Marketing Plan For RMIT - Essay

Write a report on a marketing plan.

RMIT, also known as the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology is an education center in Australia. The institution was established in 1887 and became one of the unique learning centers in the country. The current number of students that would be possibly enrolled is 83,000 in number. One of the achievements of the institution is the global notoriety as a result of incredibleness in creative research and professional education. RMIT boasts of 3 campuses in Melbourne. They are Brunswick, City, and Bundoora. Also, it has two other campuses in Vietnam, and one in Spain, Barcelona. Considering the courses offered, RMIT has a variety of courses including the vocational and higher education ones. By research activities involving global academic institutions in 2015, RMIT was shortlisted as one of the best 200 institutions globally. It's art, and design course was ranked 20th globally (GULATI, 2017).

The University of RMIT happens to be a global institution that operates within an income ranging at AUD $67.7 million.The revenue for the institution for the FY15 stands at $1163.1 million in 2015 compared to FY14’s $1078.3 million.The institution then offers courses like TAFE, internships, and apprenticeships among others. RMIT has also invested in other countries like Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia because of the high demand for education in such countries (GULATI, 2017). Due to the extensive services offered by RMIT, this plan will formulate the promotional objectives of RMIT for FY18 as part of its marketing strategy. The objectives are:

1. To increase the number of courses offered nationally and internationally
2. To ensure that the University brand awareness is achieved

• To increase market share growth

1. To introduce new courses to the world
2. To open new campuses in new target markets
3. To enhance client relationship

The plan will touch on the analytic aspects of the report including:

1. The University demands
2. The market position of the University

• The future markets targets

1. Total revenue generated
2. Analysis of brand positioning

However, from the key findings of the previous reports of Monash University; the aspects of market strategies that was developed relied on:

1. The University’s financial statements
2. The un-audited financial statements
3. All pieces of information on marketing made available
4. Provision of agreements, document types and the details as provided by the Management
5. All explanations required from the Management.
6. Details of the institution’s information system as provided by the management.
7. Market Aims

Due to the quality of services offered by the institution, RMIT has been on demand and grown to be a threat in the market. The student enrollment figure has doubled from 31,686 in FY12, to about 83,000 in FY15 (GULATI, 2017). The increase of such a magnitude is due to the funded enrollment fee that is provided by the government of Australia. Such funded enrollment fee for the government has been the sole reason why parents stock their children into the institution.

Source: GULATI, V. (2017)

Also, the percentage of students yearly graduating has soared. The number of students furthering their studies in vocational training has steady recorded an increase from FY11 to FY15.

Source: GULATI, V. (2017)

The market Aims of the Institute are, therefore:

This strategic plan aims at ensuring that RMIT provides the best quality of services in academic within Australia and beyond. To ensure that such is achieved, the institute's competitive level has to analyze, the profile of the customers targeted developed, geographical settings of the market analyzed, the institute's image created, and then the prices of the services are determined. After ensuring that all the aspects highlighted are guaranteed, gross profits and best sales combination will be determined for FY 18. The University of Monash, on the contrary, has been in operation in many regions of the world offering both postgraduate and undergraduate studies in the form of doctorates, degrees, certificates, and diplomas in as many faculties as possible (Laihonen, Lönnqvist, & Metsälä, 2015).

Promotional Objectives and Proposed Marketing Aims

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics; Austrade

The coming financial year would require the marketers of the Institute to tout the benefits of the courses offered by RMIT instead of simply promoting the features offered. The institute has an obligation to ensure that they convince consumers that they are in the long run solving academic concerns not only within Australia but globally. Doing so would ensure that RMIT creates an image that is concrete in the market. The image must portray reliability, affordability, upscale, healthy, and attractive to customers who are yearning to receive your benefits. Also, the institute needs to create a customer loyalty and affinity (Ashe-Edmunds, 2017).

• SalesRepeat

At times, after the launch of a given product, marketers tend to have their objectives changed from announcing products that the company produces or educating the consumers on the same to repeat businesses generation as seen in the case of Monash University. The process of repeat business generation can be done via the efforts of social media, creating a website that is rich in content, in-store sales, and loyalty programs. Therefore, part of the planning process for FY18 for RMIT is to add a representative for customer services. The individual will, therefore, be responsible for filing the questions and complaints from the consumers (Ashe-Edmunds, 2017).

The BCG matrix in our case will assess RMIT school’s strengths with regards to services and products against the history and the future of the University of Monash. What will be given weight, in this case; is the two companies’ market shares against their growth. The chart provided shows the opposing sides of the BCG matrix.

BCG Matrix	RMIT	Monash
Relative Market Share	100	56
Market Growth	30	46
Competitor Size	800	700
Share	32%	18%
Rest of Market	68%	82%

Source:GULATI, V. (2017).

Source:GULATI, V. (2017).

The market mix is all about having a combination of the right products or at the correct place, and time, and price (Marketing Mix, 2017).

The ASEAN countries require quality education. To meet their demands, the Institute needs to meet the requirements to perceive market penetration in these countries. The marketers have an obligation to create a product mix and expand it by providing more courses as per the requirements of the ASEAN consumers. To ensure that the right requirements are captured, the products launched must be able to answer questions like:

1. What type of courses do the ASEAN countries want us to incorporate?
2. How will the countries receive the services offered?

• Where will the courses offer be found?

