The Growing Role of Knowledge and Information in Socio-Economic Development - Essay Example

Market research on Santander University (UK)

The universities, being the product of European culture, from the very beginning sought not only to knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but also to the production of knowledge in order to grow and strengthen the well-being of society, i.e., it has always been a socially oriented and rooted. Today, this task takes on a new dimension, especially in a situation where the university itself is in the process of transformation, according to some researchers, in the postmodern university (Birnbaum, 2000), the radical technological, economic, cultural shifts covering all social institutions in the last quarter of the 20th century, could not but affected also universities.

The growing role of knowledge and information in socio-economic development and turning them into one of the key factors of economic prosperity and competitiveness, the rapid growth of information and telecommunication technologies, allowing with unprecedented speed to disseminate new knowledge, changes in the labor market, where high-end technologies require highly skilled workers and reduce the demand for unskilled labor, globalization of the world economy - all this increases the demands on universities in terms of satisfaction of social needs. Due to a number of conditions, among which are dramatically increased the cost of a full-fledged higher education, along with the reduction of its public funding, one of the main directions in the solution of this problem was the commercialization of certain types of universities -part of the educational services, applied R & D, etc. This is reflected in the concept of the so-called “entrepreneurial university”, quickly and widely spreading in developed countries (Joseph, Yakhou & Stone, 2005).

The transformation of the nature and content of education leads to a corresponding transformation of the structures of the organization and management of universities. In addition to traditional units - departments and research laboratories in disciplines – in them there is creation and development of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary educational and research laboratories, experimental design divisions, innovative companies that produce and sell ready-made innovative products on the basis of research scientists of the University results, divisions, providing the university functioning as a single economic complex, which necessitates the use of marketing approaches to planning and implementation of the activities of the university and the evaluation of the results and prospects of this activity.

A significant role in the choice of educational institution is played by a motivation of potential listeners, the availability of reliable and complete information on the type and content of training courses. The task of the university and graduate departments becomes the formation of information space, interesting and meaningful for the audience by including the development of promotional activities of the university. Reputation of the university and the responses of listeners who have completed training in specific programs are important for the choice of programs. In addition, the promotional activities of the university is aimed at creating and maintaining a positive image of the graduates, graduating departments, on building a network of contacts with potential employers and orientation programs in the interests of business.

The implementation of the strategy of marketing activities of the university is aimed at consolidating the existing competitive advantages and the formation of new advantages in the future. The difficulty lies, on the one hand, in the need for interaction of a large number of units, and on the other - in constantly changing conditions of the implementation of the strategy, that is, in its change, updating the requirements of economic practice.

However, changing conditions of conducting the educational process, the formation of new educational programs and the need for competent positioning in the market, increased competition, demand from universities new approaches to the development and implementation of marketing strategies.

Marketing of educational services regarding the target is determined by long-term commercial and other interests of all market participants (and University stakeholders), as well as the possibility of creating a favorable and broad social resonance effect in the form of reproduction of the national intellectual potential and effects interrelated with it. The marketing function here is studying and forecasting of conditions of educational services market, identifying promising educational services and the need to upgrade, determination of the optimal amount of value, quality, range and service, pricing, communications, promotion and sale of educational services, as well as their support in the process of consumption.

The aim is to improve the methodological approaches to the development and implementation of the strategy marketing activities of the university in the new economic environment and the development of practical recommendations to improve the effectiveness of promotional activities of the university in the current economic conditions.

Marketing of educational services has a number of features related to the specifics of the service itself and the education sector as a whole. These include the active role of the final consumer of educational services, deferred nature of the identification of results of the provision of educational services, priority of cooperation.

The author used a systematic approach that has revealed feedback mechanisms of graduates, employers, graduating departments, potential training programs of students, to identify the most problematic areas and suggest measures to improve the efficiency of the development and implementation of advertising strategy of Santander University.

In addition, analysis and comparison, the method of expert estimates, market segmentation, forecasting were used.

The working hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption that the in-depth analysis and diagnosis of the situation of universities on students and labor markets, statistical processing of data on the competitiveness of educational services and the econometric modeling of marketing strategies will help to develop a methodology for the development of effective marketing efforts of Santander University and to raise the level and quality of its work both types of markets.

Gantt Diagram of key stages of research is presented below.

Fig.1. Gantt diagram of the research process.

