Multi-Campus Marketing Strategy for Saudi Arabian Students - Research Paper Example

PROJECT INITIATION DOCUMENT By Affiliation: Table of Contents Project Initiation Document 2 1.0Project Justification 2 1.1Project Aim 2 1.2Project Objectives 2 1.3Key Performance Indicators 3 1.4Rationale 3 1.5Resources 4 1.6Possible Constraints 5 2.0 Business Case 5 2.1 Potential Issues 5 2.2 Potential Benefits 6 2.3 Potential Outcomes 7 2.0Project Approach 7 3.1 Budget Constraints 7 3.2 Student Participation 8 4.0 Research Methodology 8 4.1 Structured Interview and Application 8 5.0 Project Management Structure 9 6.0 Quality Management Strategy 10 6.3 Project Plan 10 7.0 Controls 11 7.1 Risk Assessment 11 References 12 Project Initiation Document 1.0 Project Justification 1.1 Project Aim To Device a Multi-Campus Marketing Strategy for recruiting Saudi Arabian Students into studying at Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses. 1.2 Project Objectives This project aims at developing a business plan for Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses in order to recruit Saudi Arabian students in efforts to increase the number of international students enrolling to the UK higher education system. However, this project aims to create a platform in which the selected campuses can use to recruit international students. In the UK context, from the year 2012 towards the start of 2014, the number of international students in the UK higher education system had suffered a drop of 49% (Universities UK, 2014). With other regions offering international higher education courses such as Canada, US, and China; the demand for UK higher education has declined (Universities UK, 2014). In this case, the project aims to accomplish the following objectives: a. To plan and design a marketing strategy that will enable Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses to recruit Saudi Arabia b. To mobile Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses into inviting demand for UK higher education. c. To ensure that the decrease in overall international students’ enrolment is offset through recruitment of Saudi Arabia Students d. To tap the high demand for higher education from Saudi Arabian students 1.3 Key Performance Indicators The project is determined to ensure that; a. Increase in the number of students enrolling to Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses with 50% and at least 15% more to the UK higher education system. b. Target and attract Saudi Arabian students to Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses to promote diversity and meet the high demand for higher education. 1.4 Rationale Three areas provide the rationale for this project. Firstly, the UK higher education sector has suffered significant drop of 49% in enrolling international students. Secondly, sectors such as U.S., Canada, and China have increased demand as UK system continues to drop. Third, following political stability and economic improvements, a higher number of Saudi students is seeking higher education institutions to study in. The decrease in the number of international students studying in the UK from the year 2012 to 2014 has impacted various areas of the education system. It is considered that higher education adds significant contribution to the national GDP and also invited diversity. However, following the decrease in students, it is difficult to sustain the system. This project aims at providing a platform that would enable UK universities to recruit Saudi Arabian students in an effort to regulate the drop and sustain full capacity tutoring. The increase in the number of international students taking courses in the U.S., Canada, and China can be attributed to the drop of international students in the UK. Thus, this project aims at targeting Saudi Arabian students in order to prevent the UK education system from collapsing (Universities UK, 2014). The project serves the purpose of inviting Saudi Arabian students to fill the gap that has recently been experienced through international students’ demand for higher education in other sectors. Finally, Saudi Arabia is a Middle East nation that depends on oil. A stable political environment and wealth generation has spawned a generation that requires higher education to manage businesses. Due to increased demand, the project targets Saudi Arabian students who have recently increased in international higher education systems. However, following the high demand, the project aims at providing a recruitment platform that attracts some of this demand. 1.5 Resources The resources for use in this project are limited to the currently available personal and personal savings. The project does not have a set budget with reference to the anticipated activities and objectives. However, based on the tasks required to complete the project, personal savings and donations will efficiently contribute towards meeting the requirements. Human resource will comprise of only one participant as this is a personal project. However, four specific responsibilities will be taken into consideration (see project-management-structure section) (Terri, 2006). Premises on the other hand will be needed in order to provide humble environment for carrying out the project work. However, regardless of the fact that there will the need for field work, premises used will include both campus library and public libraries outside the school for discussion purposes only when it is necessary. In addition, primary research will be required to establish the academic strategy as well as competitive advantage of each of the campuses considered (Elizabeth, 2009). Finally, a marketing strategy that will target Saudi Arabia students requires the use of communication channels. In this case, the project will utilise social networks to mobilize and attract participants while it will also depend on resources such as internet connection to facilitate communication. Saudi Arabia students attaining the age of attending higher education use various communications methods and a common method is the use of the internet. Thus, this project will utilise the internet to host a website that will be advertising to the target students. The site will be linked to social media such that an appearance of an ad on the social sites can redirect a user to the website if he/she clicked. 