Product/Audience Match Strategy
Part of Final Marketing Yourself Plan – Due at End of Term 

As explained in the PDF reading “Matching the Product with the Audience When Marketing Yourself,” it’s critical to understand your product (i.e., your skills, attributes, personality, core values, etc.) and to determine and understand your target audiences (i.e., potential employers, colleagues, customers, career gatekeepers, etc.). 

For this assignment, you’ll work to outline your potential target audiences, determine what those audiences desire, and then decide how you’ll match your product with your target audiences. Using either a paragraph, outline, or table format, do the following: 

1. List Current Audiences. List various audiences (at least 8) to whom you currently market yourself on a daily, weekly, or other periodic basis. These might include potential employers, current employers, friends, family, teachers, various societal segments, social groups, customers, colleagues, employees, store personnel, vendors/suppliers, social media audiences, etc. Don’t forget that these audiences might be face-to-face, online, over the phone, etc. For each audience, be extremely specific as to who this audience is. Don’t just say “store employees” when you can say “the early morning employees at the Starbucks that I go to every weekday.” Don’t just say “my co- workers” when you can say “my co-workers Cristina, Derek, and Victoria who work in the cubicles next to mine.”
    
2. Importance of Current Audiences. For each of the 8+ current audiences, provide some insights as to why each particular audience might be important to you in your marketing yourself efforts. How can impressing each audience help you?
    
3. What Current Audiences Want From You. Finally, for each of the 8+ current audiences you listed, write down at least three characteristics (features, attributes, skills, traits, values, etc.) that they would desire in a person such as you. Although there may be some similar traits or characteristics across the audiences you listed, each audience likely will desire some unique characteristics as well.
    
4. List Prospective Audiences. Your next step is to add at least three new “prospective” target audiences to whom you would like to market yourself in the near or distant future. Again, they can be potential employers in a particular industry, friends, social groups, customers, fans, readers, etc. While it’s good to be specific as to the industry, type of people, etc., you don’t have to be as specific as you were in Step 1 because you may not know the details of these audiences yet.
    
5. Importance of Prospective Audiences. As you did in Step 2 with your “current” audiences, for each of the 3+ “prospective” audiences, provide some insights as to why each particular audience might be important to you in your future marketing yourself efforts. How can impressing each audience help you?
    
6. What Prospective Audiences Want From You. For each of the 3+ “prospective” target audiences, write down at least three characteristics (features, attributes, skills, traits, values, etc.) that they would desire in a person such as you. Because you may not really know these audiences very well, you may end up estimating this section more than the other ones. Nevertheless, consider what characteristics would be important to each audience.
    

1. Product/Audience Match. Now consider how well you’re matching your Product You with the desired attributes of the (at least 8) current audiences and the (at least 3) prospective audiences that you listed. Discuss the matches as well as the discrepancies (the instances in which you don’t match).
    
2. Changing Product You. Discuss what you can do to have a better match between your various target audiences and the product (set of attributes, traits, etc.) that you’re offering. How can you change your Product You as well as your Personal/Professional Brand to better market yourself to these various audiences? This section consists of a set of self-improvement recommendations.
    

Assignment Sections 

1. Cover Page: Name, Panther ID, Major, Minor, Certificate(s), Assignment Title
    
2. Introduction: Discuss the purpose for a Product/Audience Match.
    
3. Product/Audience Match Analysis: This is where you’ll put the analysis from the eight steps above.
    
4. Synthesis and Summary: Discuss what you learned from this exercise. What did you learn about target marketing? What did you learn about your own audiences? What did you learn about yourself? Synthesize your learning from the various parts of the assignment and create a summary that you can review in the future.
    

Assignment Formatting 

Submit as a PDF file upload. Document should use Times New Roman 12-point font with margins not exceeding 1-inch. Length of assignment is approximately 2-4 pages. 