The Santander Universities Global Division supports and manages Santander's commitment to higher education. This is a long-term, strategic alliance with universities that is beneficial to students and staff and the communities where we are present. Santander Universities believes it is important to support students during their studies and we offer a number of scholarships for students in the UK and abroad. The number of scholarships, grants and awards committed to universities has been increasing gradually every year, so that more students and staff can benefit from this support (Stimac et al., 2012).

The program “Santander Universities” is implemented by one of the largest banks -Banco Santander (Santander Group) - and aims to support long-term scientific and academic cooperation between the universities in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, Venezuela, the United States, Russia and China. Today, Santander Universities program participants are more than 700 universities in the world.

It is known that competitiveness is a concept that characterizes the company's value in the eyes of the consumer. For the universities the main consumer is the applicant who chooses to pass the university further education. For any university is vital to ensure a continuous flow of students from year to year. From this the main purpose of this study follows - to get an idea about the image of Santander University, which was formed from students and employers.

Formation of marketing strategy of the university depends on the status of applicants markets, the labor market and the internal environment of high school. Therefore, development of marketing strategy is a comprehensive University, the impact of marketing should provide related effects in three selected areas and take into account incomplete definition of the university environment.

The competitiveness of the university - is its ability to be allocated among the other higher education institutions due to competitive advantages, such as: quality, price, forms and methods of teaching, conditions, location, prestige, advertising, etc. The evaluation of the competitiveness of the educational institutions should be carried out in the complex, including an analysis of strengths and weaknesses.

In frames of the research, SWOT analysis was conducted. Its results are presented below (Fig 2).

Internal University Strengths and Weakness

Strengths Strengths

Fig. 2. SWOT analysis of Santander University.

Expert assessment of the indicators characterizing the infrastructure, management and staff of support of research and innovation activities in the Santander University, has identified the strengths and weaknesses of the analyzed field.

Expert evaluation of external factors, primarily the macro factors that pose a threat or providing opportunities provided by the environment, made it possible to assess their impact on the development of research and innovation activities at the university.

The resulting data after conducting the SWOT-analysis were used in the development of Santander University strategy for improving support of research and innovation activities.

Activities of the University include two main, closely related areas: educational and scientific. In this regard, the university has to work simultaneously on several markets: the market of educational services, the labor market, the market of scientific and technical products and services.

For obtaining information about all participants of market relations in the scientific and educational activities of the university and the analysis of its position in these markets, the University conducts market research in these markets, as well as its own capabilities and resources.

Market research allows to:

• Reasonably determine the marketing objectives of the University;

• Develop marketing strategy of the University;

• Flexibly form assortment, communications, pricing and sales policy of the University;

• Improve the performance of scientific and educational activities within the university.

Given the high competition among higher education institutions, the University’ task is to develop educational programs that provide training in demand in the labor market of graduates. Formation of training educational programs plans should be based on an analysis of the needs of employers for young specialists who have a certain set of competencies (Hayes, 2008). It is rational to carry out this analysis on the basis of market research, the implementation of which may be entrusted to a specialized marketing department of the University, performing marketing activities on core markets.

The technique consists of two studies.

1. Assessment of the demand for specialists of the investigated profile on the labor market.

2. Analysis of the required competences of specialists of the investigated the profile.

For each study detailed procedures for their implementation are developed.

1. Assessment of the demand for specialists of the investigated profile on the labor market

The main objectives of the study are:

1. Determination of types of experts, prepared an educational program.

2. Assessment of the demand for specialists investigated profile.

3. Determination of the list of enterprises-employers for specialists investigated profile.

Meeting the challenges listed above is carried out in two stages.

1 - Expert research.

Method of research: in-depth interviews or expert roundtable.

There were formulated the names and brief descriptions of the investigated profile of specialists and the general characteristics of enterprises - employers for specialists of the investigated profile were identified.

Respondents were: university representatives involved in the preparation of the profile areas of professionals; representatives of companies - partners (business executives or heads of personnel departments); representatives of the recruitment agencies; professionals working in the profile direction.

Additionally, an analysis of secondary sources of information (media, internet, professional standards (if available for the test profile)) was carried out.

Formalized quantitative survey was conducted. The method of investigation: personal formalized interviews, questionnaires or telephone interviews.

A list of job responsibilities and respective competences in quantitative survey was formed on the basis of the lists obtained at the stage of expert research. Respondents could not only make a choice from the proposed list, but also add the corresponding position in the lists. As a result of the polls, models of professionals of the investigated profile which are the source of information in the preparation of curricula were formed.

