Marketing and Competitive Environment for the University Brand

Question: Analyze the "Marketing and Competitive Environment" of a University Brand in Australia. Answer: Introduction and Background: This assignment is intended to describe the marketing and competitive environment for the university brand of Australia. University of Newcastle is considered by the learner to complete this total study. In this post-globalisation era, marketing and promotional strategy is everything to attract any customer towards any organisation. Different effective marketing strategy helps the customer to be aware regarding the product of organisation that helps them to make effective decisions in their near future. In this competitive environment, those organisations achieve success, whose marketing strategy is strong. Market summary: Education in the Australia is compulsory between the ages of 5 and fifteen or seventeen that mainly dependent upon the state or territory. The main budget for government for their education sector is the $489 million (Newcastle.edu.au, 2017). Therefore, it can be easily assumed that the growth of the sector is high. However, the percentage of the people that attained the post-secondary diploma is 34%. Therefore, number of students that enrolled them for the graduation course is very less in numbers. However, there are several students who come from different foreign countries and complete their higher education from Australian universities. Demand assessment: It has been observed that there are huge numbers of accredited and non accredited universities in all over the Australia. In Australia, 136097 numbers of students enrolled for the higher education in last year (Altbach Knight, 2013). It has been observed that, the number of enrolment is increasing in every year. China contributed 27.3% students among all of the international students that complete their graduate or post-graduate degree from Australian universities (Globalhighered.files.wordpress.com, 2017). Therefore, it can be easily determined that, the demand for Australia university is very high. If number of universities increases in Australia, then the demand for a particular industry will be increased according to the law of demand. On the other hand, if number of universities will be increased then, demand will be decreased. Figure 1: Law of demand (Source: Altbach Knight, 2013, p. 294) Segmentation and target market: There are different segmentation criteria, among which University of Newcastle mainly follow the geographic and demographic segmentation. By following the geographic segmentation strategy they attract students from different countries and different places such as rural and urban. On the other hand, by following the demographic segmentation criteria, UoN attracts students middle class family (Australian education exports reach AUS$18 billion in 2014/15. 2017). Along with that, they attract students belonging from all family sizes or any social status of Australia and other country. Their target customers are international and domestic students. They mainly target the students belonging from the lower middle class and higher middle class families. Marketing mix analysis: Marketing mix can be defined as the combination of different factors that are mainly controlled by any company for influencing the customers for purchasing the products. The marketing mix of the University of the Newcastle is as follows: Product: Product is the first element of the marketing mix. A product is the element that can be offered to any market for their consumptions so that their need can be satisfied. The products of the University of Newcastle (Australia) mainly involved bachelor degree courses and master degree courses: Bachelor degree courses: Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of laws Graduate certificate in the applied finance Graduate certificate in the applied linguistics Bachelor degree in the aboriginal professional practices Bachelor certificate in the advanced computing Graduation in the aviation management Master degree courses: Masters of the aviation management Masters in architecture Masters in the linguistics Masters in the applied business and health Price: Price elements of the marketing mix elements is one of the crucial elements that must be decided based on the affordability of the target customer group. This element can be quickly changed. University of Newcastle set two types of fees, among them one for domestic student and another for the international student. From domestic and full time undergraduate student, University of Newcastle charge $294 and they charge $220 from the part-time student (Australias international education sector worth more than previously estimated | Ministers' Media Centre, Australian Government. 2017). However, they charge high price from the international students. However, they have different scholarship scheme for both the domestic and international student. Promotion: Promotion is one of the most important elements of the marketing mix that helps nay organisation to attract their target customers through proper communication strategy. This element is intended to create awareness among the target customer group. UoN follows different promotional media such as website advertising, advertisings through social media as well as advertising through newspaper and television. They attract students by providing them several scholarships and concessions. Distribution: According to Altbach Knight (2013), distribution element mainly focuses on making any services or product of any company available to their customers. University if Newcastle offer their courses through the face-to-face or online or combination of the two. The university makes their product available through their Ourimbah, Calllaghan, Singapore as well as Sydney. The university has their three campuses on different places of the Newcastle. PEST analysis: PEST analysis is one of the environmental scan that helps to measure the market growth as well as decline based on the external environmental factors. PEST analysis of the University of Newcastle is as follows: Political factors: Present strategy of the Australian government increases the number of students by hiring them from diversified backgrounds. The strategy of the government enrols students in the universities who are belonging from the under-represented group such as the aboriginal people (Wright O'Neill, 2012). This strategy increases the number of highly educated people in the Australia as well as develops the education sector of Australia. Moreover, education sector of the Australia benefitted from different associated activities and funding by the Australian learning and teaching council. This helps the Australian education sector to secure more growth. Economical factors: In this current economic situation, value for the money, employability factors and sector wide funding are the significant issues. It has been observed that funding across the higher level of education is competitive as well as tight. This creates huge issues in funding for the universities. However, government allocates 5.10% of the total GDP on the education sector but it is not sufficient to generate a greatest infrastructure for education (Australia releases 10-year blueprint for expansion of its international education sector. 