Expenditure Of The Government In Education Sector, PEST And SWOT Analysis Of University Of Queensland, And Marketing Aim And Strategies

Analysis of Government Expenditure in Education Sector

Question:

Discuss about the Marketing and Competitive Environment System.

The University of the Queensland is established in the year 1909 in Australia and is known as leading teaching and the research institution in the Australia. The University of the Queensland has earned a well-developed reputation which is being considered as the rapid growth education sector of the state. The state is depicted to be showing the rapid growth by the help of these sectors in the society which is a part very much helpful for the development of the education sectors. The consists of the quality regional campuses which have been developed for the purpose of delivering quality programs and also the growth of the country can be easily emulated by serving the best to the students. Thus the University of the Queensland can gain the excellent choice for the student since they can be able to assure and assist them with the best services as it is seen in the form of showing the well-established network (Appannaiah, & Reddy, 2010). This is simply indicating the appropriate development of the high-quality standards that had been well established by showing them the quality standards and also the advancement in the learning system can be easily identified in the form of the local, national and the international communities. Therefore the wide range of the tertiary level higher institutions is depicted to be engaged in the form of showing them the best quality programs to satisfy the needs of the students. The university of the Queensland is identified to be the one among the two listed non-profit enterprises. Its global ranking is identified to be 60^th and is the top most university which is involved in offering education to the learners. Thus the education of the people is becoming a most important part, and also the University of the Queensland has gained around 90 Australian Awards for the purpose of providing teaching to the learners. This proves that the University of the Queensland is the top most university in Australia.

The statistics of the expenditure made by the government in the education sector is provided in the form of the data which is being presented in the below graph. The analysis is being presented in the form of the accrual based accounting, and also the system of the GFS is also included which is known as the Government Finance Statistics. The expenditures that are included in this are identified to be the expenditures which are made for the teaching activities as per the needs demanded by the universities and the schools. The non-educational activities are not included in these expenditures and also the operations are surrounding the expenses made on the education sectors. Therefore the growth in the demand for the education is showing the increment of the expenses, and also the intra-sector transfers are also becoming higher (Du Plessis, Strydom, & Jooste, 2012). Therefore the expenditures made by the government are showing the appropriate growth of the education sectors, and also the operations of the education on the tertiary education are depicted to be 36% whereas on primary, and the secondary education sectors are getting the 51.5 %. The remaining non-employee expenses are depicted to showing the non-educational expenses is getting the 48.5%.  Therefore it can be easily judged that the investment of the government at an unprecedented rate is growing and also it is including the tertiary education market as it is being explained in the above points. The cheaper education in the Australia is a part increasing the demand which is creating the higher education in the country, and also the increment in the profit motive is showing the contribution to the demand growth in the education system as it is considered.

PEST Analysis of University of Queensland

The environmental analysis is most important for making the strategies without proper analysis of current business environment of any business the strategies for that specific business cannot be made in a proper way. For the environment analysis, the PEST analysis is important and play a vital role in analysis the macro environment of the business such as it help in analysing the political factors of the business, along with the economic factors, social factors and technological factor of the business (Etzel, Walker, & Stanton, 2007). With the effective analysis of these factors, the business prospects of the undertaken can be recognized along with its threat from the external factors. To analyze the macro environment of the University of Queensland, hence the PEST analysis of the tertiary education business in Australia has been performed below:

Political: The Australian Government is very supportive of the education business and put great emphasis on framing effective policies and processes for the universities to provide useful support to the operation of the universities.

Economic: The country Australia is one of the most stable economies in the world, and the economy is growing steadily. The higher education sector of this country, specifically, the education sectors dealing with international education provide huge contribution ($1 Billion) to the national economy.

Social: Like other developed countries in Australia also perceived increasing demand for the higher education. Moreover, the federal government along with other governmental authorities also actively work in this matter and make supportive policies to manage the increasing demand for higher education.

Technology: The use of advance technologies like multimedia, online courses, social media is widely used in the education system in this country. The teachers use these technologies to teach the students (Floyd, 2006). 

