Market Opportunities for CQ University

Question: Discuss about the Market Opportunities for CQ University. Answer: Introduction Educational Industry is one of major sector that contribute to the economy of the country. There are more than 50 educational institutes in America. However, all these institutes are different from each other and are in competition with each others. The report discusses about the marketing plan of CQ University. The university has a good reputation only among the locals but also in the International market. Organizational Background CQ University was originally founded in 1967 in Rockhampton as a Queensland Institute of Technology Capricornia. This institute attended its full university status in 1992. At present, there are more than 30,000 students studying across the 25 campuses located across Australia. The university also runs its study centres in four cities and its delivers program in Cooma and Geraldton. These centres are through the partnership with local communities of the respective universities. There are approximately 300 educational and training programs, from short courses and certificates, undergraduates, postgraduates and the research degrees. According to the data released by Graduate Career Australia (CGA) indicates that the university has 81.1% overall employment rates. CQ University has also out performed in study support graduate employment and salary outcome of the graduates. In recent years, the university has established itself as a research focused university. There are many researches activities are being held by close collaboration and partnership with industry and community of these region universities. Market Summary and Demand Assessment Educational industry is one of the growing industries across the world. The estimated growth rate of the education industry would be around 7%. The growth rate indicates that there will more number of International and local students would be taking admission in Australian Universities. By 2025, it is estimated that the country will have more of International students as compared to other countries. Austrade is responsible for marketing and promotion of Australian education and training in the International market. There are universities who have signed the deal of their exchange from all over the world. There are lot of opportunities are been provided to all the International students in order to attract more and more number of students. China is one of the major source of International students. The education industry in Australia is $116 billion industry. The industry has close to 16,000 organization or businesses. This industry provided employment to more than 7,50,000 employees and the CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of industry has been 3.5% (https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/education-training/education-training.html) . The market summary in terms of number of enrollment for Australian universities in general, CQU and Australian National university can be shown as: Source: https://www.australianuniversities.com.au/directory/student-numbers/ Segmentation Target Market Market segmentation means the process of dividing the broader marketing into small sub-groups according to types of characteristics. These sub-groups are knows as the segments ( Myers, 1996). The university has a good reputation in the country. The university is more connected through its alumni registration of more than 70 countries. The university has 650 in the world ranking. The University has one of largest research centre in the country. By 2020, there will be more the university is expected to introduce more number of courses. The university has more than 25 campuses across the country which makes it more accessible for the local students to study from their nearby campus that they want to. Some of the courses of the university have been rated well above the standard. The university has graduate, post graduate and research degrees and various other professional courses are being offered. Therefore, the target market of the university is wide and open for all the segments. Market Mix analysis Market mix is a tool which helps in analyzing any product or service. The concept of market mix includes in 4Ps of marketing such as Product, Price, Promotion and Place( Waterschoot and Bult, 1992). Product The University has more than 75 courses available including vocational, professional, distance-learning and full time. There are number of degree courses available for the students to choose from. The reputation of the university is world class as compared to the other university in the country. Price - The Fees of the university depend upon the courses of provided by the university. Promotion The University does not invest much on promoting its campus. They usually do it through the print media and the social media. The university has better network connectivity through its alumni network over 70 countries. Place - CQ University has almost 16 campuses across the country. Apart from their campuses, the University also owns the study hub, study centres and delivery sites. PESTEL analysis PEST analysis can be defined as the political, economic, social and technological factors. The PEST analysis helps to determine how these factors can be affect the performance and the long-term goal of the organization. It is a tool for business analysis (Team,2013). Political Legal In this factor all the government regulation and legal issues are assessed in terms of to affect the business environment and market. The Australian government is very