Introduction:
The higher education system of Australia consists of both private and public universities. It also includes the branches of the Australian universities situated overseas. At present, one hundred and seventy two registered institutions provide higher education in Australia. In the last thirty years, the country has seen a growth in the number of students undertaking higher education (Madsen and Walker 2015). The government plays a vital role in keeping up the infrastructure of the government universities and colleges. In addition, the scholarship schemes and other academic benefits work in accordance with the higher education system of the country.
Week 3: What is Strategy:
In the first video, it is being shown what is actually meant by the word ‘strategy’. The term is generally misunderstood, as it is often equaled with terms like tactics and objectives. However, strategy is a different thing. It helps one to understand how to achieve the selected goals in the best possible way (Kryscynski 2015). The Australian higher education system also follows certain strategic moves in order to achieve excellence and provide better education to the students who seek it. The universities can adapt the strategy of promoting their profiles and raising it in accordance with the needs of the students. By the successful implementation of this strategy, it will not only help to enhance the national productivity in general but also help to gain the particular university a good name. In the recent years the private universities are growing rapidly in Australia and many other countries. That leads the universities to face challenges in their business (Thomas and Day 2014). Hence, adoption of the strategy as well as competitive strategy will be helpful for these educational sectors to increase and retain their market share. However, various Australian Universities adopt different competitive strategies to compete in the global market. As for example, Charles Darwin University in Australia has adopted a new strategy that highlights on the average marks in order to get entry in this university. However, this university allows the students who have minimum 50% market in their graduation level, which creates a big quality issue in the educational sector. On the other hand, La Trobe University of Australia has adopted online classes, which is a good strategy for this organization to enhance the quality of education and number of students.
Introduction of policies that support students to get higher education without taking in account their financial condition can also serve as a good strategic example that can help a university draw good students and make a good reputation (Fagerberg et al. 2013). Another strategy that can be followed by the Australian universities is being open to various researches and collaborations. The Australian universities must be open to changes and collaboration with other universities. This will help the universities to enhance their infrastructure for research, as collaboration will mean broader exposure. The universities that want to focus on research must follow the strategies, which will be definitely different from the universities that want to focus on subjective learning (Freedman 2015). Same strategies will not bring out expected result for different universities. The strategies must change in accordance with the subjects and the objectives of the universities.
It cannot be denied that even in the field of higher education monitory profit is an important aspect. The universities, if fall short in terms of money will not be able to provide the students with proper equipments that help in complete learning. Thus, the universities will have to keep in mind this factor also and promote themselves accordingly. Here also comes in the need of using proper strategy (Gribble 2015).
Week 4: Business Model:
The second video talks about the importance of innovation in almost all the kinds of business. It talks about how innovation is one of the most important factors in terms of business growth. It talks about how innovation is one of the most important factors in terms of business growth. This is true even to the higher education industry of any country and not only of Australia. Innovation happens to be playing a key role when it comes about enhancing the current state that any given industry (Gallen 2013). Innovation can be done by adopting new strategy or new activities in a business. In the recent years colleges and universities have been started to identify new ways through which they can enhance the quality of learning, increase the graduation rate and reduce the operating cost. As for example, La Trobe University focuses on the development of the online learning paradigm. This is a new innovation in this organization, which allows them to collect a huge data regarding the student actions on regular basis. This innovation in their system enables them to understand how the students get electronic resources for their study and they master the key concept regarding their subjects (Latrobe.edu.au 2017).
RMIT University of Melbourne has incorporated MOCCS or Massively Open Online Courses, which is a disruptive innovation in the educational sectors. This innovation allows the Universities to deliver courses at anytime at any place. This makes the education easily accessible for the students. Individuals from different geographic regions or long distance can get the opportunity to take more degree from the University. On the other hand, such innovation enables the organization to cope up with the changing technologies (Baskaran and Mehta 2016). MOOCS is an effective tool to share large course or study material through the virtual classes. Data driven approach is helpful to revolutionize the online learning process. This helps the University to collect the data at each step of the learning process of the individuals. On the other hand, this model allows the University to understand the need of the students in their learning process. This model is considered as the competency model along with the power of data. This provides necessary intelligence to the instructor to address the learning style of the students (Baskaran and Mehta 2016). Application of such model improves the learning process by providing personalize courses. This also establishes a good relationship between the student and the instructor.
Conclusion:
The report can thus be concluded by saying that both the concepts that have been discussed in the video play a key role in business growth and management. The sector higher education also needs business strategies to flourish and serve the students in a better way. Strategy and innovation, if put together in a proper way can always enhance the current position of any sector. The sector of higher education of Australia, i.e. the universities and colleges should use their technological and other innovations in a strategic manner to help them attract more students, not only from their country but from other countries and continents as well.
References:
Baskaran, S. and Mehta, K., 2016. What is innovation anyway? Youth perspectives from resource-constrained environments. Technovation, 52, pp.4-17.
Fagerberg, J., Martin, B.R. and Andersen, E.S. eds., 2013. Innovation studies: evolution and future challenges. OUP Oxford.
Freedman, L., 2015. Strategy: A history. Oxford University Press.
Gallen, H., 2013 Business Model Innovation. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4ZSGQW0UMI [Accessed 22 Dec. 2017].
Gribble, C., Blackmore, J. and Rahimi, M., 2015. Challenges to providing work integrated learning to international business students at Australian universities. Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 5(4), pp.401-416.
Kryscynski, D., 2015 What is Strategy? [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD7WSLeQtVw [Accessed 22 Dec. 2017].
Latrobe.edu.au. 2017. La Trobe University. [online] Available at: https://www.latrobe.edu.au/ [Accessed 26 Dec. 2017].
Madsen, T.L. and Walker, G., 2015. Modern competitive strategy. McGraw Hill.
Thomas, I. and Day, T., 2014. Sustainability capabilities, graduate capabilities, and Australian universities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 15(2), pp.208-227.
