Private and Confidential. For X-Culture use only.

Updated September 18, 2020

2020-2b

Company: Nomuo
Country: Saudi Arabia
Website: nomuo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/nomuoed
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/nomuo

Webinars: Webinar schedule and recordings here

Questions: If you have further questions, please direct them to [email protected]. Your questions will be
directed to the company representatives.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Nomuo is a Saudi-based educational technology platform designed to cultivate a thriving generation of learners
within a world where innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurial thinking are leading economic and social
change.

Nomuo delivers its live online programs through its custom-built platform and unique virtual classrooms that
have been innovatively designed to create an intimate and socially engaging learning experience for learners
and educators.

Nomuo focuses on subjects that are relevant to 21st-century learning utilizing soft and technical skills, such as
collaboration, problem-solving, and reasoning. These classrooms are facilitated by high-caliber, hands-on
educators from around the world, set in an entertaining and lively environment that captures the attention and
imagination of the learners.

The company information is provided in the booklet on the following pages:

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 THE CHALLENGE

Nomuo already has over a thousand paying customers in Saudi Arabia, and it is ready to expand to new
markets. Accordingly, the company seeks your help with identifying new promising markets and developing a
new market entry strategy.

Please present your recommendations in a report that details the following:

Section I: Market

1. Industry and Competition Analysis

To provide a foundation for your analysis, start with a survey of the industry. Who are your client’s main
competitors? How your client’s product and pricing are different from those of the competitors?
What are your client’s strengths and weaknesses compared to the competition, and what threats and
opportunities it is facing?

When assessing your client’s competitive position, you may find this short guide and this 5-min video on
SWOT analysis helpful.

To better understand the industry and consumers, it is recommended that you reach out to parents and teachers
to find out more how they select additional training and experiential learning opportunities for their kids, what
programs they use now, and what it would take for them to consider the X-Culture Kids program.

Suggested questions for parents:

• Are your children currently, or have they ever been enrolled in educational programs outside school?
• If so, how did you select such programs? What is important to you when selecting such programs for your
kids?
• Would you consider courses like those offered by Nuomo for your children? Why or why not?

Suggested questions for school teachers:

• Are your students currently or have they ever been enrolled in educational programs outside their regular
classes?
• Who decides if your students can enroll in such extra-curricular programs?
• What is important to you when selecting such programs for your students?
• Would you consider courses like those offerd by Nuomo for your children? Why or why not?

2. New Market Selection and Analysis

Based on your analysis of the client and competition, identify the most promising new market for your client.
Where would the product be in most demand (people who want and can afford it)?

Please first consider the market characteristics that are essential to the success of the product in the market, such
as the economic, political, institutional and cultural factors. Based on a comparison of the countries that fit your
criteria, select one most promising market that you believe has the greatest potential.

Conduct an analysis of the market in terms of:

• Key competitors in the proposed market, their strengths, and weaknesses, their pricing and promotion
strategies, etc.
• Provide an in-depth analysis of the factors relevant to the success of your client in the market, including:
o Cultural, legal, political, and economic factors that your client must understand to ensure the success in
that market;

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 o Consumer tastes and preferences with respect to your client’s product.

Evaluation Rubrics
7 - Clear and concise list of the client’s strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities for its product,
review of the market selection criteria, the recommended new market clearly matches the criteria, brief but
insightful market analysis, strong supporting arguments, sources properly cited; if a survey of potential
clients has been conducted, the sample is clearly described and the findings are presented in a concise
readable format.
4 – A good analysis and recommendation, but some elements are not strongly supported, some parts are
irrelevant or redundant.
1 - Impossible to figure out what the recommendation is, supporting arguments are absent or completely off the
point, not supported by credible sources.

Section II. Marketing

3. Promotion Channels

Identify who makes the decision to enroll kids in courses like those offered by Nuomo (e.g., parents, teachers,
school principals) and suggest the best ways to reach the decision-makers and present them with information
about the program. Because it will likely be a highly specialized consumer segment, mass advertising like TV
may not be an optimal promotion method. Rather, professional mailing lists, direct mailing or highly targeted
promotion via social media and professional associations or personal meetings with target organizations
representatives may be more viable and cost-effective, although more common methods may be more suitable
for reaching parents.