Table 1 below provides a list of research monitoring system external marketing environment of the University.

Table 1. The of list of researches of system of monitoring of external marketing environment of the Santander University

No

Name of the research

Investigated questions

Methods of research

Respondents

1

Analysis of the demand for university graduates in the labor market

• Assess the need for specialists in scientific and educational fields University

• Assess the demand for university graduates

• Analysis of university graduates' satisfaction

• Analysis of employers' proposals graduates

Questionnaires (direct distribution of electronic questionnaires by e-mail)

Organizations (strategic partners of the University)

2

Analysis of employers’ readiness to order targeted training staff at the university

• Assess the needs of employers in further training of employees for research and educational areas University

• Assess readiness of employers to request additional training at the university employees

• Assess readiness of employers to specialists in order to target the state budget to the University Admission

• Evaluation of employers ready to order targeted training of specialists at the University

Questionnaires (direct distribution of electronic questionnaires by e-mail)

Organizations (strategic partners of the University)

3

Analysis of the university position in the market of scientific and technical products and services

• Analysis of the demand for services in the field of scientific and technological research and development

• Analysis of companies' satisfaction of the University services in the field of scientific and technological research and development

• An evaluation of the university on the market of scientific and technical products and services in comparison with other organizations

Questionnaires (direct distribution of electronic questionnaires by e-mail)

Organizations (strategic partners of the University)

4

Analysis of business readiness to cooperate with the university

• Analysis of enterprise readiness to cooperate with the university in the field of scientific and technological research and development

• Analysis of enterprise readiness to cooperate with the university in the field of training

• Analysis of enterprise readiness to cooperate with the university in the field of employment of students and graduates

Questionnaires (direct distribution of electronic questionnaires by e-mail)

Organizations (strategic partners of the University)

5

An analysis of the employment of students and graduates

• An evaluation of university graduates in the labor market

• Analysis of student employment during the university studies

• Analysis of employment of university graduates

Private survey

Graduates: Daytime and evening classes, undergraduate, graduate

Students of 2-4 courses

Students of 5-6 courses

6

Analysis of the quality of education at the University

• Analysis of satisfaction with education received at the university

• Analysis of the level of training in the specialty

• Analysis of the university's commitment and specialty

• Analysis of the additional paid training needs

• Analysis of the need for continuing higher education

Private survey

Graduates: Daytime and evening classes, undergraduate, graduate

Students of 2-4 courses

Students of 5-6 courses

7

Analysis of the University’ position on the market of higher professional education programs

• An evaluation of the university in the educational market

• Study the needs of consumers of educational services

• Formation of a portrait of the University educational services consumers

Private survey

Applicants

Conducting of monitoring of marketing university environment was carried out using specialized databases. To study education market in Santander University database of educational institutions data was used: schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, as well as database-competition universities. Labour Market Monitoring demanded the creation of a database of employers' organizations, containing information about the needs of enterprises in the educational services of the University and alumni database. Database of research products and services, the basis of scientific groups data with the database of partner organizations are used for marketing research in the market of scientific and technical products and services.

As an initial step, a study was conducted for the IT department. According to the results obtained by questionnaires, it was revealed that all interviewed companies are operating in the market of information technologies for over 10 years. In 50% of surveyed companies on a permanent basis are working from 100 to 200 people, in the rest - from 50 to 100 people. All the surveyed companies employ over 10 IT managers. The study yielded the following data to assess the labor market demand for IT-managers.

- The annual demand of the companies surveyed IT managers - from 3 to 5 people.

- All the interviewed companies predict an increase in demand for IT-managers with 3-5 years compared with the present moment.

- All the surveyed companies have difficulties to find labor market IT managers for their companies.

- In general, the surveyed companies take on the job positions IT managers-experts with experience in the labor market, or educate own staff within the company.

During the survey it was found that more than 70% of respondents would be willing to take for job as IT manager young professionals, trained with their participation. At the same time, companies are ready to participate in various forms of cooperation with the university.

In general, the evaluation of the labor market demand for IT management showed that graduates of the developed educational programs will be in demand in the labor market, and employers are willing to take part in their preparation.

In order to develop modules of the educational program and the list of subjects, a series of expert interviews with the heads of IT companies and experienced IT managers was conducted, which allowed the group to make a list of official duties of IT managers:

-Definition of user requirements for information system.

- Analysis of business processes and information systems.

- Evaluation and selection of the information system to solve business problems.

- Organization of implementation and project management.