2017). Socio-cultural factors: The need and expectation of the students are increasing but the present education sector of Australia are currently following the traditional teaching style, rigid structures as well as antiquated technologies that are not sufficient to maintain the studentcentred approaches, which creates negative impact to create effective infrastructure for education (Williams Jacobs, 2014). However, the effective and efficient ways of the Australian universities to share or spread knowledge among students helps the student to conduct their study effectively. Technological factors: Technology has huge impact on the higher educational environment. It has been observed that present generation students are technically proficient so that different Australian universities have implemented technology in the learning and teaching. Moreover, universities applied effective technology such as blogs of the universities or their websites to share knowledge with the students (Kemp, Madden Simpson, 2012). Competitor analysis: It has been observed that, there are total 43 accredited universities in the Australia; therefore, it can be easily assumed that there is huge competition among those universities. The main reason behind that is the numbers of students who want the graduate and post-graduate degree from those universities are very fewer in number (Kift, Nelson Clarke, 2010). Therefore, the number of students is not very large in numbers; therefore, they have so many options available to them. However, there is less possibility regarding the threat of new entrants because the sector is segmented. Moreover, the initial costs to set up any university are huge and the initial legal process is also difficult. SWOT analysis: SWOT analysis helps to evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of any organisation so that they can get the opportunity by avoiding the threats. The SWOT analysis of University of Newcastle is as follows: Strength: UoN has implemented the problem based learning system for their undergraduate students that helps them to gain more brief knowledge UoN currently has 1066 number of highly skilled and experienced academic staff that helps the organisation to generate huge reputation by providing good academic services to the students UoN is one of the public academic organisations that help them to get more fund for the development of the company. UoN currently has branches in 5 different places that help them to generate more profit by providing education services to customers (Course Details. 2017). Weaknesses: UoN followed two different fee structure for domestic and international student They provide admission to very little number of postgraduate students. Presently, the number of postgraduate students in their company is 8150. Opportunities: Currently, UoN has the branch in only one foreign country that is Singapore. Therefore, they can expand their organisation by implementing their branches in different country (Opinion Editorial: Australia's higher education sector is one of the best in the world. Fact.. 2017). They can increase sits for the post graduate students and other type of students. Threats: UoN is facing competitions from different public and private university that decreases the number of students in their organisation. Value as well as brand positioning analysis: Effective brand positioning strategy is important for any organisation to increase the competitive advantage for the organisation (Cruickshank, 2013). Australian education sector mainly followed the quality positioning strategy and describe their quality of standard so that they can attract more number of students from not only the country but also from the other country. Conclusions: From the above discussion, it can be clearly demonstrated that the education sector of the Australia is very much developed. Along with that, it is also saturated. Therefore, in order to increase the communication with the target customers it is very much important to apply the effective promotional strategy or promotional media. Moreover, a good relationship with the government is necessary to arrange the fund or achieve accreditation for the colleges. References Altbach, P. G., Knight, J. (2013). The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and realities.Journal of studies in international education,11(3-4), 290-305. Cruickshank, M. (2013). Total quality management in the higher education sector: a literature review from an international and Australian perspective.Total Quality Management Business Excellence,14(10), 1159-1167. Globalhighered.files.wordpress.com, (2017). Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://globalhighered.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/theaustralianeducationsectorandtheeconomiccontributionofinternationalstudents-2461.pdf Opinion Editorial: Australia's higher education sector is one of the best in the world. Fact.. (2017).Group of Eight. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://go8.edu.au/article/opinion-editorial-australias-higher-education-sector-one-best-world-fact Australia releases 10-year blueprint for expansion of its international education sector. (2017).ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://monitor.icef.com/2016/05/australia-releases-10-year-blueprint-for-expansion-of-its-international-education-sector/ Australian education exports reach AUS$18 billion in 2014/15. (2017).ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://monitor.icef.com/2015/08/australian-education-exports-reach-aus18-billion-in-201415/ Kemp, S., Madden, G., Simpson, M. (2012). Emerging Australian education markets: A discrete choice model of Taiwanese and Indonesian student intended study destination.Education Economics,6(2), 159-169. Kift, S. M., Nelson, K. J., Clarke, J. A. (2010). Transition pedagogy: a third generation approach to FYE: a case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector.The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education,1(1), 1-20. Australias international education sector worth more than previously estimated | Ministers' Media Centre, Australian Government. (2017).Ministers.education.gov.au. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://ministers.education.gov.au/colbeck/australias-international-education-sector-worth-more-previously-estimated Newcastle.edu.au, (2017). Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://www.newcastle.edu.au/current-staff/our-organisation/Strategy-and-culture Course Details. (2017).Newcastle.edu.au. Retrieved 7 April 2017, from https://www.newcastle.edu.au/course/MKTG2102 Williams, J. B., Jacobs, J. S. (2014). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector.Australasian journal of educational technology,20(2), 232-247. Wright, C., O'Neill, M. (2012). Service quality evaluation in the higher education sector: An empirical investigation of students' perceptions.Higher Education Research Development,21(1), 23-39.