The PEST analysis makes it clear that the changes in education policy by the Australian government shall impact on the operation of the education institutes like the University of Queensland. The higher education business in Australia is hugely supported by the economic and social factors of this country. Besides, the technology improvement is also provided required efficiency to the education system. Hence, it can be stated that the entire factors analyzed in PEST analysis are favorable for the University of Queensland.

The competitor analysis is one of the most important tasks for the formulation of effective strategies for a business organization. Moreover, for the University of Queensland, there are many competitors who are operating in the same field. There are universities like James Cook University, Griffith University and the University of Southern Queensland are competitors of the University of Queensland. Moreover, the universities provide exclusive offers to the international students. The Griffith University has five campuses for the international students, besides the university offer scholarship and job opportunities to the students (Jones, & Silverstein, 2009). The main aim of this university is to provide excellent education experience to the students integrated with latest technologies and skilled teaching professional and become one of the best academic institutions is Australia.  The James Cook University also offer various undergraduate and post graduate courses to the students. The James Cook University is also trying to become the best technological institute in Australia. These universities provide significant competition to the University of Queensland because the education industry in Australia is rapidly growing into the battlefield where there are stringent competitions. As the universities offer more useful and practical courses for the international students as well as offer discounts on course fees, scholarships, and employment opportunities that help the universities been attracting the large portions of the students from overseas. 

SWOT Analysis of University of Queensland

The definition of the SWOT analysis can be easily defined by showing the expansion of the situational analysis which enables the University of the Queensland to determine its strengths, weaknesses, threats and the opportunities. The internal factors are determined to be showing the strengths and the weaknesses where as the external factors are determined to be showing the opportunities and the threats (Newbold, Carlson, & Thorne, 2013).

Strengths

• Offering a wide variety of courses
• Provides the skilled and the motivational teachers
• Excellent job opportunities are offered to the students
• Brilliant library collection is presented

Weaknesses

• Fees of the University of the Queensland are a little bit high as it is being compared to the other competitors.
• Problematic situation is being faced by the student while accessing the online materials.

Opportunities

• The increment of the demand for the international and domestic students in the Australia for the University of the Queensland.
• Offering diverse courses for the betterment of the students.

Threats

• The new entrant threat can be easily determined in the market
• High range of the competitors can be seen locally (Pinnock, 2012).

Therefore, the University of the Queensland is having numerous strengths with an increment of the demand for the education in the Australia. The development of the strategies must be made by the University of the Queensland to tackle the weaknesses and the threats.

The value and the brand positioning of the University of the Queensland are dependent on the marketing techniques which are used for the betterment of the UQ Brand. The delivery of the brand in the form of various images can be easily made by illustrating the appropriate positioning of the aim and also by the help of various channels of marketing. The positioning of the aim is apart helpful for the establishment of the corporate customers as they are depicted to be varying in nature and also the appropriate elements can be easily managed by showing the visual presentation. This is simply categorized by showing the range of the tools of the techniques which is being made by the university community of the institution (Pinnock, 2010). Therefore the corporate identify guidelines must associate with the workings continued by the organization for the betterment of the structure and also the establishment of the company can be achieved by showing the expansion of the work. This enables the organization to fix its primary aim to target the customers and also the top position of the services can be easily made by establishing the attracting templates which can be easily imprinted in the minds of the stakeholders. This is simply explaining the positioning of the organization in the higher position in the market of Australia.  

The key marketing aim of the University of Queensland is to attract more and more foreign students to the university and grow as a preferable university for the foreign students. To achieve the main aim of the university, the education institute has to recognize the need and demand of the market. Firstly, have to segment the international education market. After segmentation, the university has to target the potential students as per the course provided by the university. Then the university has to implement the effective positing strategy to place the course in the mind of the target students (Sen, 2008). The university has to make a good academic atmosphere for the international students. There are students from Asian countries like India, Pakistan, China coming to study in the Australian university. Hence the university has to take care of their culture, economic background to offer them required courses. The university has to provide discounts and rebate from the course fees to the deprived students from the developing countries so that they can afford the course fees of the University of Queensland. Besides this, for the brilliant students, the university can offer exclusive scholarship and the job opportunities for the students also help in attracting the international students.