- Entering information system operation and its maintenance.

- The relationship with the customer.

As a result of expert interviews it was determined that in the preparation of IT managers both technical and managerial training component should be provided.

The technical component is to give a good knowledge of and fluency in information technology in the field of information systems knowledge that will successfully select and implement an enterprise information system maximally satisfying the needs of users. The knowledge gained should enable an analysis of trends in the development of information technologies, as well as applications and systems of competing companies to determine the direction of the application of new technologies and the development of their own applications and systems.

The management component of the training is to provide the ability to organize and guide the work of project management for the development and implementation of information systems in the enterprise project management for the design and development of serial products (applications and systems).

As a result of expert surveys, for each of the job responsibilities of IT managers a list of the required competencies had been compiled.

The resulting information enabled the research units form a reasonably competitive educational program “Information systems and technologies in business”, the list of subjects and curricula.

The activities of the University are carried out in a constantly changing environment, defined marketing environment. For the university it becomes vital to keep track of the changes and adapt to them timely. The essence of marketing management of the university is to adapt the educational institution to changes in external conditions, taking into account the available internal capacity. This requires the construction of the university marketing environment monitoring system, the implementation of which can be assigned to a specialized marketing department of the University, performing marketing activities on core markets.

Marketing environment can be divided into external and internal (Birnbaum, 2000). External marketing environment of the University are factors, conditions, forces and entities external to the university and are beyond the direct control on the part of the university, but the influence of which the institution must take into account in their activities. External University marketing environment can be divided into macro-outer and external microenvironment. External macro environment is determined by external factors, wider social values: demographic, economic, socio-cultural, political, legal, scientific and technical. External microenvironment presented forces that directly affect the activities of the university: the of consumers of University goods and services, competitors, suppliers, intermediaries, contact audience (public authorities, public organizations, mass media).

Inside the university environment is characterized by its potential and is determined by factors controlled by the university. For the internal environment, the University applies organizational and financial, logistics, human resources, information technology. An important part of the internal environment of the university is now the level of activity and marketing support of the university.

Analysis of the marketing environment of the university because of its variability should be carried out continuously in order to make informed management decisions in market conditions. In this regard, the university is advisable to establish the marketing environment monitoring system, which allows analyzing the dynamics of change in marketing indicators characterizing elements of the marketing environment.

To improve the university rankings in the minds of the client seems to be sufficient to improve the quality of education a relatively small number of students that could be an example for future generations of students in the university. Another important means of improving the ranking of the university in the public mind is the demonstration of high school graduates who have made a successful career for the past 5-7 years.

In order to improve the functioning of the university in the educational market, we propose an approach to the formation of a new type of marketing communications - social partnership, which reflects the specifics of the university's strategic positioning in a competitive environment.

The objective of the proposed approach is to create a mechanism aimed at efficient cooperation of all stakeholders. Within the framework of social partnership, the University creates a product with the consumer value for each partnership member. The integrating functions in the part of the communications system is played by an information portal. Portal is a place where graduates can post information about themselves in the form of a portfolio. Portfolio entrant contains personally identifiable information, indicating personal interests, achievements, preferences in education, etc.

Portal on a regular basis has to be updated through the effective interaction of all participants of the partnership, which should be governed by the requirements for database creation and the processes of their content and use. School, as part of vocational guidance, conducting explanatory work with students graduating classes, explains the mechanism of interaction with universities and employers through the Portal that promotes quality information provision. The relationship of universities and business in the framework of social partnership based on the principles of effective interface, the utility, relevance and reliability of the information provided. The information published on the Portal should be organized, making it a convenient and efficient search.

Social partnership provides an opportunity to purposefully form a contingent of applicants, both in bachelor and master's degree. Thus, social partnership as a strategic marketing communications complex, aimed at the following target audience: graduates of schools, colleges, high schools, universities, undergraduate; business, as a consumer and employer. Each of the participants of social partnership has access to the portal, which is necessary for decision-making party information. Participation in the social partnership should be free for the graduates, at the same time, for universities and businesses it is more appropriate to establish paid access.

The introduction of social partnership with its clear organization and control, managing the communication process in accordance with the proposed mechanism, aimed at creating added value university for that is a factor for increasing its competitiveness. Thus, the introduction of a new type of marketing communications, on the one hand, increase the efficiency of the organization of the process of attracting the target audience, which has a positive impact on the level of competitiveness of the university, on the other - will ensure the quality to meet prospective business needs in personnel potential.