The assignment is to write an Investigative Report in Memo Form.
Situation – Pretend that the Lehman College is reviewing its competitiveness of the services of the Lehman College Career Exploration and Development Center (CEDC).
As a member of the Lehman College Strategic Planning Department, your manager has asked you to conduct research and develop a formal memo comparing and contrasting at least one other career services center within the City University of New York (CUNY) to Lehman’s CEDC. Your report will be organized into sections using the traditional “4 P’s” of Marketing (Product, Price, Promotion, and Place).
The Primary Research – Use what you know about Lehman College, what you observe on Lehman’s CEDC website, and what you investigate on the career services websites of other CUNY Colleges.
Secondary Research – Professional Articles about university career service centers that you find on a Lehman Library database. (any database or google).
The 3-5 page single space Memo needs to be created for this assignment using proper Memo Format using section headers using one bulleted or numbered list. The Memo should have one blank line between paragraphs.
The audience for your investigative report is NOT other students, and the Memo cannot have a “Problem/Solution” theme in it.
It should have in-line citations for material from sources in MLA format & a Works Cited Page
It must include a table of supporting data
It must include an outline
1. The Reader of your memo is a Head of Strategic Planning at Lehman College (Fictitious Executive)
2. Create a purpose statement
a. My primary purpose is _________________________
b. ________ so that my audience can _________________
3. Conduct Primary & Secondary Research
4. Review research and organize it using Product, Price, Promotion, and Place
a. What are Lehman’s CEDC’s products or services? More important how do they compare to CUNY (other colleges within the City University of New York – Brooklyn College, Queens College, Bronx College) competitors.
b. What channels of distribution (place) for this product/service does the CEDC employ? More important how do they compare to other CUNY competitors
c. What kinds of fees in terms of money and/or time, etc. (price) does the CEDC employ? More important, how do they compare to CUNY competitors?
d. What kind of marketing and/or market segments (promotion) does CEDC employ to reach its customers? More important how do they compare to CUNY competitors?
5. Include an outline of the four components from step 4 (Product, price, promotion, and place)
6. Create a table for Lehman plus two other CUNY competitors for these values: Product, price, place, promotion
7. Draft an Opening Paragraph of the Memo based upon your preparation and research
8. Draft the Body of the Report – write a first draft paragraph for EACH component developed in section 5 (Product, Price, Promotion, Place)
9. Draft a closing summary – Building on the preparation and research, write the first draft of a closing paragraph of the Memo/Report
10. Put it all together