Try to not only identify the general channels, but also research and provide the specifics. For example, do not
simply recommend professional email distribution lists, targeted social media campaigns, or professional
associations as a way to reach the decision-makers (such as LinkedIn network, etc.). Find out the actual email
distribution lists and research how one can send out a promotional message to its recipients; suggest which
social media allow for sending information directly to the decision-makers and how exactly this could be done;
or which professional associations or conferences the decision-makers belong or go to. That is, provide names,
addresses, prices, and exact steps that need to be taken to send out the message via this channel.

4. Message
• What is the best way to convince consumers to buy the product?
• What should be the main message of the marketing campaign and how should it be presented?
• What are the best message, slogan, and other marketing campaign elements?
• If applicable, discuss if the brand name or its presentation should be modified to make the product more
appealing to the tastes and traditions of the consumers in the new market.

5. Promotional Materials
To interest potential customers, your client will need to present information about its products. Illustrate your
knowledge of the target consumers in your chosen new market by developing a mock-up locally-tailored
marketing brochure, email or webpage template, or social media post that your client can use to promote the
product. It does not need to have the perfect graphic design. It should only serve as a concept sketch for what
the promo material should look like to be effective with the target market segment.

Evaluation Rubrics
7 – The recommended promotion channel(s) is inexpensive and allows to precisely target the potential
customers, there is a clear step-by-step guide for how to place an ad there and how much it will cost, an
appealing and convincing marketing brochure with strong supporting arguments for each element.

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4 – Good suggestions, but not enough detail and weak supporting arguments, some parts are irrelevant or
redundant, the formatting is inconsistent.
1 - Impossible to figure out what the recommendation is, supporting arguments are absent or completely off the
point, not supported by credible sources.

Section III. Management

7. Product design and business model

How can Nomuo improve & expand its business model (e.g., offer a different program model, new courses,
different format of the courses, different payment collection model, etc.).

8. Pricing
What is the optimal way to charge for the program like X-Culture Kids? Should it be a fixed price or a different
model would work better (subscription, membership, group pricing, repeat customer discounts, installment
payments, etc.), and corresponds well with the marketing strategy suggested earlier.

This blog and this article offer a good overview of some of the available pricing strategy options.

9. Retention
As with any online education platform, retention is a major challenge. How can Nomou improve retention of its
students?

Evaluation Rubrics
7 – The recommendations are clearly articulated, are viable, and are supported by convincing arguments; the
proposed product design, pricing, and retention strategies are explained in sufficient detail and supported
by convincing arguments and credible sources.
4 – Good suggestions, but not enough detail and weak supporting arguments, some parts are irrelevant or
redundant, the formatting is inconsistent
1 - Impossible to figure out what the recommendation is, supporting arguments are absent or completely off the
point, not supported by credible sources.

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 OPTIONAL: A REAL-LIFE VIABILITY TEST

To make the project more realistic, gain further business experience, and to put to a real-life test the claimed
demand for the product in the new proposed market, teams are encouraged to try get a real B2B contract (with a
school), or sign up individual participants for the X-Culture Program. You can try to do it individually or as a
team.

If you succeed at securing a B2B contract or an individual participant enrolls thank to your referral, you will
receive a prize commensurable with the amount of 20% of the contract or enrollment value, offered as a gift or
post-market commission (after the deal is closed and the customer pays for the product).

If you would like to try it, please do the following:

1. When you identify a potential organizational or individual customer, share information about X-Culture
Kids with them.
2. If they express interest in the program, suggest that they register for the next round of the program here:
https://x-culture.org/academy/
3. If the potential client has questions, please contact [email protected] to receive more
information via email or to schedule a live call.

This part is optional, and your decision to try it or your success or failure, if you try, will have no effect on your
evaluation in this project. However, we encourage you to try to secure a contract and facilitate its execution as
this will not only offer you a unique, very real and very practical international business experience but will also
lead to tangible rewards and a much stronger resume in the case of your success.

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 REPORT STRUCTURE AND FORMATTING

Report structure:

• Title Page must contain

o team number
o client company name
o names, emails, and countries of residence of all the team members and a short summary (5-15
words) of the role and work completed by each team member.
o If any of the team members dropped out or did not contribute to the report, please still list
them, but add a note “Did not participate” by their names.

