Marketing and Competitive Environment Analysis
Abstract
Business is all about marketing. Every business organization strives to achieve a higher market share. It is, therefore, important for them to conduct a marketing and competitive environment analysis. This paper focuses on the operation of Deakin University, Melbourne. It looks at its market and demand, its segmentation and target market, the current marketing mix that the university has employed, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, value and brand positioning. It also analysis La Trobe University which is Deakin's leading competitor. This paper is, therefore, important to help Deakin University to understand its market and competitive environment.
Contents
Abstract 1
Background Information 3
Deakin’s Market and Segmentation 3
Current marketing mix analyses 4
PEST analyses 5
Competitor analyses 5
SWOT analyses 6
Value and brand positioning analyses 7
Conclusion 7
References 8
Background Information
Deakin University was established in 1974. Deakin was among the first universities to be established and offer distance learning in the region of Victoria. It has five branches distributed in the areas of Eastern suburbs, Geelong and Warrnambool regions. Deakin is among the fast growing university offering cloud courses and is ranked fifth in cloud education. Also, the university also has international offices in Indonesia, India, and China among other regions. Deakin has four faculties offering a range of courses to its many students of over fifty-three thousand population. More than twenty-four percent of this population learns in the cloud. The university is ranked as number eight in Australian universities (Philip, 2010).
On the other hand, La Trobe University as a competitor to Deakin was established in 1967 in Victoria. It has many campuses distributed in Mildura, Shepparton, Sydney, Bendigo, Albury-Wodonga among many others (La Trobe University, 2017). The university is mostly seen by many to be strong in arts and humanities. The university has a population of about thirty-six thousand students, of which seven thousand are international students coming from over one hundred and ten different countries (Steve, 2010).
Deakin’s Market and Segmentation
Deakin University enjoys its market in Victoria Region. It has students enrolling for various courses from Geelong regions, Melbourne’s eastern suburb regions and many other parts in the Warrnambool regions (Deakin University, 2016). It receives many students coming from these areas to enroll for the various courses in the university. The University also has a big market from all over the world through its online programs. It has students coming from all over the world who are enrolling for various courses online(Deakin University, 2016). The university has been growing fast for the few years; this, therefore, shows that the demand for the courses has increased because the enrollments are coming from over 110 countries.
Current marketing mix analyses
The University employs various marketing mix in its operation. Firstly, on the product/service, the university currently offers distance learning to students from all over the world. Plus, the university offers a wide and diverse range of full-time programs, school-based programs. This used in the marketing mix has helped the university to get more students.
The University website alongside social media platforms has also played a critical role in promotion because it reaches everyone in the world. The university marketing mix also includes promotion of its programs and courses through media advertisement such as TVs and Radio, mail marketing and newspapers among others (Ivyn& Jonathan, 2008).
Price of a service is determined by considering various factors such as competition, service quality, course enrolled and the mode of learning, the branch enrolled to among other factors. Thorough analysis of these factors have helped the university to come up with various fair prices for the courses offered so that neither the students feel exploited nor the university operates at a loss. A reasonable cost in the marketing mix has played a significant role in improving the enrollments to the University (Kotler& Philip, 2012, p. 25).
Distribution is also a marketing mix that the university has employed in its operation. This entails the school making sure that its services or courses reach the potential clients to the university. The university’s branches in Geelong region, Eastern suburb region and the Warrnambool areaalongside its international offices have helped to reach many potential students and thus enhancing growth.
It has employment of very good lecturers with the good qualifications and experience has helped built the confidence in the market and therefore gets more market share. Moreover, the university has smoothened its processes through technological integration. This also has significantly contributed to the university's market share increase (Sair, 2014).
PEST analyses
PEST stands for Political, Economical, Social and technical issues. Firstly, the Deakin University experiences matters arising from politics. These problems include government policy changes such as changes to public funding. The government can decide to give more incentives to the institution or even decide to withdraw incentive offer. A tax rate change has also affected the university because the government tends to increase or reduce tax levied on various aspects of the school. In some cases, the general public pressure also affects the school. On the other hand, some economic factors also exist which affects the university (Shimizu & Koichi, 2016). These include changes in the economic climate which affect the sustainable investments of the University, legislation changes, availability of funding and the energy cost changes.
