Through many years experience of events in our lives, we all know the importance of planning. Planning is a process in which setting goals, evaluating situations, utilizing strategies and then performaning the tasks to achieve organizational objectives in the future. Especially in the marketing world, marketing plan is vital because it not only helps to prepare for future opportunites and threats, but also helps to clearify the objectives of mission and set the base line to be goal-focused. Moreover, the planning of a project provides a benchmark to be compared with the actually performance, thus you would know how much you are closing to your goals. I am not saying every event should has a plan because there are possible contingence. But having a plan is much effective and sufficient in most cases.
The importance of marketing planning is way beyond these. Now, as a senior undergraduate student I am facing one of my biggest turning point in my life. I need to decide my future path by knowing what I want and how to access it. I will graduate in May, 2014 from the University of Tulsa with two bachlar degrees--Psychology and Accounting. I have a minor in Economics too. My goal in two years is to get offers from the best business schools in France. My goal in five years is to get master degree from dream school and get a job in France. This is the big picutre of my plan.
Mission Statement:
My mission statement is simple, “To make you and me both satisfied”.
Plans that have specific aims are usually more successful than those that do not. I understand organized objectives could help me to know what I am trying to achieve. I decided to set SMART objectives.
1. Score Objectives
To get at least 700 GMAT score before Febrary 28th, 2014.
2. Experience Objectives
To finish internship in BMW, China from July 2014 to December 2014.
3. Education Objectives
To get offer from either Audencia Nantes, EMLYON Business School, ESCP Europe, HEC Paris, or SKEMA Business School by May 2015
Here is the basic timeline of my plan and some events that I suspect that I will go through in pursueing my goals.
Prepare to take GMAT test in January
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Graduate in May, 2014 with Dual bachelor degrees
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Internship in BMW
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Learning French after going back China for three months
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Apply for the first enrollment in September if I got GMAT 700
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Take Language test
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Apply for the second enrollment in January, 2015 if the first one did not pass
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Internship
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Apply for the third enrollment in Febrary, 2015 if the second did not pass
My plan is if I got offers from one of five business schools in France, I will prepare my language skills and do the internship before going there. If unfortunately I did not get any offer, I will go to Beijing or Shanghai to look for a job in bank.
SWOT analysis:
Here are some background about schools I want to go. The offers I want to get are actually from SAI in France, SAI stands for Selection for Admission into French Management Schools. Their job is to select graduate students from higher education institutions outside France for admission in the master in management programs. The reason I want to chose SAI is because you do not have to know French, they offer classes both in English and in French. These programs are offered by five French management schools: AUDENCIA Nantes, EMLYON Business School, ESCP Europe, HEC Paris and SKEMA Business School. There are two major tests for the programs. Written tests include GMAT, GRE or the TAGE-MAGE tests. Candidates need to have an at least qualified score in order to apply. The second test is the interview, after I got offers, I need to prepare for the interview. The interview is organized by SAI also, I could choose to do the interview in English or French.
The first strenth I have is independence. My high school was in Beijing, where is two hours driving from my hometown. Since then, I