim. Based on your results on these metrics and your class rank on each, what is your evaluation of the overall success of your marketing plan? Based on these metrics, what conclusions can you draw about the relationship between cumulative net income, share of manufacturer sales, and stock price? Part 2: Key Performance Indicators Setting meaningful objectives requires a good understanding of your company and market. Doing it effectively is challenging and takes practice. Go back to your Two-page Marketing Plan and complete the first three columns of the table. Complete the last column of the table after the rollover. Based on what you have learned about the industry and your company, were these the right KPIs to monitor the overall performance of your marketing plan? Have they provided you with insight into the most important factors underlying your progress? Are there different KPIs that you should have included in place of the four that you selected? Part 3: MVA of Results As a marketing manager, your ability to make accurate projections based on changes in the environment and on the impact of changes in your marketing plan on the market is critical to your overall success. These estimates are commonly used to evaluate the likelihood of breakeven on new marketing initiatives and to prepare pro forma income statements. Go back to each of the Period Worksheets and record your MVA of results for Allround below in the columns labeled $M. You will need to calculate the MVA components for Period 5 before completing the table. Calculate the percent of the total NMC variance accounted for by each component of variance. For example for Period 1, the Demand Variance % is equal to Demand Variance $M divided by NMC Variance $M. Theoretically, the sum of Demand, Share, Price, Cost, and Marketing Expense Variances should total NMC Variance, but this may be slightly off due to rounding error. Each period, you have been estimating total industry demand and your share of the market. To the extent that your estimates of demand and share are correct, your total NMC variance is minimized. In the context of the simulation, unexpected changes between your planned and your actual results in price, cost, and marketing expenditures are generally contained. Aside from the impact of inflation, they are not allowed to vary much from your plans. You are much more likely to find that your demand and share variances are larger components of your overall NMC variance. Part 4: Demand Estimation How has your accuracy at predicting demand improved? What external factors have the biggest impact on demand? Which of the external factors are most difficult to predict? Why? What elements of your marketing mix have the biggest impact on demand? (Remember, here we are talking about total industry demand and not demand for your brand.) How can you improve your estimates of demand over the next 5 periods? Part 5: Share Estimation How has your accuracy at predicting share improved? What external factors have the biggest impact on share? Which of the external factors are most difficult to predict? Why? What elements of your marketing mix have the biggest impact on share? How can you improve your estimates of share over the next 5 periods?
14 November, 2015