Analyzing The Marketing And Competitive Environment Of A University Brand In Australia, Essay.

You are requires to analyze the "marketing and competitive environment" of a University brand (such as "CQUniversity" etc.) in Australia. Consider that you are a marketing manager of one such University in Australia. The analysis of the marketing and competitive environment should include (but is not limited to): background, market summary, and demand assessment, segmentation & target market, current marketing mix analysis [including current offer (product/service), distribution, promotion, and price], PEST analysis, competitor analysis of a close competitor/competing brand), SWOT analysis, and value & brand positioning analyses.

Background Information

Technological changes have brought many changes in the business on how activities can be executed (Davenport, 2013). Competition has intensified, and firms have used creativity and innovations to enable them to survive in the market. In the pursuit to meet the changes, they have come up with unique ways to ensure they have a competitive advantage over their competitors. As a marketing manager, I have an obligation to ensure that the university survives in the competitive environment by mobilizing a large number of students to join the institution. A University is an organization as it transforms children into men who can take on challenges and have responsibilities. It directly manufactures men from children. The competition among universities is high as their numbers have increased in the recent past creating a situation scramble and petition for the students. A university has to be unique and offering better educational services to attract a large number of students. As a manager, the strategies that I adopt will determine how the university will attract customers who are the students in pursuit of knowledge and skills hoping to secure jobs in the future (Prahalad, & Ramaswamy, 2013).

During marketing, it is important to be aware of the organization duties and objectives to be able to convince potential students thoroughly. The market review is plans of the methods to use during marketing to enable me to put up strategies that will ensure control of the market attracts the most customers. My main aim is to fight competition in the market by coming up with plans of execution of duties. Market assessment is a checking leading university in Australia to see how they carry their activities to attract scores of students. It aims at checking how they do activities better than other universities. These are benchmarking to enable me to come up with best policies with the aim of getting a competitive advantage over them (Talk, 2016).

Market assessment and market summary aim at getting information about the competitors who are the market leaders. It also enables managers to know the opportunities in the market and finds the best ways to exploit them to their advantage. As a marketing director, I have to be aware of the situation in the market to enable better policy formulations (Barringer, 2012).

Business location determines whether the business succeeds or fails in its operations. Marketing managers should ensure that the organization is located in areas where it can get a large number of customers. A university can attract many students if its location is ideal. The perfect location is the one that is near the customers, and they can easily access it.

Market Summary and Demand Assessment

Segmentation is the division of the market into segments according to their demands to the firms' products. As a manager, it is my duty to divide the market and be able to know the different needs of the segments. These will enable better ways to satisfy the needs of each segment easily. The target market is the people who are expected to be a potential customer to the business. A business should do marketing to the people likely to be attracted to its products. As the head of the university marketing team, there is need to identify the potential people to join it. These includes the young people hence employ necessary means to motivate them to join our university for better services than any other school (Hassan, & Craft, 2012, pp. 344-356).

The marketing mix is the factors that the company or institution controls and helps it influence the customer to purchase its products and services. There are some factors that a university can do hence motivate more students to join the institution. They include; price, place, promotion and products (Gordon, 2012, pp. 122-126).

The price of education and its quality can influence customers. Customers looked for goods or services of high qualities but offered at fair prices that they can afford. The location of the university is ideal for attracting many customers if there are good transport services to access it. Promotion is a way of creating awareness about services offered. The school should be involved in the promotion of its products through methods like advertising. These will make it known by many people who did not survive before and thus make it convince to join it (Tapp, & Spotswood, 2013, pp. 206-222).

As a marketing manager, I will undertake the above measures to ensure that the university is marketable and attracts many students to learn in it. The success of the institution majorly relies on me too as I have the duty to increase its customers.

