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BUSS 5245 Assignment Help

1. Assessment Two: Marketing Plan

This guide was created to help you find information for the BUSS 5245 assessment. See your Course Outline and learnonline page for more details.

2. Plan your search

Consider these key questions when searching for information on your company or brand:

  • Which industry does your company or brand operate within?

Is your company or brand:

  • Australian or international?
  • Private, public, or not-for-profit?
  • Owned by a parent company?

Tip: Visit your brand's website and spend time exploring. Look for sections of the website labelled 'About us', 'Our story', or 'Our company'  to find out more about your brand.

3. Analysis and recommendations

SWOT analysis is a model that analyses an organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to create the foundation of a marketing strategy.

Have a look at these sites for help with conducting a SWOT analysis:

A PESTLE (or PEST) analysis examines factors affecting the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological, Legal, and Environmental landscape around your industry or company.

Try these sites for more information on conducting PESTLE analysis:

The Porter's Five Forces model helps marketers to look at the ‘balance of power’ in a market between different types of organisations, and to analyse the attractiveness and potential profitability of an industry sector. It helps to review the strengths of a market position, based on five key forces.

For more help with Porter's Five Forces, have a look at these sites:

SMART is an acronym for the 5 steps of setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.

For more help with SMART objectives, have a look at the following:

4. Company and industry information

5. Market research

IBISWorld contains company reports on the top 2000 Australian companies, with industry reports, as well as reports from selected US and Chinese industries. It also includes Australian Industry Risk Rating reports with forecasted risks the industry will face over the next 18 months.

To find company and industry information:

1. Type your chosen industry (e.g., beer manufacturing) into the search bar and hit Enter to search.

Screenshot of IBISWorld search bar.

2. Select the industry report that is relevant, or filter your results according to Country, or the type of Report you need.

Screenshot of filters in IBISWorld (Country and Report).

Business Source Ultimate helps you locate scholarly and industry information covering all business topics.

Below is an example of an Advanced Search in Business Source Ultimate.

Screenshot of advanced search in Business Source ultimate, with search: wine AND market* AND australia.

You can limit your search by publication date range or source type (e.g., Market Research Reports, Industry Profiles, etc.) from the box on the left hand side of the results screen.

Statista provides information on market data, market research, and market studies. it also includes company and brand reports and industry reports.

You can search for company information by selecting the Companies & Products reports heading from the Reports tab and then searching for your chosen company.

Companies & Products tab in the Statista database header menu

To look for industry information:

  • Type industry keywords into the global search box, e.g. wine

  • You can refine further by using the Location Focus, e.g. Australia above the results page. 

You can also search for industry information by selecting Reports > Industry Reports and then searching for your chosen industry.

Screenshot of Reports tab of Statista database

D&B Hoovers includes access to industry and market research reports, Australian and global. The database also includes SWOT Analysis reports for the top 5000 global companies.

To search for company information:

1. Enter your search terms into the search box. 

Screenshot of search tool in D&B Hoovers.

2. Select the magnifying glass icon to search.

3. Select your company from the results page.

4. If needed, you can modify your search from the left menu (for example, adding Australia as the location). Once you have selected your parameters, click View Results.

To search for industry information:

1. Type the name of an industry into the search box (e.g., beverage manufacturing).

2. Change the drop down menu to Industries.

Screenshot of search tool toggle in D&B Hoovers, showing the options to filter the search and highlighting Industries.

3. Select the link to the industry code from the search results.

Passport is a global market research database providing company and industry information, sales trends, marketing developments, and market strategies.

Below is an example of a search for a country report on alcoholic drinks in Australia. This type of report can provide a good analysis on the industry, as well as providing information on key competitors in the market.

Screenshot of Industries section of Passport GMID database.

WARC is an in-depth marketing and advertising resource with research, reports, case studies, and insights into brands and consumers. 

Tip: Try a general search first. For example, for Cadbury Dairy Milk try searching for chocolate. You can then filter your search with the options on the right side to a specific Location and Date Range.

How to explore consumer insights for an industry:

  1. Select More > Browse by interest > Topics.  
  2. Under the Consumer & audiences heading, select Show more.
  3. Select your consumer demographic.
  4. Select More filters (next to the results list).
  5. Type your industry in the Search within box.

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) operates the ACNC charity register. This searchable register contains information about charities, their financial information, annual reports, and the people involved. 

Use the Search for a charity feature to search by name, or location, or use the More filters option to adjust your search.

Screenshot of search bar on ACNC website.

6. Study help

Now that you have your information, it's time to get started writing your marketing plan. Please visit your Course Outline for details on a marketing template provided for you to use. 

The University's Study Help Hub is another useful tool packed with resources to help with your assignments and studies.

7. Referencing support

Managing your references

What do you do with all those references you have found? You can use a bibliographic management software to store, organise, and cite your references.

There are many free systems available. The Library supports the bibliographic management tool EndNote. EndNote automates citing your references and allows you to create and organise a library of references. For more information and to download the software, check out the EndNote Guide: