Value to the Students of Middlesex University - Essay Example

Marketing Plan for a Union- Middlesex Union Faculty I. Executive summary II. Introduction III. Background information i. Nature of the Organisation and Industry ii. Mission Statement iii. Corporate Objectives IV. SWOT Analysis V. Evaluation of the present strategies VI. Developing and Evaluation of Alternative Strategies VII. Recommendations VIII. Budgetary Implications IX. Implementations X. Conclusion XI. References I. Executive Summary This marketing plan of Middlesex University Students Union aims at new marketing focuses. It provides new vision and strategic focus on add value to the students of Middlesex University. II. Introduction The first section of the paper provides information regarding Middlesex University and Middlesex University Student Union (MUSU). The following section does a brief SWOT analysis of MUSU to understand the external environmental factors and internal environmental factors of it. The evaluation of present strategies provides an idea of the area of improvements. Based on SWOT analysis and evaluation of present strategies recommendations are made to improve the image and services of MUSU. III. Background Information Middlesex University is a one of the largest universities in UK with 22,000 students and 1800 staff. This has campus at Hendon, Trent Park, Cat Hill, Enfield and Archway and now Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Any student enrolling with Middlesex University must take membership of Middlesex University Students Union (MUSU) within 14 days of enrolment. i. Nature of the Organisation and Industry Middlesex University Students Union (MUSU) provides shops, bars, catering and a full entertainments programme as well as funding and support for a wide range of membership services.1 MUSU aims at representing the students of the University in matters affecting their educational experiences. It also aims at t o provide a recognised means of communication between the students and the University authorities. It promotes and encourages student societies, cultural, sports and social activities. It provides high quality and high value for money services that will meet the needs of students of the University and at last it ensures the students to be centre of their services. Academic year 2004-05 saw the university management force MUSU, against the wishes and votes of MUSU members, to give up its commercial areas, i.e. shops, bars, cafeterias and entertainments. These have now been taken over by a company called Scholarest, a major player in catering facilities to UK educational institutions, who already handle catering facilities for the university proper. This situation has arisen due to a dispute over a £250,000 debt owed by MUSU to the university.2 ii. Mission Statement The mission of Middlesex University is to support and provide range of membership services to the students of Middlesex University. iii. Corporate Objectives There are various corporate objectives for MUSU. It is a service organisation and is aimed to provide services to the students to make their student life comfortable and their educational experience memorable to them. IV. SWOT Analysis Strengths: The Union is one of its types for its target group that is Middlesex University students. Each and every student is bound to be member of the union. This is one of the strength of Union because the number of members in the union will increase with the increase in the number of students. It has range of services to offer to its target group. These services are from the financial support to activities to the platform where each student can associate himself. It has excellent web presence which is effective enough to create an interest among students. It provides academic advice and welfare services to the students which is very crucial for their decision making processes. It invites students to form their own societies with at least of 10 members paying £3 each for that. Weakness One of the major weakness in the past have been control over budget where MUSU have been failed to continue its catering services which has been given to an outside agency due to the overdue payment to the university. Coordination among various societies and among the member of society is another area of concern. Making information regarding working of the Union and its financials easily available. Threat Various external agencies offering same services at the lower cost which MUSU offers to university and students is biggest threat in front of MUSU. Loss of interest of target group and funding agencies is also a threat for MUSU. Opportunity New students are coming with new ideas and they need a platform to share their opinions and interests. MUSU can be an effective platform to raise voices over various issues. Many students want to support their education by themselves and seek part-time or freelance jobs. MUSU can offer a platform to them by collecting the details of organisations in need of such students and students who need these part times job option. This can be promoted by the website as well as the magazine of the Union. V. Evaluation of the Present Strategies At present MUSU has been involved in various activities. The product and services offered by it includes magazine MUD, welfare services, academic support to the students, a platform to start their own committee or interest group, hall council to address students grievance or inconvenience, unique Time bank services, marketing opportunities to the advertisers and promotions agencies, information regarding policies, constitution and representatives and services, welfare services deal with range of services and problems related to different students and student groups and provides services to them. It takes up various academic issues like plagiarism and other student problems to provide them guidance and assistance to deal with these problems. In nutshell MUSU have tried to deal with all kind of issues of students in the university whether the issue is related to financials, academic, personal like marriage, divorce or against racism and tried to provide and effective platform and channel of communication among students and university. The credibility of MUSU has been an area of concern after its loss to the catering services. It has tried to meet up the filled place by offering additional services and launching new platforms. It needs to be more proactive to understand the needs of various students and student group and try to create services based on that. The percentage of students from outside EU in the Middlesex University is more than 25%. Apart from that students from EU also come from diverse parts of EU. In such scenario the support services for the students coming from outside London can be increased and be more effective. MUSU needs to ponder upon the strategies it follows and should make change according to the profile of students to be effective. It need to be careful for its budget planning and should have more fund raising services to lessen its dependency on the University. It has got a good number of members in its hand and for any marketing or advertising organisation this can provide a good source for market research or product testing. All these need to be in coherence with the University policies. VI. Developing and Evaluation of Alternative Strategies Ansoff’s Growth Vector Matrix is a useful framework which is used fro detecting intensive growth opportunities. In the Figure one can see the two vectors are showing markets and products from existing to new. With each combination of markets and products the marketing strategy of the organisation should change. When the marketer wants to serve the existing market with existing product they need to encourage customer to buy more products and services. Marketer can also look at competitors’ customer to attract them to buy their products or can encourage non users to make their buying decisions in the favour of the product or services of the company. In such cases number of advertisement promotions will increase. Figure: Ansoff Growth Vector Matrix In the case where organisation has new market with to serve with existing products it adopts market development strategies. In such cases effective market study plays important role where the organization collects knowledge about the target group on different social and demographic parameters. This help in launching products and adopting effective promotion and distribution strategies. In the case of product development two main strategies can be adopted. The first is upgrading the existing product and the second is launching new products for existing market. The decision regarding up gradation of product or new product launch depends on various factors like the stage of life cycle of the existing product, changes in buying behaviour of the target customers and funds and resources available to the organisation. The diversification strategies are adopted when the organisation wants to serve new market with new products or services. This is the strategy which involves the highest risk. It is very important for the marketer to do the market study properly and make decisions carefully. In this case the market is existing market because student union is related to specific institution. MUSU need not to think more about its competitors or market share. The thing which is important for it is offering more and more services effectively and efficiently within the budget available so that the students get benefited by it. This will help MUSU to keep the students associated with the Union and the effectiveness of Union will be safe. VII. Recommendations The strategies which MUSU can adopt in its given scenario are ‘Market Penetration’ and ‘Product Development Strategies’. MUSU has an existing market. It needs to focus on the services which it is offering. MUSU can also develop new services to the various students groups. It can focus on improving the existing services by finding out from the students about their view on those services. The student survey and feedback forms will help Union to find out the areas where the service is lacking or how the service can be improved further. The student survey or feedback forms should be friendly, simple and should be able to fill up quickly. The feedbacks data can be analysed with the simple MS Excel sheets. The participation can be increased by offering “Blogging” or “Group” discussion facilities on the website. The website can be developed to more interactive website where various members apart from the staff can participate and discuss various issues. The rights of members and staff can be defined well in advance. The MUSU can also act as a platform to facilitate part time jobs or flexible working offers from the companies and various organisations to the students. This will help needy students to meet their financial demands. It can maintain a database of the companies and organisations willing to provide part time, contract, freelance or flexible working options to the students and profiles of the students willing to do particular job. This will increase the value of MUSU services. This will also support students to find out summer jobs or work as soon as they finish their courses. The communication and coordination among various functional groups of MUSU should be very effective. With proper coordination and support the organisation can effectively manage its services within limited budget and achieve its goals. VIII. Budgetary Implications This organisation gets funds from University for its various programs. Apart from that it also has magazine MUD which provides revenues. Even the formation of new societies by the students is based on their contribution. Various advertisement opportunities to the marketers and advertisers are another source of income. But there are various areas where the expenses occur. It spends on students’ activities and support services. It is spend to meet the administrative cost and general expenses. There are strict policies for the way money is being spent. In any case MUSU has to operate within budgetary limits. It poses a big threat in front of MUSU if it is not able to function within the budget. The services which it offers can be given to external agencies as it has been done for its commercial areas like shops, bars, cafeterias and entertainments. The new services recommend can be implemented on the basis of existing structure. The blogging and group discussion services need development of additional web pages with specific programming. The development of placement services can also be done on a pilot basis by the existing staff and set up. It can also be made a revenue centre later by charging organisations a nominal fee for each candidate. IX. Implementations Implementation of these strategies can take one to three months based on the availability of resources. All these need to be done with a proper planning and control. Phase 1 Collecting Information regarding various services and students perceptions and views about the usefulness and effectiveness of the services, Collecting information about the services which can help them in future and feeding the data in proper format Analysis of data Phase 2 Based on the analysis offerings can be improved or new offerings can be developed Phase 3 Prototype study of improved offerings or new offerings Phase 3 Based on the results of prototype study implementing the final project with/without changes Phase 4 Monitoring and control of the new or upgraded services X. Conclusion There are various areas where MUSU can improve its services and adopt new strategies to improve its marketing strategies. It can increase the involvement of the students by providing those better services and effective platform for expression of their view, ideas or to get support. All these can be done within limited budget and on the existing set up. XI. References McDonough, W. and M. Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, New York: North Point Press, 2002 Pratt, J., Gordon, P. and Plamping, D. 1999. Working Whole Systems: Putting theory into practice in organisations. London: King’s Fund Piercy, Nigel F, Market Led Strategic Change, Butterworth Heinemann, 3 e, Charted Institute of Marketing Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, Prentice-Hall Inc. New Jersy, 10th Edition, 2000 Kotter, J. and Schlesinger, L. 1979. Choosing strategies for change. 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