• Executive Summary (300-400 words, bullet-list format preferred) that provides a short review of your key
findings and recommendations. The Executive Summary should not be saying what the report will be about
(list of topics), but rather summarize your key recommendations (the proposed new market, key findings of
the industry analysis, key features of the recommended marketing and pricing strategies, etc.). By reading
the Executive Summary, your client should be able to see and understand right away your key
recommendations. The rest of the report should only provide more details and supporting arguments.

• Report sections corresponding to each question listed above.

Start each report section with a short bullet-list summary of the key recommendations presented in the
section (2-4 bullets, each 4-10 words long), followed by 2-5 pages of more detailed explanations and
supporting arguments.

• References: if you cite any sources in the text of the report, provide full references in this section. Please use
APA-6 citation style (google how to cite sources using APA-6 if you are not sure).

• Appendixes: If needed, add additional information in appendices, within the page limit.

Formatting:
• The report must be 15-25 single-spaced pages (7,000-15,000 words), including the title page, executive
summary, references, and appendices. Each section should be 1-4 pages long. Generally, shorter is better, so
be as concise and focused as possible. Design your report for easy navigation and scanning for key ideas.
• Number all pages in your team report.
• Portrait page orientation.
• Margins should be 2.5 cm (one inch) at the top, bottom, and sides of the page.
• Font type should be 12-point Times New Roman throughout the report.
• Single-space all body text.
• Indent the first line of a new paragraph.
• The text should be left-aligned.
• All citations used must be cited in the text and in a reference list at the end of each report. In-text citations
should include only the name of the author(s) and the date of the publication. Full references should be
provided at the end of the report. Please use APA reference style.
• A picture is worth a thousand of words, so the use of figures, graphs, pictures, as well as tables is
encouraged. It is recommended these are included in the main body of the report.
• Know your client: Which English spelling dictionary and paper size (A4/US Letter) varies based on which
country your client’s business is headquartered.

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Evaluation of the Executive Summary
7 - Short but gives a very good idea about the key ideas presented in the business proposal, the Client can get a
good idea about the main points of the proposed strategy from the executive summary;
4 - Gives some idea about the key suggestions, but some points remain uncertain; a bit too long; not to the
point.
1 - Not possible to figure out the key ideas of the business proposal from the summary, too short or too long

Evaluation of the Formatting

7 – The report has a clear structure, visual appeal, the sections are consistently formatted, sources are properly
cited, the formatting guidelines are followed exactly with respect to the page limit, font and other
requirements.
4 – The formatting guidelines are generally followed, but there are some deviations, there are some signs of
sloppiness in document formatting.
1 – The document looks very unprofessional, different report sections are formatted differently, the document is
very hard to read and navigate.

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 TASKS AND DEADLINES
Each week, you will be asked to fill out a short survey to report your team’s progress, evaluate the
performance of your team members and provide other information we need to understand better why some
teams perform better than others. Please see the informed consent form at the end of this document for more
details.

Important: Participants who receive peer evaluations below 2.0 (out of 5.0) will first receive a warning. If
their peer evaluations stay below 2.0 two weeks in a row, they will be automatically excluded from the team.

Important: Occasionally emails with invitations to take a survey are filtered into the Junk/Spam email
folder. Please check your Junk/Spam email folder (search for messages with “X-Culture” in the subject line)
if you don’t receive a survey invitation message around the date specified in the table above.

All deadlines are set for 11:59 pm (23:59), EST time zone (New York).

1. Pre-project Readiness Test

Due: Any time before the official project start

Before the project starts, all participants must review project materials and take a Readiness Test. The test
will include questions about the project and online collaboration tools, as well as questions about your prior
international experience and background. You must successfully pass the Readiness Test (80% or more
correct answers) to participate in X-Culture. If your semester starts after the official start of the project or you
do not complete the Readiness Test on time for another reason, do so as soon as you can – we will continue
adding new participants for about ten days after the project start.

Official Project Start, Teams Formed

Monday, October 5

As long as you completed the Readiness Test, you will receive the names and contact information of your
team members on this day. Please reach out to your teammates immediately to establish contact. Introduce
yourself, and start working on the project. Students whose semester starts later will be added to the existing
teams once their semester starts, so it is likely an additional student may be added to your team in the first
two weeks.