Social factors also affect Deakin University in many ways. These include cultural trends, stakeholder's expectations who expect too much for the university to do corporate social responsibilities. Also, the effects of technology have also had an impact on the school. These technological effects have mostly arisen from costs, advances in technology, implementation and adoption of new technology among other factors (Kotler et al., 2009).
Competitor analyses
La Trobe University is one of the Deakin’s University leading competitors. La Trobe has many branches in Australia, but Melbourne branch being its flagship campus. La Trobe University enjoys a lot of student admission ranging from the regional city of Bendigo to the twin border city of Albury-Wodonga.A total number of students studying atDeakinUniversity is45900,butLa Trobe University has 36746 students whereas the overseas students constitute 22.5% of La Trobe’s population which is 6.2% more in comparison to the international students thatDeakin University has. La TrobeUniversity also offers online programs just as Deakin does, butcurrently,La Trobe’s online student population 4.3% whereas 26.3% of Deakin University’s students study online. La Trobe University was ranked third in the state of Victoria and the twelfth in the entire Australia(Australian Education Network, 2017).
Times higher education have ranked Deakin University in 251-300 rank category while they put La Trobe University in 351-400 rank category (Times Higher Education, 2017). QS world university rankings has placed Deakin university and La Trobe University at 355th and 386th ranks ,respectively (Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. (2017). Excellence in Research for Australian report has givenDeakin University and La Trobe University at 18.95% and 15.56% placing them at 17th and 20thrank, respectively(Australian Education Network. (2017)&Australian Research Council. (2015).
SWOT analyses
SWOT stands for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Deakin University has its strengths. This includes its positive reputation from the outside community, its main branch and other campuses location, successful partnership with other universities, good past performance whereby the school has managed to have its courses accredited and also had successful graduations. The university also has good student support in many ways. On the other hand, the university also has its weaknesses. These shortcomings include its operational structure which has bureaucracy, limited resources to other faculties, fiscal uncertainty, not enough undergraduate programs among others (Ommani, 2011).
The university also has some opportunities on its side. These include chances of more partnership with external community and other universities, student diversity, the potential for growth, new construction, and societal trends such as increased demand for graduates among others. On the other hand, the university also experiences the threats from outside (Kotler, 2014). These include competition from other universities such as La Trobe University. Also, there is reduced public funding which has a potential to affect the university.
Value and brand positioning analyses
Both of the universities seem to be reflecting upon their values to be righteous and having a focusedapproach toward students’ future and the goodwill of society. Both universities believe in following excellence, adhering to academic freedom, making improvements continuously, encouraging ethical behavior and staying environmental responsible. The two universities also talk about supporting equity and diversity of genders and cultures (Deakin University, 2016 & La Trobe University, 2017).Deakin says it supports the disabled in every possible way plus it is setting up international offices in other countries considering the countries from where Australia gets most of the overseas students whereas La Trobe says it is going to be working towards serving the regional areas. Plus, La Trobe says that it recognizes employability of the students, students’ experience in the university, excellence of the research and 'brilliant basics' as being the four pillars of their strategy (La Trobe University, 2017).La Trobe university seems to have a good hold on the students in regional areas as it would be of a great convenience for those students.
Conclusion
To conclude it must be said that Deakin University has employed a number of clever marketing strategies in order to reach out to the potential students and to attract and motivate them to join the university and build a career for themselves.Similarly, La Trobe University being Deakin’s competitor is also using a mix of marketing strategies to keep competing. Both universities have proper promotional marketing alongside reasonable and competitive prices per course. The high standard education and facilities provided by them is also earning them a good reputation in the market.Plus, Deakin university’s move of opening overseas offices and targeting international students is a good move as more percent of La Trobe’s students are international students. Deakin’s could education seems successful, but La Trobe has a good grip on regional areas too plus it is making efforts to keep it up, and that seems to be one area where Deakin University can focus a little better.
References
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