1.6 Possible Constraints There are only two possible constraints of this project namely budget and participation management. In terms of budget, the project does not have an external donor or sponsor and therefore, regardless of whether the project will be adapted upon completion or not, it is a personal duty to ensure the completion of the project at the lowest possible cost while maintaining quality standard, nevertheless. On the other hand, the issue of participation management is anticipated based on the fact that target students will be considered as control group from which a sample will be picked to participate in the project. Thus, a challenge is associated with the possible disinterest of Saudi Students to participate in a non-Islamic research. This approach is likely to cause or promote conflict between project mission and potential Saudi Arabia Students (Gary, 2005). 2.0 Business Case 2.1 Potential Issues The project’s ambition is to develop a multi-campus business strategy for attracting Saudi Students to the four considered campuses, Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London. This purpose brings to attention the expected overreliance on information technology. In this case, the project will use information technology in the form of internet and social networks to ensure that students are capable of finding and making use of the marketing information available regarding courses, campuses, and academic qualifications. Thus, for students with no internet access or social media accessibility, an anticipated challenge will be the inability to reach them. Additionally, due to budget constraints, an alternative method to reach students without social media and internet access will not be applicable (Harold, 2009). 2.2 Potential Benefits The potential benefits of the project at hand are to expand the UK higher education sector which has suffered a drop of over 49% on a span of two year and to recruit more international students. Although the projects aims at developing business strategy for Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses, it targets the students and therefore offers these institutions an upper hand that attracts students to the UK institutions in defense of student enrolment in other regions. With reference to time management, the use of an online marketing approaches through the use of adverts and placement of package-based packages, students will cut the time-insensitive duty of moving from one location to another in search for information for personal inquiries on fees, course-packages, and academic landscape of the campus at hand. The cost management benefit of this project is that it will cut all the costs associated with inquiry movements made by students in the process of registering for courses (Schmidt, 2009). Additionally, it will reduce the costs associated with making hard copies of credentials and offer a faster way of assimilating student information with their institution of choice. Hence, the long queues anticipated during registration periods will be offset as most of the requirements and qualification analyses will have been completed online. Linking the social platform, which will be the communication tool with a dedicated website will enable adherent students to click and follow an advertisement link on their social pages (Patrick, 2005) 2.3 Potential Outcomes The potential outcomes of the project are as follows a. A stop to the damaging decrease on international student’s enrolment in UK higher education sector. b. Accommodating as many as 75% of the Saudi Arabian students looking forward to joining higher education. c. Decrease the ability of other sectors, such as U.S., Canada, and China from acquiring the entire international student market. 2.0 Project Approach Based on the business case and the corresponding problems, it is required that solutions to these potentially harmful issues be provided before the commencement of the project. Budget constraints provide and influence lack of coherence in the completion of the project. On the other hand, the issue of student engagement is related to the challenge of participation management. The inability to mobilize students and staff members to participate in the completion of the project is considered a major setback as there will be no merit of proceeding with the project (Jack, and Samuel, 2008). 3.1 Budget Constraints Budget constraints are inevitable provided the nature and scope of this project. However, in order to ensure that the project is a success and that is meets its goals and accomplishes the identified objectives, a solution must be provided for the challenge. One among the strategies to ensure that the budget constraints do not interfere with the quality and progress of the project, is to ensure that costs of all activities, resources, and efforts are as minimal as possible such that the project manager will be able to raise the amount effectively. Additionally, the project is tasked with the need to engage staff members of Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses to lend in financial help provided the project outcome may boost enrolment in the specific institutions. 