Exploring new market opportunities for CATNIC (a Tata steel company) in North Africa.

Description

The project was sourced via the business clinic by Martyn Rowling and developed with Dr. Nihar Amoncar, the project required an investigation of new market development opportunities for CATNIC in the North African region. The project was extended to the students by setting the project up as an assessment wherein final year BA Marketing and Management students had to produce a business report providing CATNIC with research and analysis based advice to CATNIC to help the company identify a compatible market in the North African region. The project had multiple stages, in the first CATNIC were invited to the USW campus to present their project brief to the students in a live client-consultant scenario. In presence were the Managing Director of CATNIC, the Exports Manager and the Marketing Manager who delivered an extensive presentation to the students on their requirements followed by a Q&A wherein students could ask project related questions. The students were then given a month to research on the company and the given region of expansion. CATNIC were then re-invited for a second round of Q&A wherein the students could ask questions based on the fresh research they conducted. The students performed macro-environmental analysis along with industry level analysis using multiple frameworks to examine the ideal market for entry. There was also extensive research done to find cultural synergies between the North African market to explore opportunities for cultural convergence through CATNIC's presence in France and the letters influence in the North African region. A entry mode was also recommended based on risk and investment analysis. The student reports were graded by Dr Amoncar but all were forwarded to CATNIC for reading. The top 5 scoring students were selected to present their project report in the USW Exchange boardroom in the presence of the Managing Director and Marketing Manager of CATNIC. CATNIC were highly satisfied by the reports and insights of the students which were shared utilised to advise the company approach. A top student who scored the highest marks in this project is being considered for a graduate role at CATNIC. CATNIC's satisfaction meant the project team were successful in retaining them for another client-consultant exercise in 2019.

Period	1 Oct 2017 → 1 Feb 2018
Degree of Recognition	International