Unimelb’s Marketing and Competitive Environment Analysis
This report analyses the marketing and competitive environment of University of Melbourne. The report is divided in 8 different sections. The first section provides a brief background of the university. The second section provided a brief market summary of the university. The third section, assess the demand for service offered by the university. The fourth section discusses the segmentation and target market. The five section discuses the current marketing mix as used by the organization. Later, PEST and SWOT analysis are conducted in section 7 and 8 respectively.
Background University of Melbourne is a public university based in Australia. The university was established in 1853 and over the time it has grown to become one of the leading global Universities. Currently, the University enjoy very positive and strong reputation due to it immerses contribution to research, learning and teaching. It offers wide ranges of course s including business related, Law, health science, engineering, and education among others (Unimelb, 2017).
Market Summary The education sector in Australia has been on growth path for several decades. Interestingly, due to the reputation of the universities in the regions, the sector continues to attract more international students. Currently, a significant number of the students studying on Australia universities are foreign and this has seen the sector grow to become the third largest exported generating $20 billion annually (Australian association press, 2016). As of 2016, they were more than 320,000 foreign students from 130 countries studying in Australia universities and colleges. The numbers of foreign students is said to have grown by 11 percent in the last decade and the growth is expected to continue (Australian association press, 2016). Most of these students originate from china, India, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, USA, and Brazil among others (.
The sector does also attract significant number of local students. In fact, Majority of the students in the sectors are locals. Currently, it is estimated the number of local student in the sector to be more than 900000 (AEN, 2017).
Demand assessment The demand for high education in Australia has remained solid for the last decades. Currently, There are more than 1300,000 student enrolled in Australian universities and the numbers is expected to grow even more in coming years (AEN, 2017). This increase is attributed to the growing demand for education from international student as well as government policy which seek to ensure 40 percent of people between 24-35 years have a university degree (Ministry of tourism and international education , 2016).
Segmentation and target market University of Melbourne offer very wide ranges of course including law, business, health, education among other. These courses are offered at undergraduate and graduate level. Therefore, the university does not have a specific segment which it pursues. Instead, it pursues the entire market both locally and internationally (Unimelb, 2017).
Current market Mix
Price Due to its prestigious status, university of Melbourne has adopted the premium pricing strategies. Premium pricing is a strategies where the price of the services or product are set higher that others similar services in order to create a favourable perception (Kolter, Keller, Hoon, Leong, & Tan, 2013).
Promotion The university uses a number of promotional strategies which includes
- Mass media advertisement- the university mainly promotes it services through mass advertisement including TV and newspaper advertisement.
- Below the line promotion- The University also uses below the line promotion strategies. This includes advertising through direct mail campaign, catalogue, and flyers and among others
Place The university is located in Melbourne where it offers it services. However, it has seven more campus located in Melbourne and Rural Victoria. In addition, it also offers it services through e-learning platform thus breaking the geographical barrier (Unimelb, 2017).
Product The university offers education services to its customers (i.e. student), Specifically, it offers high undergraduate and graduate course in various field including health, Information technology, health, law , arts, education , veterinary among others . It services are recognizes in the market due to their high quality (Unimelb, 2017).
PEST analysis Political environment The University of Melbourne operate in an industry that is highly regulated. As such changes in sector –specific laws is likely to have huge impacts on the university. Currently the major regulation that is likely to affect the university most is legislation related to Visa. A significant number of the students that enrol at the university every year are from foreign countries. Therefore changes in Visa rules will definitely affect the number of foreign student. For instance, if the Visa rule and regulation is revised and some entry requirement abolished, then we expected to see increase in number of foreign student and vice versa. Another political factor that is already having impacts on the universities is the current government policies on education. In 2009 the Australian government introduce the national attainment target policy which aims to ensure 40 percent of young people between 24-35 years have a university education. This policy has lead to an increase in number of local student enrolling to universities (Group of Eight, 2013).
