Peer Review

Strategy, Marketing Plans and Small Organisations

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Reviewed:: Nov 20, 2019 by Business

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Long-term planning is the key to an organization’s success. This book provides an overview of strategic planning and implementation processes. It explores the importance of planning to small organizations along with major influences on strategy such as competitors and the industry environment. It examines the role of the chief executive, culture, and politics in the design and implementation of a strategic plan. It also outlines key components of a strategic marketing plan such as mission, objectives, marketing mix strategies, measurement, and review. It draws on current research and includes case studies from a variety of industries.

Type of Material:

Open (Access) Textbook

Recommended Uses:

This could be used as a course textbook for a small business marketing class, marketing for entrepreneurs, or as supplemental material for entrepreneurship courses.

Technical Requirements:

Download book as PDF from this site

Identify Major Learning Goals:

The goal is to provide a high-level background on strategy and relate that to strategic marketing.

The overall objective of this book is to address strategic planning from the perspective of a small business, rather than the typical "larger enterprise" approach taken in many principles of marketing courses.

Target Student Population:

College Upper Division Marketing classes

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

A basic introductory marketing course, at a minimum would be very helpful for fully implementation, for non-business majors in particular. This would also serve well as additional support material for a strategy unit, or course, to support projects or outside assignments.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

The textbook presents a well-respected theory on the topic. It provides interesting brief cases at the end of each of the four chapters.

The material is well-written and covers content well. Each chapter begins with learning objectives that are appropriate, and can be used by instructors, or enhanced for additional focus by instructors.

Each unit includes a small case-study that exemplifies the content discussed in brief.

A Strategic Marketing Plan Template with example is included at the end of the book.

Concerns:

The case studies do not include any discussion questions, and are extremely brief. Instructors will need to develop specific learning objectives and discussion questions for the case studies to be effective.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

The material is clean, well-designed and easy to read. Each unit/chapter includes learning objectives that are appropriate. Instructors can add to this content, but they are active learning goals, written appropriately.

The direction of the content to small business is appropriate for many students to comprehend, and to relate to their personal experiences more easily, than when such content is directed to global-size corporations.

While the content may not be sufficient to cover all topics for a general strategic marketing course, it could easily be used as supplemental content, and would also be appropriate for the marketing plan in an entrepreneurial course.

Each of the four chapters begins with learning objectives. The concepts are built upon progressively.

Concerns:

There are no summary discussion items, no terminology cues, and no review/discussion questions provided. As such, there is little-to-no interaction with the content as presented.

The textbook does assume some basic concepts of strategy and strategic marketing. Although the title indicates it is intended for small organizations, but in reality, there is not a great deal of attention devoted to small organizations. Most examples and much of the text is focused on the Australian market.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The material is clean, clear and accurate. Layout and design are easy to navigate and read. The material is concise and provides good graphics/illustrations to support reading content.

The textbook is very easy to read and no special software is required.

Concerns:

There is no active learning support for the material presented. As such, students will find it a "reading activity" only. The ads may be distracting to students at first glance, so instructors should be sure to discuss this with students in the beginning.

There are very few graphics and the quality is sub-standard. The tables run off the edge of the pages, and the few graphical images are not of extremely high quality.

Other Issues and Comments:: The current log-in set-up for this reviewing only allowed online/web review, no pdf file for download.
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