Sample Syllabus Format And Schedules To familiarize students with the decisions involved

Sample Syllabus Format and Schedules

MAR 3231

Introduction to Systems and Management

University of Florida

Barton Weitz

Course Objective:

To familiarize students with the decisions involved in running a retail firm and the concepts and

principles for making those decisions. While the course focuses on the retail industry including retailers

Specific student learning outcomes are to develop an understanding of:

the contribution of retailers to the product value chain.

consumer motivations, shopping behaviors, and decision processes for evaluating retail offering

and purchasing merchandise and services.

Required Course Material:

Michael Levy, Barton Weitz, and Dhruv Grewal, Retailing Management, Tenth Edition (L&W)

Teams:

Students will form teams of 5 or 6 students. The teams will be responsible for selected assignments. At

Assignments:

All assignments should be typed and double-spaced. These assignments will be graded for organization,

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Article Discussions:

In these discussion class assignments, I divided the class is divided in half and assigned everyone to either

Group 1 (last name first letter A through L) or Group 2 (M through Z). Students, in the group assigned for

the day, will have an opportunity to briefly present and discuss an article they found related to the topic of

Class Participation and Attendance:

Ten points will be deducted from missing the field trip to the distribution center. The only excused

absences are class conflicts and you need to notify me about the conflict before the trip. You can earn up

Extra Credit

You can earn two points for every Sear Seminar Series, MAR 2290, presentation you attend. Turn in the

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Assignments:

Assignment Type Points

Article Discussion: Types of retailers

Group 1

Individual *

Wal-Mart Debate Teams 1 and 2 Team **

Article Discussion: Internet

shopping/retailing – Group 2

Individual *

First Exam Individual 80

Article Discussion: Retail Locations –

Group 2

Individual *

Financial analysis Assignment Group 20

Article Discussion: Human resource

management issues – Group 1

Individual *

Second Exam Individual 80

Star Hardware Assortment Planning

assignment due

Team 20

Article

Discussion: pricing

–

Group

2

Individual

*

Article Discussion: communication

programs

–

Group

1

5,6,7,8

Individual *

1,2,3,4

Third Exam Individual 80

*Article Discussion Assignments

Individual

30

** Team presentation/debates Team 30

missed.

Seminar Series presentations

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Grading:

Grades can be earned as follows:

Letter Grade Number of Points

A 450-500

B+ 425-449

Cheating:

pursuing knowledge with integrity. Violations of the Academic Honesty Guidelines will result in judicial

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities:

Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The

Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this

documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation.

Make-up Exams:

CLASS SCHEDULE

1. Introduction

2. World of Retailing

Read: Chapter 1 (L&W)

Group 1 Article Discussion Assignment Find and present an article about trends and/or new

developments in retailing either related to

a specific type of retailing such as department stores, supermarkets, specialty stores, big

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3. Types of Retailers

Read: Chapter 2 (L&W)

–

4. Multichannel and Omnichannel Retailing

Read Chapter 3 (L&W)

5. Shopping Behavior

Guest speaker: Ray Arckey, Proctor & Gamble Account Executive for Publix

6. Multi-channel Retailing

Internet Shopping Presentation

Prepare a 20 minute maximum presentation about these website sites that are related to shopping.

No written report is required. Just turn in your Powerpoint slides.

Teams

Assignment

camera. What features on the sites did you find helpful? What features made

shopping more difficult? What camera would you? Why? From which site

would you buy it? Why?

Powershot SD1000). Report on your experiences with these sites and the

feature they offer. What features do they have that you l

features you found useful or did not like, etc? How easy was it to locate what

you were looking for? What was the checkout like? Etc?

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of the site, navigation, special features you found useful or did not like, etc?

What are the specific services offered by these sites that you would use.

7. Retail Strategy

Guest Speaker: Casey Landes, Kohls

Read: Chapter 5 (L&W)

Group 1 Article Discussion Assignment Find and present an article about the impact of a

8. Starbucks Case Discussion

Read the Starbucks case posted on the course website and be prepared to discuss the case in class.