Marketing Aim of University of Queensland

Product: The University of Queensland offers study in the following areas: agriculture, law, and economics, business, agribusiness, information technology, humanities, engineering architecture, planning, music, psychology and education. The University also offers other different courses to attract more students. The courses are prepared by the University for providing all types of education to the students. It provides unique experiences to the students along with increasing the skills and knowledge (Sheehan, 2011). The students can take admission in any of the courses by their abilities. The management team should also focus on providing courses in other fields also.

Price: In the year 2017, the tuition fee of the university is around AUD $117,00 for the abroad students to study. The management can decrease the tuition fees to attract more students and increasing the revenues of the university. The tuition fees would be AUD $12,168 in the year 2018 for per semester. However, the University charges tuition fees by the course work programs. The students can pay the tuition fees in different ways. The students can also get a loan from their home country to covers some of the educational expenses.

Place: The campus of the University of Queensland Australia is located at different locations such as Brisbane, Herston, Gatton and St Lucia. The University at different places provides a different course to the students. The University is operating its activities in a number of location. However, it would be beneficial for the University if the management team opens University in other locations. The University can use the resources of the country for expanding its operations. 

Promotions: The University of Queensland use its range of templates and website for the promotions. Fonts and brand colors are very much important as it helps to students to determine the brand name. Other promotional strategy and techniques should be used for attracting more students. The marketing team can promote the products of the University through different channels such as television, newspaper, radio and internet (Winer, & Dhar, 2014). The University can use social media platform to attract more students because maximum youngsters use social media websites. The management team should also focus on these strategies to attract more students.

In order to analysis market demand the BCG Matrix is a growth share matrix, considered as an effective tool that help in analysing the market growth rate as well as the market share of the existing products of the business organizations. In order to analysis the demand of the services and products of the University of Queensland, means demands of its courses the BCG matrix is functioning as most useful tool. It helps in understanding the portfolio optimization, market, plus efficient resource allocation.

Courses Offered by University of Queensland

The University of Queensland has various different types of education programs including agriculture science to humanities, psychology, education and music. The university has to check the market demand in order to apply the product strategies for the institutions. In this matter the applications of BCG Matrix will be useful.

As per the applications of BCG Matrix the portfolio of the University of Queensland has been segmented:

The university has significant range of Agricultural study including agriculture, agribusiness, environmental science which have stable market and demand among the students. The market of these courses are stagnated and there is not any growth in the market but these perform steadily. The University of Queensland has high market share for these courses. These courses are considered as cash cow for the university. The University of Queensland has to retain the market share.

The engineering, architecture, planning, and Information Technology (IT) courses are performing well as the market of the course growing as the demand of the course increasing. The market shares for this programs are high than the competitors. These engineering course are stars for the university and required investment.

The business courses, along with economics and law course are showing minimum growth and performances in comparison to the rivals thus considered as question mark for the university. The university has to invest to develop the programs more competitive.

Apart from this, the university has course like health, humanities, education, psychology, which have not any significant growth or the performances of the course are also poor within the international students. These programs have low market share as well as low growth rate.  Hence, considered as the dog for the university. The university has to implement effective strategies such as closing the programs or develop in a new ways to attract students.

