You are required to prepare an Investigative Study Report. The word count should be between 5000 words and the report will carry 90% of the marks. A separate Reflective Report based on your log book entries of between 500 -1000 words carries the remaining 10% of marks.

 QUESTION: To be successful, marketers must develop a differential advantage which will distinguish their offer from competitors. The task of the modern business is to make itself unique to consumers so that they will not switch to competitors - a task which is very difficult within services.

Outline and illustrate with examples how service firms can differentiate to attain a competitive advantage. 

The Main Stages in Your Investigative Study 

• Select the topic and set your objectives

For the Investigative Study, the first thing is to decide on which of the titles you feel most comfortable with in terms of interest, potential access to literature, information and data. Essentially this is a 'desk study' in which you are relying on 'secondary data' from published sources.

Whether you stick with the topic allocated, or pick one of the others, including the additional 3 new titles, it is important that you let me know by e-mail or in-person.

• 'Brainstorm' the topic

You could use any of the accepted methods such as 'spider graphs' or 'mind maps' to help you identify areas to focus on. This will also help you to structure the various sections within the main body of the report. See example in fig 1 below.

• Draft out an abstract

This will be a working abstract and can be altered and edited as the work takes shape, some of this will form the introduction to the main report.

• Undertake a literature review to collect information and data on your chosen theme. 

This is the main part of the study and will be the most time consuming. You must be prepared to source as wide a range of literature as possible to support your discussion / analysis. You can use 'hard' sources in the form of books and journals from the library or newspapers. Electronic books and journals etc can be sourced through the library also. Obviously the internet will provide a wide range of additional sources in the form of reports and articles etc. bearing in mind the considerations of veracity / accuracy of sources we discussed last Friday.Ensure you record full details of all sources, and dates accessed. Although Wikipedia content should be treated with caution, it is a good initial source of further references. Keep a full record of all bibliographic details.

Quite apart from actually searching out and analysing / discussing literature on the main topic area, you will also have to write an account of the methods used in reviewing the literature. In other words a 'literature review' of desk research / researching from the literature, as opposed to primary research methodology. You might however include some brief comparative details between desk study / secondary research and primary research. 

It is useful here to devise a personal action plan in which you allocate a specific amount of time at regular intervals to carry out your research. Set targets to access and analyse a certain number of texts each session. 

• Produce the report framework 

Once you have started to gather your information / analysis / discussion you need to start to compiling it into the report. A suggested format has been given in the module handbook. The key components are shown here:

Title page - your title not the essay title

Declaration - you will need to sign this before submission stating that the report is all your own work

Abstract - this is a basic overview of the report, it incorporates elements of the introduction and elements of the projected outcomes

Contents page - ensure this is kept up to date and check accuracy before submission

List of tables - if appropriate

List of figures - if appropriate

List of acronyms - essential

The main parts of the main body of the report are numbered as follows:

1.     Introduction - provide a clear and concise description of the focus of the report, why you chose it, what the relevance / interest is to you, the context and way you intend to lay the work out etc. the reader should have a clear idea of what is in store having read this.

2.     Literature research / desk study methodologies review - a brief review of approaches to desk study and literature search methodology.

3.     First main heading - this and subsequent  main and subheadings are where the main information and data from the literature are presented together with some analysis and discussion. A more detailed summary of aspects from all these sections will form the findings chapter

3.1  first subheading

3.2  second sub heading etc

4.     Second main heading - if appropriate

3.1

3.2 etc

5.     Main report findings - this is where an analytical discussion of your findings including and outcomes of the study are presented

6.     Report Conclusions - what you have concluded from your findings, include in here a section on any limitations to the study

7.     Recommendations - relating to possible further research that could be done

8.      Note: 

Include at the bottom of the bibliography the word count from the introduction through to the recommendations sections.