The environmental factors determine business success or failure. The factors may be internal or external. These factors control how business activities are executed for the achievement of the ultimate goals and objectives. PEST analysis focus on the external environment of the business that affects how it carries outs its operations. PEST is an acronym representing political, economic, social and technological factors. All these factors will help me in finding the external factors that may affect the university.  Political factors have both positive and negative impacts on marketing. When the political environment is stable, the business activities proceed normally but where there is political instability business cannot take place as there no peace. Marketing managers, therefore, cannot convince customers as people avoid chaotic places. Economic factors deal with economic growth, exchange rates, and interest rate and inflation rates. When a country has high inflation rates, the people are not able to afford education services as they strive to meet their basic needs. Social factors deal with cultural beliefs of the people, the population's age, sex, population growth rate, etc. If the population has a real opinion on the university, it will make my job of marketing easy as there is a good public image. Technological factors are concerned with the changes in the technology. The school must adopt the changes in technology to have an advantage over the competitors. These will involve uniqueness in the execution of duties thus attract many students (Ho, 2014, pp. 6478-6492).

Segmentation and Target Market

Competitors are the firms that offer specific services/ goods or close substitutes. The customers can acquire their products or service and satisfy the same needs. There are many universities in Australia which are our greatest competitors. The only way to overcome competition is putting up best strategic plans. The managers should check how the successful competitors execute duties to their advantage to come up policies that are better. Opponents can make the company lose customers making it fail gradually (Swayne, Duncan, & Ginter, 2012).

The University in Australia has many universities which are competitors and are doing better. As the marketing managers, I will look how they are doing well regarding marketing to enable me to come up with ways to make my university more competitive in the market. Competition is a healthy activity, and it should be done by fair means. I can adopt the blue ocean strategy and look for a location with no competition to set the university. Though the site has no competition, it must have a potential customer to enable growth and success of the University (Kim, & e Mauborgne, 2014).

SWOT analysis is an acronym which stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. As a marketing manager, I have to check these entire factors to help in promoting the universities. Strengths are the areas that the university has to achieve significantly e.g. employment of qualified staff, better learning environment, employment of qualified staff, modern buildings, etc. weakness is the areas the organization has performed poorly. It may include the things it has not achieved. Opportunities are the vacant areas that the university can fill or utilize hence be assured of getting more customers. Threats are the factors that may be a danger to the survival of the organization e.g. high competition, political instability, etc. As marketing managers, these factors influence how to convince customers to join the University. The opportunities and strength give a positive image to the customers and make the work of convincing them easy. Weakness and threats have a negative impact in marketing and may scare away potential customers. Managers should focus on the positive results from marketing but also put up measures to eliminate the adverse effects (Hollensen, 2015).

Value and brand positioning is the ability to locate the firm in an ideal and appreciated place which is easily identifiable by the customers. These locations enable the customers not have difficulties in reaching the company. The University for Marketing Success it should be located in a place where all the people can access it easily. As the manager, there will be no problems in giving the customers clear direction to access the organization.

Physical location means a lot to any university. Places with clear means of transport make customer have difficulties in reaching them. Students like a school they can quickly move out and in without any constraints. The management should choose a better location of the university with may help. The excellent location makes the institution not confused with other competitors' organization and may be a competitive advantage for the university. Ideal location can make a business successful as many people will be attracted to it (Kapferer, 2012).

Conclusion

Marketing creates awareness about the existence of a business to the potential customers and seeks to motivate them to be its customers. As a marketing manager, I have the duty of ensuring that the more students enroll in the university. These will ensure continuity of the school I the education industry. Many factors determine the success of the business, and they can be in internal and external business environments.

References

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Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

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Kim, W. C., & e Mauborgne, R. (2014). Blue ocean strategy, expanded edition: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard business review Press.

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Swayne, L. E., Duncan, W. J., & Ginter, P. M. (2012). Strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Talk, O. M. (2016). Operations management.

Tapp, A., & Spotswood, F. (2013). From the 4Ps to COM-SM: reconfiguring the social marketing mix. Journal of Social Marketing, 3(3), 206-222.