Environment Over the recent years, sustainability of business has become a hot topic. Many government and environmental activists have been calling for organization to reduce the amount of gas released to the air. This environmental factor has impact on university in two ways. First, just like any other organization, such call for sustainability business requires universities to changes they ways they have been operating in order to reduce amount of gas released or to ensure their operation do not have negative impact on the environment. If universities do not comply with such call they may tarnish their reputation. Secondly, the call for sustainable business operation is indirect call for universities to teach as well as innovate new ways through research for reducing gas emission as well as address other environmental degradation issues.
Social The social factor that has greatest impact on high education is racism. International students usually chose a country where they know well that their race will not be used against them (Lee, 2011). Currently, Australia has been able to tame racism creating a welcoming social environment to everyone and this has seen it become the preferred destination for international students.
Technology Technology is so fat the external factors that are having most impact on high education sector here in Australia and elsewhere in the globe. Through technology, university have been able to device new ways of researching, teaching and supporting students (Connor & Moodie, 2007). University of Melbourne has not been left behind. It has utilized technology for student support as well as to support research as well as facilitate teaching through e-learning.
SWOT analysis Strength The universities of Melbourne have a numbers of strength which put it in a favourable market position. These
strengths are;
Strong reputation- The University has managed to create a strong reputation locally and internationally. Currently, the university is ranked on top position in Australia and among the top 40 universities globally (Times Higher Education, 2017).
Adequate facilitates- the university has so far invested heavily in it facilities making it one of the well equipped university on the earth
Wide range of courses- The University offer wide range of course including but not limited to business course, Health related course, environment, etc. This course helps the university to attract very large number of students
On the other hand, the university do have some
weakness. These are;
Weakness Over reliance on government resources- Just like any other public university, university of Melbourne relies partly on government funding/resources. Therefore, changes in government budget especially for those meant to pay for student fees are likely to affect the revenue available to the university.
Opportunities The environment in which the university operate is however full of
opportunities. These opportunities include;
Growing number of students- the numbers of students enrolled in Australian universities has been growing. Importantly, the number of foreign students seeking education in Australia has been on the rises (Ministry of tourism and international education , 2016). This is due to the reputation Australian universities have earned themselves across the globe. This increase in number of student present an opportunity for university of Melbourne to event grow it numbers of students event further.
Threats The university do however face some
threats. These include;
Increase in competition- For some time now; the University of Melbourne has been ranked highly both globally and locally (Times Higher Education, 2017). These ranking has helped it attract wide number of students. However, others university are working hard to dislodge it from top position and this may affect the number of student it is able to attract.
Uncertainty in international environment – as mentioned earlier most of universities in Australia including university of Melbourne significantly benefits from international enrolment. However, the future of international enrolment remains uncertain due to a number of factors including terrorism activities which create fear of travelling to foreign country. Also, the competition for international university has intensified because other countries such as Canada, German, UK and USA try as much as possible to woo international students in their country. Furthermore, most of the developing countries such as India, Malaysia, Singapore, etc where most of international enrolment comes form are investing heavily on their education sector for their domestic students and also to attract international enrolment as well (Connor & Moodie, 2007)
Conclusion In conclusion, the marketing environment for university of Melbourne has been largely positive. The demand for services has been high. In addition, the marketing mix as adopted by the university has helped it cement it reputation as globally competitive university. More offers there external factor including political, technology social and environment has created positive environment for the university to grow the numbers of students.
In term of Strength, weakness opportunity and threat, it can be concluded that the university is currently under favourable position since it has a number of strength and very few weakness. However, the future still remain uncertain due to uncertainty in international environment and increased competition from universities across the world. This might reduce the number of international students enrolled in Australian universities.
As mentioned earlier the current marketing mix has worked for the university. This paper recommends the university to stick to that mix. However, when it comes to promotion, The University should incorporate internet marketing especially the use of online banners to advertise it services. Through this platform, it will be able to create awareness about it services to internal communities hence making it the preferred university by most of international student
