Building and developing brand name the case of eastern interational university

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business  Mai Son Tung BUILDING AND DEVELOPING BRAND NAME THE CASE OF EASTERN INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY ID: 22140060 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF TRAN HA MINH QUAN Year 2016 Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION Overview of the market of higher education in Vietnam History and Profile of Eastern International University STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS Brief description of beginning process Summary the result of in depth interview The point of view of the director of marketing department The point of view of EIU students Statement of problem Initial identification of possible problems The problem of market segmentation 10 The problem of brand positioning 12 Cause and effect tree .15 SOLUTION GENERATION 18 Objectives 18 Designed requirement 19 Solutions development 19 Stage 1: Market segmentation and potential customer identification .20 Stage 2: Brand Positioning 23 Stage 3: Adjusting and developing marketing programs .28 Solution evaluation .32 The core standards 32 The supplementary standards 33 CONCLUSION 33 REFERENCES 36 APPENDIX .37 Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Eastern International University (EIU) is a new university in the market of higher education in Vietnam The school was established in 2010 with 100% initial capital by the Becamex Corporation in Binh Duong province The school was oriented to be the leader in training high quality of human resource for the Eastern and Southern areas However, since 2011, they have not yet achieved their target in confirmation EIU brand name in the market of higher education This document supplied the reference and suggestion to create and discover potential initiative in building and developing EIU brand name through a real research at EIU Method of analysis include horizontal analyses as well as qualitative data from indepth interview with the marketing department and EIU students In the period between 2011 and 2016, the enrollment result of the school was disappointed The brand name of EIU in mind of the community was faded and inconsistent Year Target of Enrollment Real Enrollment 2011 1,000 742 2012 1,000 551 2013 1,500 428 2014 1,500 377 2015 1,000 477 2016 1,000 290 Result from the indepth interview and data analysed show that the problem is unclear in market segmentation and brand positioning It made the brand strategy of the school was very weak Therefore my research has a purpose to propose an avenue to strengthen the brand strategy of EIU for building and developing the brand name of Eastern International University among communities The designed solutions need to satisfy three big requirements There are the functional requirements, user requirements and last but not least is boundary conditions - Functional requirements: Improve the result of enrollment, clear and consistent brand image in mind of the community Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University - User requirements: The solutions are appropriate with the number and ability of employees in the marketing department - Boundary conditions: The level of budget for enrollment, the policies of Becamex IDC, the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training I devided the process of applying solutions into three big stages: Stage 1: Clear market segmentation and potential customer identification Stage 2: Clarification of brand postioning Stage 3: Adjustment of marketing department When EIU could clarify who are their potential customer They could be clear in positioning brand name and set up marketing programs to approach their customer more effectively and economically It make students perceive the brand image of the school and strengthen EIU brand name I also set up standards for evaluation the effect of our solutions could be divided into core and supplementary The core standards include number students in one year of enrollment, cost in enrollment one student and the index of brand awareness especially the top of mind The supplementary standards includethe feed back from potential students and the brand perception of potential customers However we have to admit that improvement internal power is the best solution in long term for any university to exis and develop in a fiercely competitive market of higher education INTRODUCTION Overview of the market of higher education in Vietnam Since 2010, the number of university in Vietnam has increased significantly A booming in the market of higher education led to fierce competition and thus caused many difficulties for universities especially is the private sector in remaining their activities The demand for studying at university in Vietnam in recent years was decreased steadily while the supply was increasing significantly Therefore students would have many more choices for studying at university in comparison with the past It caused problems for private universities in enrollment because students would have priority to apply to public school For the purpose of competition with other schools, many universities were trying to Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University reduce their entry requirements It lead to a lower quality input in comparison with the past The gap in receiving favor from the Government between public and private universities was very high Therefore competition among public and private schools in Vietnam was unfair In recent years, the growth of economic conditions and international cooperation in Vietnam create high demand for studying abroad or studying in an English environment In conclusion, the market of higher education in Vietnam is extremely competitive It created many obstacles and challenges for new comers However, it