supportive about the educational industry. The Austrade looks after the marketing the Australian education internationally. Economic This factor assess all the economic issues that can create an impact on the organization. Economic factors include inflation, interest rate, economic growth, unemployment rate and policies. The economic factor can have a major impact on the universities. The economic issue can directly hit the number of students take admission in the university. It is said that some time, Economic change can be positive for the Public Universities. Social This factor includes all the socio-economic issues of the market such as the customer demographic, cultural limitation, life style attitude and education. There has always been a support from the Australian citizens to open more and more educational institute that can help the economics of their country. As the new educational institute opens there will be more jobs for the young generations. Technological These factors include technological advancements, lifecycle of technologies, the role of internet etc. The university should always be upgraded with the technology for its smooth process. There are lot of automated jobs can help the university to achieve their end result faster and accurately. Environmental - The factors include all the factors can influence and determine by the environment. There arent any environmental factors that can affect the operation of the university. Competitor Analysis Competitor Analysis helps the organization to understand the competitions that are present in the market of the organization. The organization should know about the competitors that are present (Bronnenberg and Wathieu, 1996). There are several universities in Australia and they all compete with each other. One of the competitors of CQ University is Australian National University. Australian National University started in 1946 and CQ University started in 1967 but got its full university status in 1992. Therefore, Australian National University is older in CQ University. Australian National University (ANU) has 20934 students, which is more than CQ University. ANU has 47.8% undergraduate students as compared to 65.2% in CQ University, 51% post graduate students and CQ University has 24.2% postgraduate students. In total CQ University have 18,849 students. ANU has 22 QS world Ranking and CQU has 601+ QS Ranking. CQ University has one of the developed research centres and it is ranked 21 in Australian whereas, ANUs researches centre ranked 3 in Australia. According to student survey, the overall satisfactory of the student in Australian National University is approx 65% as compared to CQ University has 78.9%. SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is a tool to help an organization understand the internal and external factors that can affect the organization. The SWOT analysis is a part of strategic planning and helps an organization understand the strength of the organization and areas of where the improvements are required (Pickton and Wright,1998). Strengths CQ University has the highest full time graduate employment rate of 81.1% The university has various offerings from short term course certification to full time graduate, post graduate and research degrees. Distance learning program of CQ university is one leading courses among all the competitors Weakness Poor World ranking. The number of students enrolling in post graduation degree is less as compared to other universities. Opportunity To start with new course related to new technology. To start more of online courses. To launch the courses according to the requirement of the market. Threats The biggest treats are the competitors that are present in the market. The external factors such as economic, political and legal can be threat to the university. Value Brand Positioning Analysis Since, the university being old for more than 20 years and it full time employment rate is high comparatively to other universities. Due to these years, the brand positioning of the university is high. The university also signed singed the deal of exchange program for almost 100 countries. The university has more than 40,000 registered alumni network across the globe. It is expected that the university will keep growing in next 5 years. The brand equity of this university is high as compared to other universities in Australia. Conclusion The report discusses about the internal and external factors that can affect the University. It also discusses about the competitors, marketing mix and about the brand positing of the university in the Australian market. This report discusses about the university growth in next five years. The SWOT analysis helps to understand what are the Strengths and Weakness of the university. Reference Borden, N.H., 1964. The concept of the marketing mix.Journal of advertising research,4(2), pp.2-7. Van Waterschoot, W. and Van den Bulte, C., 1992. The 4P classification of the marketing mix revisited.The Journal of Marketing, pp.83-93. Team, F.M.E., 2013. PESTLE Analysis. Strategy Skills. Orfano, F., 2011. Components of a pestle analysis.Retrieved February. Pickton, D.W. and Wright, S., 1998. What's swot in strategic analysis?.Strategic change,7(2), pp.101-109. Bronnenberg, B.J. and Wathieu, L., 1996. Asymmetric promotion effects and brand positioning.Marketing Science,15(4), pp.379-394. Bergen, M. and Peteraf, M.A., 2002. Competitor identification and competitor analysis: a broad?based managerial approach.Managerial and decision economics,23(4?5), pp.157-169. 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