The management team of the University of Queensland has taken certain steps to increase the efficiency and achieving competitive advantage in the market. The University is now focusing on providing more job opportunities to the students and also increasing the quality of education. The University welcome the members of the community to participate in conferences, lectures, festivals, sporting and cultural events. The students and staffs are encouraged to participate in competition and events. The focus is also on developing a partnership with government, philanthropists, government and industry that provides them wide opportunity to compete in the market. The staff member increases awareness among the students about advantages of establishing long-term relationship with the University of Queensland. It is facilitating the opportunity for the alumni to contribute to the success of the University (Wong, Radel, & Ramsaran-Fowdar, 2011). Engaging with the global industry, government, university networks and consular to nurture and promote the international alumni. The management has taken significant steps for the development of the university and also ensure that the University provides a safe environment and wide opportunity to the students. To be competitive in the market, the students are provided with quality education and the staff members are provided with a friendly environment and adequate training for their development. The management team should also provide unique products and services to enhance their capabilities. In order to attain the competitive advantages from the market the University of Queensland has to apply a holistic marketing approach as well as integrated marketing activities will help in improving the marketing efficiency of the University. In this matter the relationship marketing is very effective, with the help of this relationship marketing strategies the university can offer special discounts to students who come with the reference of the other existing students. This support is developing the loyal customers base for the University of Queensland. The University of Queensland can develop a database of the students including the information about their families and relatives so that this database can help in future marketing for the university.  Besides this, internal marketing strategies also effective, the university can offer different types of facilities for the existing students who will bring other students for enrolling with course in this university.

The office of marketing and communications of the University of Queensland edit/produce and distribute daily media to promote the achievements of the university in the areas of discovery, engagement, and learning. The media representatives will be able to subscribe to the University of Queensland news online to receive the media releases through email on releases. If anyone wants to receive the media releases, then he or she have to update details or contact the office of marketing and communications. The communications staffs are interested in the ideas of other staff members of the university, and the press release is a useful resource for determining the achievements of the University (Sheehan, 2011).

The main purpose for the preparation of the budgets is to ensure that the University of Queensland meets its obligations and developing guidelines and framework to prepare the annual report. The procedure is related to the top level of budgeting undertaken by the financial and business services and forecasting undertaken by institutes, central areas, and faculties. The annual budget is prepared to meet the current goals and objectives. The financial management is required for all the levels of the University. The budget is prepared in the legislative environment concerning the financial accountability act 2009, higher education support act 2003 and University of Queensland Act 1998. The university is operated and managed under the responsibility structure for the operational management. It is the responsibility of the top management to redistribute the budget and manage all the expenditures. The budget is prepared to meet the operational and strategic plans.

Conclusion

The analysis shows that the performance of the University of Queensland is increasing, but efforts should be made for future development. The management team should take adequate steps to increase the efficiency of the operations and providing quality education to the students. The University should diversify the course programs, and the staff members should be provided adequate training (Sen, 2008). The rules and regulations should be based on the development of the University and compete in the market. The management team should invest in the financial, human and physical resources.

References

Appannaiah, P., & Reddy, D. (2010). Business Management. Himalaya Publishing House.

Du Plessis, P., Strydom, J., & Jooste, C. (2012). Marketing management. Cape Town: Juta.

Etzel, M., Walker, B., & Stanton, W. (2007). Marketing. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Floyd, D. (2006). Business studies. London: Letts.

Jones, S., & Silverstein, B. (2009). Business-to-business internet marketing. Gulf Breeze, FL: Maximum Press.

Newbold, P., Carlson, W., & Thorne, B. (2013). Statistics for business and economics. Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education.

Pinnock, A. (2010). Business studies. Claremont [Cape Town]: The Answer.

Pinnock, A. (2012). Business studies. Claremont [Cape Town]: The Answer.

Ramachandra, K., Chandrashekara, B., & Shivakumar, S. (2010). Marketing management. Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House.

Sen, M. (2008). Business Management. New Delhi: Global Media Publications.

Sheehan, B. (2011). Marketing management. Lausanne: AVA.

The University of Queensland Australia,. (2016). UQ GUIDE 2016 (1st ed., pp. 1-54).Queensland. Retrieved from https://www.uq.edu.au/international- students/docs/INT_GUIDE2016_WEB.pdf

Winer, R., & Dhar, R. (2014). Marketing management. Harlow, Essex: Prentice Hall.

Wong, H., Radel, K., & Ramsaran-Fowdar, R. (2011). Building a marketing plan. [New York, N.Y.]: Business Expert Press.