Milestone One: Context, Need, Pricing

This milestone establishes your chosen organization’s direction within the marketplace and introduces your new product or service idea. This is
important because it drives the subsequent activities, milestones, and the final project. Without a strong sense of the organization’s purpose within the
marketplace, consumer trends, and how to meet target market needs at the appropriate price, management is less likely to maximize the efficiency of business
activities, more likely to miss fully meeting the needs of its chosen target market, and—most importantly—lose revenue. This milestone establishes the
organization’s indemnity, psychographics and demographics of the target market, and the costs associated with bringing the idea to the market.
Prompt: Use headings within your paper that correspond with each portion of the rubric. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
 Context
Building on your intrapreneurial or entrepreneurial idea from MBA 515, write a paper that addresses the following:
o Describe your corporate mission and brand description and how these two components drive business decisions.
o Assess how your new idea fits into the brand.
o Evaluate the effectiveness of your organization’s current brand and how this influences your new product/service.
 Need
For your idea, continue your paper by addressing the following:
o Target Market
 Define basic demographics of your targeted consumer or buying style of organizational buyer, and analyze why they are a good choice.
 Define behavioral and/or psychographic characteristics of your targeted consumer or buying style of organizational buyer, and analyze
why they are a good choice.
o Want or Need
 Analyze what your target demographic(s) want or need and how the new idea meets those wants or needs.
 Defend why your chosen target demographic(s) is best for this new product/service.
 Pricing and Costs
Using the idea that you have chosen, finish your paper by covering the following:
o Determine your fixed and variable costs and how they fit with your company’s short- and long-term goals. Use a narrative with a table to show
calculations for cost categories. Provide reasonable estimates for each of the categories. Specific or in-depth financial analysis is not necessary.
o Judge how much your target market is willing to pay for your product/service. Examine competitors’ pricing and explain reasoning for
differences.
o Evaluate how much your target market is willing to pay for your product/service if it aligns with their corporate social responsibility (CSR)
preferences. Weave CSR into the launch of your new idea.
o Justify your pricing strategy (skimming, penetration, economy, or premium).
 Writing
When drafting your paper, consider the following:
o The writing should be clear and correct. There should be no major errors of grammar, spelling, organization, or citation style.
o Remember to use headings within the paper that correspond with each portion of the rubric.
Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: Submit your completed milestone as a Microsoft Word file with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch
margins. The recommended length for this milestone is 8 to 10 pages (plus a title page and references). T