Assignments should be completed and submitted before due date/times. Late penalty is 10% deduction per day (or partial day) late. No plagiarism, copying or cheating. 

Iterative testing is an essential element of Agile. This requires  tracking the changes made and making sure all members of the team have  the correct version of the program.

Quality Assurance (QA) in Systems Development is a set of processes  that ensure the delivered systems meet the pre-defined expectations.  Note that QA is not testing. Software Configuration Management consists  of a set of tasks that track and control changes to the environment.  Configuration management incudes software source version control. 

The Director of Software Engineering has noted that some members of  the team are not following the company’s Quality Assurance and Version  Plan and has asked you to present to the team in order to help them and  your intern understand the importance of the plan.

Part 1:

Create a PowerPoint®  presentation containing 10 to 12 slides, including an introduction and  conclusion slide and detailed speaker notes, that includes the  following:

• A brief description of Quality Assurance (QA) in Systems Development and why it is important
• An illustration of the testing process in the Agile model
• A brief explanation of automated testing
• A logical description of the processes ensuring that the functionality, security, and performance of the application are met
• An explanation of what versioning is and why versioning of the program is necessary

Note: Other applications like Adobe® Spark® or Microsoft® Sway® or Mix® can be used instead of PowerPoint®.

Part 2:

Using the Quality Attributes Table document provided, complete the 1-page table of quality attributes.

Cite all sources using APA guidelines.

When a company is not performing to its maximum potential, the culture and employees are often considered since employees are the biggest asset of a company. When employees are not engaged in an underperforming company, experimenting with culture changes that directly align with employee preferences may be beneficial. For example, a company that hires many younger employees might consider rethinking the traditional 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. work time structure to create flexibility for more integration between work, life, and personal values. In this discussion, you will explore the impact of changes an actual company made when they reexamined their employees’ needs and satisfaction.

Consider the following scenario:

JA Counter is a $2.5 million insurance and investment firm in New Richmond, Wisconsin. After struggling with several efforts to improve the financial performance of the firm, President Linda Skoglund found that those efforts negatively impacted morale. In response, she implemented a results-only work environment (ROWE) where employees are given autonomy to decide how, when, and where they work, and are not criticized for being out of the office during traditional business hours. As a result of implementing ROWE, both morale and productivity increased. The program applies to every employee in the firm. The keys are to set measurable goals, eradicate toxic language, and have managers set positive examples.

For your initial post, address the following:

• How do you think this type of culture change was introduced to the employees of JA Counter?
• If you were leading this culture change, how would you approach it as a leader and why?

The two pillars supporting health care governance are typically categorized into either clinical governance or corporate governance. Define and discuss the differences between these two sectors of governance. Include in your discussion the limitations and advantages of each.

Required Reading

Arnwine D. L. (2002). Effective governance: The roles and responsibilities of board members. Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center), 15(1), 19–22. doi:10.1080/08998280.2002.11927809. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Banff Executive Leadership, Inc. (2005). Models of corporate/Board governance. Retrieved from http://www.banffexeclead.com/Newsletter04/PDF/Leadership%20Acumen%2021%20V2%20Models%20of%20Corporate%20and%20Board%20Governance.pdf

Chambers, N. (2012). Healthcare board governance. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 26(1), 6-14. doi: 2048/10.1108/14777261211211133. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement. (2019). Governance leadership of safety and improvement. Retrieved from http://www.ihi.org/Topics/GovernanceLeadership/Pages/default.aspx

LeSueur, D. (2017). Governance in healthcare: Leadership for successful improvement. Health Catalyst. Retrieved from https://www.healthcatalyst.com/governance-in-healthcare-the-biggest-factor-in-success/

Murphy, S. P., Peisert, K. C., & Murphy, C. J. (2015). Board organization and structure. The Governance Institute. Retrieved from https://nrchealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Board-Organization-Structure_An-Intentional-Governance-Guide_Patrick-M….pdf