3.2 Student Participation Student engagement is a vital input for this project as it is through the students that the project develops validity. Additionally, the number of students required to participate in the project should be at least 85% of the total students forecasted to enroll to different campuses. Thus, in order to attain the 75% mark in terms of success in usability, in total the students must be 10% higher than the desired number. This considers 10%-points as the margin of error stating lack of participation or disqualification of participants. Students’ engagement that meets the above criteria would require mobilization method from where social groups can be created using internet dependent platforms such as Facebook and Whatsapp. These platforms enable users to create social pages and groups that share common views or goals. This method is valid in that it is cost effective, inclusive of a vast number of participants, and provides real-time updates on progress and activities (Medina, & Thomas, 2002). 4.0 Research Methodology 4.1 Structured Interview and Application The structured interview will be the method of data and information collection. A structured interview is one that does not allow the participant to respond with answers outside the provided multiple-choices or criteria. In this case, the method will be applied to control for ambiguity as well as in promoting uniformity of units of measurement. Using the Likert-5 Scale, interview questions will be values from 1 to 5 with the former indicating ‘No Interest’ and the latter representing ‘Highly Interested’ (Paula, and Karen, 1997). 5.0 Project Management Structure The project will utilise four major areas that will make use of five distinct skills, as a personal project, the project management will be in charge of property management and will manage all equipment and physical tools used. Field supervision will be in charge of the activities carried out from the project sites such as Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses. Design management will be focused on providing visual design to ads and the website. Finally, project management will be in charge of tracking progress in terms of the number of activities required, completed, pending, and how they satisfy the project mission (James, 2006). 6.0 Quality Management Strategy The Strategy for use in this case is the DMAIC used in the six sigma model (Medina & Thomas, 2002). The strategy develops into the acronym, Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control. The rationale of this strategy is that is involves the use of problem definition, measurement of data, analysis of results, improvement on service or operations, and control of approaches (Medina & Thomas, 2002). The communication process for the process will engage different parties. The project management would like to acquire and analyze the survey results from the considered platform. Additionally, a communication channel must exist to communicate with the staff of the selected campuses. Finally, the business strategy should be communicated to students from Swansea, Carmarthen, Lampeter, and London campuses for support of the program. The strategic communication approach will make use of social media platform which will be used and the exclusive communication channel since the target purpose is to minimize costs and attract more Saudi Students. Budget management will benefit from the use of social media as it will reach more students at a very low cost – considering data charges. Additionally, the social media platform will provide a communication link between participants and the target campuses. On Facebook, the number of likes and responses will tell the level of support while a similar phenomenon will be considered for Twitter. Whatsapp will be used only for students who fall under the categories of friends to the project manage, as Whatsapp requires the use of contact information to generate a list of message recipients (Schmidt, 2009). 6.3 Project Plan Phase 1 Social media mobilization – the available social media platforms will be used in order to ensure that as many target Saudi Arabian students are reached. Phase 2 Proprietorship – other entities are required in support of the project such as the campuses’ staff who will be the primary beneficiaries if the project is a success. Thus a support system is essential in promoting the project thus the need for supportive mechanism (Snyder, 2009). Phase 3: Schedule the commencement and finalization dates for various tasks. This stage will require a work breakdown structure which will point out what activities are priorities and what time is required to complete each task. Additionally, the work breakdown structure will be applied to ensure that that progress is tracked and tasks, both completed and pending are outlined Phase 4 At this stage, the project will be ready for conclusion by ensuring that all the tasks are met in a timely manner and within a budget friendly approach to source. 7.0 Controls The outcome of the project will be depending on the quality controls on place. The nature of the current project is simplex and only risks will have dedicated controls. 7.1 Risk Assessment Risk assessment will utilise the DMAIC model to ensure that internal processes are geared to addressing specific challenges. The associated risks include those of incurring budget deficits, inability to meet deadlines, and wasteful use of resources. Thus through the DMAIC model, these areas will be sufficiently dealt with and contained cost effectively (Snyder, 2009). References Carl, P., & Robert, R. (2000). 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