9. First Exam

Chapters 1-5 plus material covered on class, open notes but can not bring textbook

10. Financial strategy

Read: Chapter 6 (L&W)

11. Retail Locations

Read: Chapter 7, 8 (L&W)

12. Tuesday, February 12 Human Resource Management

Read: Chapter 15 (L&W)

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Group 1 Article Discussion assignment Find and present an article about a human

resource management issue such as motivating and compensating retail employees, sexual

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Which of these retailers do you think is most effective and attractive? Which is the least effective and

attractive? Which is the least effective? Why? What should each of these retailers do to increase their

effectiveness?

Turn in Financial Analysis Assignment

Financial Analysis Assignment

Evaluate the performance of the focal retailer assigned to you. Using its annual report that you

Teams Focal Retailer Competitors

1,8 JCPenney

Email the three to four to five page report to me before class

13. Logistics and Information Systems

Read: Chapter 9

14. Field Trip to Wal-Mart Distribution Center

No Class at assigned

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15. Comparison Shopping

The objective of this assignment is to have you take the re

the different retail mixes they offer and how they compare to other retailers. The assignment

is to pretend you are responsible for a merchandise category. Conduct a comparison of the

1. (20%) The strategy pursued by the two retailers

general approach toward satisfying the needs of the target market.

2. (40%)The retail mixes used by each of the retailers with respect to a specific

Data Collection

To prepare this comparison you need to visit the stores (not the websites) and observe the retail

mixes in the stores. Try to make an appointment with the department or store manager and

conduct a structured interview to collect information about the strategy of the store, its target

market, and its retail approach to appeal to the target market. In some cases, the manager might

refuse to talk to you or let you collect data in the store. Then pretend you are a customer

shopping for merchandise in the category to evaluate the customer service. Finally, look

thoroughly at the merchandise in the category to make a comparison as if you were a competitor

see in what the store has to offer. (see point 3 above)

Executive Memo

Summarize the results of the comparison shopping exercise in a memo six to ten pages, double-

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Presentation by All Teams

Each presentation must be no longer than 10 minutes. Practice the timing of the presentation,

16. Customer Relationship Management

Read: Chapter 10 (L&W)

government should restrict the collection and use of this data.

To ensure that you can get information about the retailer, the retailer you select should:

Be a publicly held company so that you can access its financial statements and annual reports.

Do not select a retailer that is owned by another company. For example, since Banana

Republic is owned by The Gap, you can only get financial information about The Gap and

not the divisions it operates such as Banana Republic.

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Prepare an analysis of the company.

—

positioning, its retail mix (merchandise variety and assortment, pricing, locations, etc.), and.

relative to competitors

17. Planning Assortments

Read: Chapter 11 (L&W)

Guest Speaker:

William Alcorn, VP Controller and Chief Purchasing Officer, JCPenney

20. Pricing

Read: Chapter 13 (L&W)

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Star Hardware Assortment Planning Assignment due March 26

Cynthia Turk is an assistant buyer for Star Hardware, a chain of 10 hardware stores in a large

Midwestern city. She works for Ramon Martinez, who is responsible for the hand tools

merchandise categories. Mr. Martinez is concerned with the performance of the hand wrench

category. He has assigned Ms. Turk to analyze the category and make recommendations to

21. International Retailing

Guest Speaker: Mike Kratofil, Jardin, VP Global Market Development

22. Retail Communications

Read: Chapter 14 (L&W)

Guest speaker: Kim Nielson, dkVogue, founder and CEO

Group 1 Article Discussion Assignment – Communications Find and present an article about a

24. Store Design

Read: Chapter 16 (L&W)

25. Customer Service

Read: Chapter 17 (L&W)

Group 2 Article Discussion Assignment Customer Service Find and present an article about