MRKT(20052): Marketing for Managers
Assessment item #2 (report)
Report on marketing environment of CQUniversity
Submitted by:
Chanda Dahal
(Student id: 12052314)
Term: 1
Submitted to:
David Pearson
Executive Summary
The main aim of this report was to find the marketing environment of the Central Queensland University. It discusses about different strategies for marketing that is applied by the university. Moreover, it explains about the branding, positioning, targeting and segmentation of the university. Besides, it talks about the PEST and SWOT analysis of the CQU. Also, it provides the information on the facilities that has been providing by the CQU for the development of the students as well as the university. Further, the developmental growth of the university within very less span of time and its plan for further achievement in future has been mentioned in the report.
Table of contents
⦁ Introduction
The purpose of this report is to analyze the different marketing aspects of Central Queensland University. The report discusses the marketing environment, targeting, segmentation, positioning, marketing channels, value positioning, current marketing mix analysis, competitor analysis and supply chain analysis of CQU. Further, it explains PEST and SWOT analysis of the CQU. It is necessary to know about the environment of the company for planning the marketing strategies. The environmental changes happening to the organization not only help in SWOT or other different analysis but also provide the information of the change, it’s impacts and how to be aware of the negative impacts in order to prevent it’s harmful aspects from occurring (Jackson and Wood, 2013).
⦁ About CQU
CQU was first founded in Rockhampton in 1967 as the Queensland Institute of Technology but later in 1992 it was changed to Central Queensland University. To date it has 25 campuses located in different regions of Australia such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Mackay and more. It provides wide range of study area on campuses and even a distance education.
⦁ Market summary and demand assessment of CQU
Marketing can be defined as one of the function of an organization that facilitates the customers with services or products they want (Palmer, 2012). Marketing and branding universities has been very important these days as these are contributing in increased number of students all over the globe. The increased competitive environment, universities fees, globalization and sustainable growth in the market are the main aspects that have encouraged the branding of universities (Chapleo, 2015). Branding and marketing of CQU has been good practices to increase the number of students. Also, CQU has been offering different educational services like appropriate learning environments, libraries, labs, academic learning center facilities, online education service, online facilities and many more which is supporting it in increasing it’s demand (Domański, 2014). CQU has been the top most choices of international students.
⦁ Segmentation, Positioning and Target of CQU
The market segmentation refers to the distribution of the population into different categories and sub-categories to know the suitable marketing ideas in order to set the marketing target of the organization (Bassi, 2015). Positioning is necessary for marketing strategy. So, it can be defined as the strategy of marketing suitable to differentiate between the products or services or the company that are highly competitive (Śmigielska, and Stefańska, 2017). CQU has segmented the consumers as domestic, international and the distance education learner. The student’s satisfaction after graduating from CQU is high. More than 200 students are provided with scholarship every year. It is the top ranked university in Australia and in top 2% around the world. In addition, graduate employment of CQU is high (CQU, 2017). Also, CQU was acknowledged as the sole change-maker campus by the Ashoka U’s global network in 2016 (Annual report of CQU, 2016). CQU has targeted to get more achievements and growth on coming days by providing education as well as facilities to the students so that they become satisfied with the CQU and become successful in future after completion of the study.
⦁ PEST Analysis of CQU
PEST analysis is the tool for analyzing the external environment of the organization where ‘P’ stands for political, ‘E’ for economical, ‘S’ for social and ‘T’ for technological. It makes the organization aware about the environment outside the organization so that it could be able to understand and finalize the strategy that should be implemented to achieve the target (Ho, 2014).
⦁ Political factor
The changing government rules and regulation in education system can be one of the political aspects that can affect CQU. For example, every year the government changes the policies for international students in accordance with different countries. So, it can provide in inclination or declination of international students. Also, the students from developing countries like India, Nepal, China and Indonesia may decrease in number because their governments have been investing more in education for the development of the country and to decrease the number of skilled manpower going out from the country (Harden, Davis and Mengersen, 2014).
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⦁ Economical factor
The international students have been the sources of income in CQU. As it has been providing good learning environment with many facilities, many overseas students are increasing every year in CQU. The 23.3% of the total students are the overseas students (Compare CQU QLD, 2017).
⦁ Social factor
The diversification of students regarding nationality, culture, values and norms is the key social factor of CQU. The students from different age group, gender, background and society come here to study. It is providing the environment to know about different aspects of different culture and language. This will not only help students to know about other culture than own but also provide them ability to students adapt in new environment.
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⦁ Technological factor
CQU has been providing the technological oriented facilities like computer labs, online interaction with professors, online library access, free internet-services and the online queries related to the university. This is helping the students to grow technologically as well as developing the positive attitudes of the students towards the university.
⦁ SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis helps in knowing the internal environment as strengths or weaknesses and the external environment as opportunities and threats to an organization (Van Wijngaarden, Scholten and Van Wijk, 2012). Further, through this analysis the strategic situation of the organization can also be identified so that the organization can set it’s objectives (Luo and Qin, 2012).