Walshe, K. & Smith, J. (2011). Chapter 9 Leadership and Governance. In Healthcare management (2nd). McGraw-Hill Education: New York, New York. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Optional Reading

Bader, B. S. (2008). Distinguishing Governance from Management. Retrieved from https://cacnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Great-Boards-distinguishing-governance-and-management.pdf

Dowton. S. B. (2019). Governance in Healthcare – Linkages, Boundaries and the Problems between Corporate and Clinical Governance. Retrieved from http://www.dowton.com/journal/2011/06/governance-in-healthcare-%E2%80%93-linkages-boundaries-and-the-problems-between-corporate-and-clinical-governance/

Each student will write a company profile of a company of choice except CitiGroup. The company profile is to be between 10 and 15 double-spaced pages (use APA style), not including appendices and bibliography. You are to use citations in the text. Think about the key areas in the core: Management, Marketing, Economics, Quantitative Analysis, MIS, and Accounting. A good business analysis will hit on all of these areas. It is to include:

1. the mission and vision
2. short history of firm
3. major competition
4. market position – what problem is it solving, who are its competitors, how is it doing in comparison to its competitors, what can it do better, what can it capitalize on
5. apparent strategy – which of the strategies that we discussed is it following, is that a good strategy for it, why do you think that
6. critical factors for success in the industry – how do companies become successful in the marketplace, what has made it successful in the past or, if it’s not successful, what should it have done to be more successful (note – this is the only place in the paper where you’re allowed to unspill the milk!)
7. Management Information Systems – what systems does the company use and how do those systems add to or detract from the company’s success? How does technology impact the company?
8. SWOT — what does it do well internally, what does it do poorly internally and what internally can it fix, what opportunities does it have externally and what threats to its existence appear in the external environment?
9. Performance analyses (various topics) of the company – financial and other. Note, analyses mean ANALYSES WITH EXPLANATIONS, not just numbers strung together.

Your conclusion would be whether the strategy is successful or not (with appropriate reasons for each) and any comments and recommendations (including why). Upload your business analysis to Safe Assign on Bb by clicking the link provided for Business Analysis Paper and Business Analysis Presentation. An excellent student business analysis is provided in below. Note as you do, however, that it did not require an MIS analysis as yours does. Look under this assignment and you will find a Business Research Guide and Internet Sites for Business Research. Also go to the ECSU Library web site, click on Online Resources, checkout ABI/Inform and other business research databases (e.g., Hoovers) available to you. Make sure that you download a 10-K report or an Annual Report for your corporation. This is a legal document and should not include any ‘hype’ by the firm. You should be citing from this in both your presentation and your analysis document. I also strongly suggest that you download a company report (generally available from the company’s website, and yes, they generally have some ‘hype’ and paint a pretty picture of the firm’s future). You should also be citing from this document in both presentation and analysis. I am available for help on your topic and report.Blackboard has the rubric that is being used to evaluate these papers. Business strategy courses often refer to the Fortune 500 ranking within Fortune magazine. These are large firms and are important in the U.S. economy. However, most of the attention is given to the top 50 or top 100. There is more information available on the Fortune 500 (defined by Fortune magazine) companies. Success of the firms from this 500 group may depend on the changing business/political/financial/ international/technical environments.Remember, for this paper you are not just reporting facts, you are also providing ANALYSIS and SYNTHESIS of the facts you have uncovered. This means you need to explain both what the analysis says and what that means for the company. I also want you to anticipate how the changing environments (mentioned above) will or could challenge, help, or hurt these firms. Yes, you will be dealing with the unknown; but this is what your challenge will be in your decision making in an increasingly faster and more complicated business environment. That is part of management.  Each of you will do a power point presentation of your project. The presentation should provide insights about how relevant theories can be applied to problems in real organization. Be well organized, coherent, and attract and maintain the attention of the audience. Each of you will have 15 minutes each to present to the class.