2. Establish Contact with Your Teammates

Due: Thursday, October 8

By this date, you are expected to have exchanged at least a few messages with your teammates. If some
teammates are not responding, you are expected to send at least three email reminders to them by this date.
Team members who fail to establish contact with their teams will be excluded from the project. Your
communication starts via email, but once the initial contact is established, your team can use any means of
communication.

Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will ask you to report whether or not you have communicated with all of your team
members. Team members who fail to establish contact with their teams may be removed from the project.

Note:
This and all other weekly surveys will also ask to evaluate your team members’ performance and provide
additional information we need to understand better why some teams perform better than others. Please see
the informed consent form at the end of this document for more details.

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 3. Meet Your Teammates
Due: Sunday, October 11

Meet your team members: Please learn as much as possible about your teammates (background, interests,
hobbies, experiences, etc.). Research shows that spending a little time getting to know team members greatly
improves team effectiveness. It is also strongly recommended that you try a live video call (e.g., Skype).

Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will test how well you got to know your team members. It will contain a few questions about
your team members, such as their background, interests, etc. The acquaintanceship test will not be graded, so
do not feel obliged to reveal any personal information to your team members or insist that your team members
reveal their personal information to you. However, try to get to know your teammates as much as you can.

4. Select the Client Company, Team Charter

Due: Sunday, October 18

By this date, your team is expected to review all available challenges and select your client organization.
Before you choose your client organization, please carefully review the challenges presented by each
organization and try to attend (or watch the recordings of) the webinars with each of the client companies,
which will be held in the first week of the project.

Team Charter: Discuss with your team members and collectively write a one-page Team Charter that details
how your team will operate. It is recommended that the Team Charter includes the following sections:
• Distribution of roles and tasks. Many teams divide the workload by the report section. Research shows
teams perform better when they divide the workload by function: one person is tasked with
coordinating team efforts, checking everyone’s progress, sending reminders, redistributing tasks if
needed; another person, usually a native English speaker, serves as a copyeditor, and so on. Many
teams also select a person whose role is to question everything and force the team to weigh their
options more carefully. Some teams assign a person whose job is to make sure nobody is ignored.
Some people are shy or may have a hard time keeping up the pace, and it is important they are not left
behind and their opinions are voiced and given full consideration.
• Dealing with conflicts. How conflicts (interpersonal, task, process) will be resolved.
• Dealing with free-riders. In most teams, someone is always late, produces low-quality work, or
underperforms otherwise. Sometimes, a team member stops working altogether (gets sick, busy at
work, family problems, or simply drops the course). How will the team deal with the loss of a team
member? Who will redo the work if needed?

Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will ask you to report the name of your client organization, as well as ask each team member
to submit the same copy of the Team Charter.

5. Block 1: Market Analysis

Due: Sunday, October 25

This week, your team is expected to submit a draft of your Section 1. It does not have to be a fully finished
report section. However, try to complete as much as possible. The more you complete now, the less work
your team will have to do later. The drafts will not be graded by X-Culture and will not affect your chances of
winning the completion (we only evaluate the final reports). However, the instructors will have access to
these documents in case they would like to review your work and provide feedback.

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Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will ask you to submit a draft of your Report Section 1 (the survey will contain a document
upload link). Although your team is expected to develop the section draft collectively, only one team member
will be asked to upload the document on behalf of the team. However, every team member will be asked to
complete the rest of the progress survey (questions about how your team is doing and peer evaluations).

6. Block 2: Marketing
Due: Sunday, November 1

This week, your team is expected to submit a draft of your Section 2. It does not have to be a fully finished
report section. However, try to complete as much as possible. The more you complete now, the less work
your team will have to do later. The drafts will not be graded by X-Culture and will not affect your chances of
winning the completion (we only evaluate the final reports). However, the instructors will have access to
these documents in case they would like to review your work and provide feedback.

Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will ask you to submit a draft of your Report Section 2 (the survey will contain a document
upload link). Although your team is expected to develop the section draft collectively, only one team member
will be asked to upload the document on behalf of the team. However, every team member will be asked to
complete the rest of the progress survey (questions about how your team is doing and peer evaluations).