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⦁ Strength
Firstly, one of the main strength of CQU is wide range study area. It has more than 300 courses such as business and law, engineering, health, education and humanities, information technology, arts and many more. So, students from different background will study under the same roof. Secondly, CQU has campuses in different regions of Australia so, it will help them to credit transfer in any of the campuses in Australia. Besides, it has got skilled human resources in every department such as administration, IT and academic. Lastly, CQU has been providing distance education which can be taken as strong factor as many postgraduate students in Australia works so, they prefer distance educations rather than on campuses.
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⦁ Weaknesses
The weaknesses of the CQU can be the growing advancement in technologies. It needs to move in parallel with new technology. The students get impressed with technology that has been used by the education provider. Moreover, it has been providing distance education so, if there will be any problem regarding the technology there may arise new problems.
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⦁ Opportunities
As CQU has grown its activities, facilities and reputation in the field of education, there are many more opportunities that can lead CQU as the best university in the globe. It has been not only connecting with the students but also the stakeholders, communities and this will help it to build strong relationship with them which will again contribute towards the targeted goals. It has planned to engage in not only regional but also national and international research activities (Vision and Values, 2017). This will help it to increase the number of students, as it will offer more programs and activities to the students.
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⦁ Threats
As the department of immigration of Australia has excluded the some courses from the permanent residence list, it could be the threat to CQU. Many international students are affiliated with CQU and it has been the priority of international students. But if the subject that the future international students want to study do not be in the permanent residence list they might not apply Australia. However, this is not only going to affect the CQU only but also the entire universities in Australia.
⦁ Competitor Analysis
The rise in number of universities in Australia has created the tough competition between the universities regarding the ranking and reputation globally. CQU has been one of the tough competitors to many universities like Australian Catholic University (ACU) and University of Technology Sydney (UTS). The percentage of distance education students in CQU is 47.6% while that in ACU is 7.4% and in UTS is 1.7% only out of total students attending distance education. The fee structure of CQU is low as compared to that of UTS. However, UTS has high ranking than CQU. The starting salary of the graduates from CQU is high than that of UTS and ACU (Compare ACU, UTS and CQU Universities in Australia, 2017).
⦁ Conclusion
In conclusion, this report discusses the different marketing aspects of the Central Queensland University. It explains the various internal and external factors affecting the CQU with the help of PEST and SWOT analysis. It provides the brief summary of the marketing and branding of the university. Moreover, it talks about the market segmentation, brand, positioning and the target of the CQU. In addition, it has done the competitor analysis of CQU with other universities. Hence, regarding marketing CQU has strong strategy and also working on for more growth and development of the students, staffs and the organization as a whole.
⦁ Refrences
CQUniversity. (2017). About us. Retrieved from: https://www.cqu.edu.au/about-us/about-cquniversity
CQUniversity. (2017). Annual report. Retrieved from: https://www.cqu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/185565/CQUniversity_2016_Annual_Report.pdf
Bassi, F. (2015). Forecasting financial products acquisition via dynamic segmentation. International Journal Of Market Research, 57(6), 909-930. doi:10.2501/IJMR-2015-071
Chapleo, C. (2015). An exploration of branding approaches in UK universities. International Journal Of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 20(1), 1-11. doi:10.1002/nvsm.1513
Australian Universities. (2017). Compare CQU Australian universities. (2017) Retrieved from: http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/compare-universities.php?uni[]=cqu&submit=SUBMIT
Domański, T. (2014). Marketing of Higher Education: Future Challenges. Management & Business Administration. Central Europe, 22(4), 118-132. doi:10.7206/mba.ce.2084-3356.124
Harden, F., Davis, G., & Mengersen, K. (2014). The tertiary debate. Australian Universities' Review, 56(1).
Ho, J. K. K. (2014). Formulation of a systemic PEST analysis for strategic analysis. European academic research, 2(5), 6478-6492.
Jackson, R., & Wood, C. (2013). THE MARKETING ENVIRONMENT: A NEW PARADIGM. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 17(1), 35-50.
Luo, Z., & Qin, Z. (2012). SWOT Analysis of Functions of Chinese Universities. IERI Procedia, 2, 253-257.
Palmer, A. (2012). Introduction to marketing: theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Śmigielska, G., & Stefańska, M. (2017). Innovative Positioning as a Marketing Tool of Retailers on the Food Market. Entrepreneurial Business & Economics Review, 5(1), 77-90. doi:10.15678/EBER.2017.050105
Van Wijngaarden, J. D., Scholten, G. R., & Van Wijk, K. P. (2012). Strategic analysis for health care organizations: the suitability of the SWOT‐analysis. The International journal of health planning and management, 27(1), 34-49.
CQUniversity. (2017). Vision and values. Retrieved from: https://www.cqu.edu.au/about-us/about-cquniversity/vision-and-values