Portfolio Assessment: Tasks and Requirements

Task 1 – Online Marketing Plan (250 words)

This assessment consists of six individual tasks with which you are expected to show that you have met the Module’s Learning Outcomes (please see these on page 5 of this document).

You are expected to complete all six tasks and submit these via Canvas within one Word document (.doc or .docx).  There are individual requirements for each section of the portfolio, detailed below:

Task 1: Online Marketing plan for new product (250 words)

Task 2: Operations Management plan for new product (250 words)

Task 3: Human Resources recruitment strategy (250 words)

Task 4: Financial projection for new product development and sales (250 words)

All word limits allow you to be over or under by no more than 10%. For example, for each task of 250 words, you may submit between 225 and 275 words.

The assessment will be explained in the first week of the module as an assessment unpacking session.  The guidance notes for this assessment are also available via Canvas.  There are two opportunities to have your draft work reviewed by your Module Tutor in Module Week 6 and 12.  Please use Harvard Referencing (in-text – in the body of your writing - and an end of text Reference List – after your conclusion section).

You are required to produce a Marketing Plan for Safety First, focusing on the online promotion of the company’s products to new business customers. The Marketing Plan should include the products, price and place of the 7 Ps and briefly discuss how each of these will be managed, in order to increase customer and order numbers for the company. Your plan should include the following:

Results from internet research into prices for the company’s core products – disposable gloves, aprons and face masks; Key focus for online promotion of the company and its core products – incorporating plans for the company website and specific social media platforms; information from module-related books, journal articles and websites.

This section requires you to focus on improving the demand lead time for Safety First products, so that the new and existing customers of Safety First wait for the shortest possible time between ordering PPE and taking delivery of their ordered product(s). In order to do this, you will need to undertake internet research, to find at least two companies which can supply wholesale quantities of Safety First’s three core products directly to your warehouse unit in Wolverhampton, along with the cost for each ‘unit’ – which will help you to produce your financial projection for Task 5. You will also need to consider the number of existing staff and the potential new orders the company may receive, providing a final figure of additional staff, which will support your completion of Task 4. Finally, you will need to consider the current packing space available to new and existing staff and how this might be adapted to meet increased staff levels and packing requirements.

Based on the information provided in the case study, you are required to undertake internet research to ascertain the below information and use this to produce a plan for the recruitment of a number of new staff in any area of the company you believe will require additional staff. This section should be presented as an outline HR budget, specifying the skills and qualifications required for new staff and the time required to train new and existing staff.

• What is the current market rate (hourly or yearly pay) for each job type within Safety First outside London?
• Based on the potential for new orders and the Operations plan, how many additional staff are required for each role and how quickly can new staff be hired, inducted and trained?
• What role type (full-time, part-time, etc.), contract type (permanent, fixed term, etc.) and rate of pay will be offered for each role?
• What induction, training and development will be required for each role?
• How will roles be advertised?

This section requires you to use the information you have gathered for Tasks 2, 3 and 4 to provide Activity-Based Costing (ABC) for the costs of all the changes required to marketing, operations and human resources, as well as a projection of the cost of wholesale PPE to stock the warehouse in preparation for the increase in orders.

You should include in your ABC the following sections, based on internet research:

• The approximate cost of new staff (recruitment, training, pay and employer contributions for six months);
• The cost of website design and management for online sales;
• The cost of social media advertising for six months;
• The total cost of PPE items for the next six months.

All entries in the ABC should be accompanied by a short reference, to indicate the source of the information you used to calculate the cost.