1. What special features must the launched courses have?
2. Price

Pricing happens to be the most crucial part of the marketing mix.The prices of the courses offered are a determinant of RMIT’s survival and profit. By just having the prices of the courses slightly adjusted would result in a huge impact on the market itself and influence the demand and sales of the products.Monash, on the contrary, is aware that having the right prices will ensure that the perception of the products by the consumers is shaped for the better. When the price is too low, however, the product would appear to be inferior.Also, high prices result to costs of the products outweighing the benefits of the product regarding the perception of the customers; as a result, the consumers tend to value their money in comparison to the offered product. The pricing must, therefore, examined accordingly; something which the marketers of Monash University do very well (Marketing Mix, 2017).

Development of Products

Distribution of the services is an important aspect of defining product mix. The institute is situated in some of the countries that are recognized for their values of education. The positioning is as a result of the deep target market understanding. By ensuring that the marketers understand the locations of the positioning of the market of the business would be easy (Marketing Mix, 2017).

Since product promotion is very crucial when it comes to marketing, marketers use the same to boost sales and brand recognition. The elements of promotion are:

1. Organization of Sales
2. Having good public relations
3. Creating adverts

The process of product promotion covers methods of communication that require payment like any other technique of advertisement. Unlike promotion, public relations are not paid for. Such relations may include exhibitions, press releases, sponsorship deals, conferences, seminars, and events. The marketers can use several techniques to promote the institute’s products. One such way is through conducting simple word of mouth communications.The staff responsible for sales becomes an integral group when it comes to achieving public relations through word of mouth (Marketing Mix, 2017).

A company would build a stronger competitive advantage through the provision of a greater overall value to consumers as compared to what its competitors are capable of.The planning process for a financial year requires the management of an organization to develop plans for marketing as a way of ensuring that revenues are maximized (Hill, 2017). A business’ long-time success is gained from building a competitive advantage that is sustainable. Such must be able to endure the market pressures despite the competitors that join the market.Some of the aspects of competitive strategies that need to be incorporated by the Institute in the FY18 are:

Monash University has already achieved information assurance for its customers. The current world takes information assurance issues very seriously. Defending and protecting information using appropriate software is part of a vital practical strategy that RMIT should develop (indicators, 2017). Such a case is the best practice because it covers areas of intelligence and techniques of technology that are currently available. RMIT, like Monash, should develop information system as a way of mitigating attacks against information threats (Melendez, 2015).

The objectives of a company’s marketing plan are to ensure that the groups of customers are identified. The identified individuals are therefore likely to be the organization’s customers. The plan is therefore important in helping organizations to narrow down their customers. The company is therefore in a position of using its marketing resources to get to the targeted customers (Hill, 2017).

• Launching attacks on new markets

A proper marketing plan needs the ability of a particular company to select its opportunities that may be considered as most profitable with regards to other opportunities that might exist (Hill, 2017).

A plan is not complete without a message presenting a company’s competitive advantages in a compelling manner. Clients will not have the time to compare institutions with regards to factors like price since they won't find that necessary as the organizations would be perceived not to be of the same class (Hill, 2017).

RMIT recognizes the fact that they need to be globally positioned in the coming future. Since this is a time regarded as the Asian century, the University plans to have its campuses increased to cover countries like India and China. The reason for choosing the two countries in this coming FY18 is because the two have the largest student number and are therefore the largest market.  The plan would therefore include:

	1st Year	2nd  Year	3rd 16
Revenue
Sale	57,999,179	63,902,156	61,411,260
Other Income	48,534	29,029	67,006
Closing Stock	-535,755	-982,288	1,221,269
Total Income	57,511,958	62,948,898	62,699,535
Expenses
Direct Expenses	5,277,346	6,347,909	6,112,275
Employee Benefit Expense	14,261,028	12,880,628	11,335,060
Administrative Overheads	3,149,865	3,966,525	3,970,806
Sales or Distribution Overheads	8,045,023	9,263,617	9,018,900
Total Expenses	56,594,183	59,581,017	56,687,294
Depreciation	4,671,875	4,779,593	4,695,271
Interest	1,261,906	1,568,946	1,489,357

Management of the Brand

Source: Hill, B. (2017)

The provided information by the management represents the fact that there is the need to have the allocation of fund towards media budgeting even though there are issues of funds shortages. There are however strategies that would enable the deployment of various products onto the market. Other means to ensure that the funds are increased include targeting sales promotion schemes. The prospect is valued at:

Size and Growth of the company	Characteristics
Total Industry valued at over $5500 - The organized sector is worth $2500 currently and should stand an increase of 45% in 2018 - Since the growth is over 15% p.a. Since 2009 – 2015; the forecast is presented to be at 19% p.a. from 2016 until 2018.	- Company account for 65% of the total market Consumption rate. - 60% of product sales occur in the summers. - The firm has capitalized on the market of China and Japan that has been more health Conscious of time.

Source: Hill, B. (2017)

Conclusion

The University of RMIT is a global institution that operates within an income ranging at AUD $67.7 million.The revenue for the institution for the FY15 stands at $1163.1 million in 2015 compared to FY14’s $1078.3 million.The institution then offers courses like TAFE, internships, and apprenticeships among others. RMIT has also invested in other countries like Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia because of the high demand for education in such countries (GULATI, 2017). Due to the extensive services offered by RMIT, this plan will formulate the promotional objectives of RMIT for FY18 as part of its marketing strategy. Due to the quality of services offered by the institution, RMIT has been on demand and grown to be a threat in the market. The student enrollment figure has doubled from 31,686 in FY12, to about 83,000 in FY15 (GULATI, 2017). The increase of such a magnitude is due to the funded enrollment fee that is provided by the government of Australia. Such funded enrollment fee for the government has been the sole reason why parents stock their children into the institution.

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