7. Block 3: Operations Management

Due: Sunday, November 8

This week, your team is expected to submit a draft of your Section 3. It does not have to be a fully finished
report section. However, try to complete as much as possible. The more you complete now, the less work
your team will have to do later. The drafts will not be graded by X-Culture and will not affect your chances of
winning the completion (we only evaluate the final reports). However, the instructors will have access to
these documents in case they would like to review your work and provide feedback.

Deliverables: A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email with your personal weekly survey
link. The survey will ask you to submit a draft of your Report Section 3 (the survey will contain a document
upload link). Although your team is expected to develop the section draft collectively, only one team member
will be asked to upload the document on behalf of the team. However, every team member will be asked to
complete the rest of the progress survey (questions about how your team is doing and peer evaluations).

8. Complete Draft
Due: Sunday, November 15

By this date, your team is expected to have a complete draft of your report. It does not have to be a finished
report, but it should be as complete as possible, including Title Page and an Executive and Chapter Summaries,
and correct formatting throughout the document.

Deliverables: One team member should submit the draft via TurnItIn.com on behalf of the entire team (see
step-by-step submission guidelines below). After your document is submitted, TurnItIn will generate a
plagiarism report that will show you if any parts of the report have been plagiarized (takes several hours to
produce). Usually, up to 20% similarity is acceptable, provided that copy-and-pasted materials are properly
referenced. If plagiarism is detected, your team will have until the Final Report deadline (see below) to fix the
problem and submit a plagiarism-free final report.

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This draft will not be graded and the plagiarism statistics will not be shared with your instructors. This is only
for your information. You should continue editing the report until the final deadline, and you can still make any
changes or additions.

However, it is strongly encouraged that you submit as complete a document as possible, You will be able to
submit your draft and check it for plagiarism only once, so the more complete the draft, the less the chance that
the final report will contain plagiarism.

Also, every team member will be asked to submit your usual weekly progress survey. A few days before the
deadline, you will receive an email with the usual questions about your team.

9. Final Report
Due: Friday, November 20
By this date, your final report must be submitted via TurnItIn.com (see Submission Guidelines below).
Please note, the plagiarism statistics for final reports will be generated by TurnItIn and shared with the
instructors, but the plagiarism report will not be shared with the students.

Only one team member must submit the final document via TurnItIn.com on behalf of the team.

10. Post-Project Survey

Due once report submitted, but no later than Sunday, Due: Sunday, November 22

A few days before the deadline, you will receive an email invitation with a link to your post-project survey.
This is the most important survey.

The survey will ask about your experiences in X-Culture and evaluate the performance of your teammates.
Your answers are extremely important and will help us improve the project in the future.
Every team member must complete the survey.

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 Submission Guidelines
The report draft and the final report documents must be submitted via www.TurnItIn.com. Only one team
member must submit the documents on behalf of the entire team. The team member who will be submitting the
draft and final report must follow these steps:

Part 1. Create a TurnItIn account (time required: 60-90 seconds).

1. On www.turnitin.com and click on the link “Create Account”.
2. On the next window, under the “Create a New Account” heading, click on the “Student” link.
3. Enter the Class ID. Note the Draft and Final report submissions have different Class IDs:
Class ID: 25723625 (class enrollment key: xculture)

Note: If you already have a TurnItIn account, log on using your “old” login information, click on the “Enroll in
Class” tab on the top, and repeat step 3.
Part 2: Submitting the paper (time required: 60-120 seconds)
4. Once the account is created, you can log into your account. Your home page will list your classes.
5. Select the correct class and click on the “Submit” button.
Make sure to select “Draft” assignment for the report draft and “Final Report” for the final
report.
6. Choose Single File Upload.
Make certain the file name only contains your team number.
Wrong: “Final report 123.pdf”, “Team Report.pdf”, “Team 123.pdf”, “John Smith.pdf”
Right: “123.pdf”

7. Click on “browse” to locate the paper saved to your computer.

8. Click on the file and click “open”.
9. Click the “upload” button at the bottom.
10. Click “submit” to confirm your submission. Once the submission is finalized, you will see “Your
submission was successful” on the top of the page. If you wait a few hours, you will see your “originality
report” that shows how much and what parts of your report have been plagiarized.

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