also had opportunities which a new school could exploit to be existed and developed further History and Profile of Eastern International University Eastern International University was found by Becamex IDC Corporation in 2010 in Binh Duong province, one of provinces that generates a significant contribution for the country’s GDP and overall economic wealth of the country The school began to enroll their first cohort of new students in 2011 In the period between 2011 and 2015, the school achieved over 2,500 students in total The school focused on three main field of education: Business Administration, Engineering and Nursing The advantage of the school is support from Becamex Corporation Becamex is renowned as one of the country’s largest industrial park operators, proudly hosting over 13,000 businesses located in seven industrial parks and infrastructure hubs EIU is surrounded by Binh Duong New City, the future hub of the province, which by 2020 is predicted to require over 150,000 working professional Based on the supporting from Becamex IDC Corporation, EIU could obtain a close relationship with around 5,000 foreign companies in total of 13,000 enterprises in controlling of Becamex IDC In order to successfully address the needs required, EIU’s mission includes fundamentally serving the community of Binh Duong and sustaining the local growing business sector with fully qualified and highly skilled graduates EIU students will absorb a truly international learning environment Students will experience a valuable mix of modern academic facilities, a native speaking specialist English center, a unique pedagogy of teaching and learning methods, and challenging international curriculum subjects regularly designed to match current business requirements Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS Brief description of beginning process Despite very high efforts from the board of directors of EIU in bringing brand name of EIU into the communities In the period between 2011 and 2016, EIU has not yet achieved their target in enrollment new students Their enrollment result decreased steadily from year to year EIU also found that it was hard for them to recruit high quality researchers or professors The table below show the real result of enrollment at EIU from 2011 to 2015: Year Target of Enrollment Real Enrollment 2011 1,000 742 2012 1,000 551 2013 1,500 428 2014 1,500 377 2015 1,000 477 2016 1,000 290 Their enrollment was low in comparison with other international university For example RMIT easily achieved enrollment from 1,200 to 1,500 students every year Some other international universities also got a quite optimistic result with around from 700 to 1,000 students such as SIU or FPT In comparison with universities in Binh Duong province, the result of enrollment at EIU was very low Thu Dau Mot University could enroll nearly 2,000 new students in one year, while Binh Duong University could get between 800 and 1,000 university In Binh Duong, there were around 8,000 students who would register to study at university annually However EIU could only attract from 200 to 250 students among them These numbers made me considered that EIU had low result in their enrollment performance There were many students who used to visit EIU or participated enrollment activities at the school, but they did not come back after finishing the national examination I consider that there are many possible reasons would cause these problems For example, a lack of effective marketing programs could make students not know school brand name Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University or have negative evaluations about the school Brand equity is an essential factor to create huge advantages in competition with other schools Universities which have a celebrated and trustworthy brand name can enroll high standard students, setting a high level of tuition fee and have many chances to cooperate with enterprises Student who come from these universities have advantages in apply to both domestic and foreign companies In addition, a bright brand name is also an appealing factor to attract talented researchers, scientists and professors On the other hand, universities which have low brand name would found many difficulties in enrollment new student or recruitment new talented lecturers Another reason would be the policy of the school A high entry requirement or the high tuition fee would be obstacles for recruitment new students For the purpose of identification the key problems which caused low performance in enrollment at EIU I decided to contact with Mrs Thu Trang, the director of the marketing department to make some of in depth interview The marketing department is the functional part of the school which have responsibility in running all of marketing program Therefore I believed that after my in depth interview with the director of the marketing department I would clarify the orientation in building and developing brand of EIU and thus I could identify clearly real problems happening I also decided to make in depth interviews with some EIU students who live in Binh Duong province and Ho Chi Minh City to clarify the basic information including the reason why these students chose to study at EIU, what were their expectations, what is the channel student got most of information about EIU and thus I could make a comparison about gap between the real factors of EIU’s potential customers and the point of view of EIU’s top managers I believed these information could be useful supplement reference for me in problems identification and designing potential solutions to improve the marketing department performance Summary the result of in depth interview The point of view of the director of marketing department According to the manager of the marketing department, EIU carried out enrollment in the whole country They also focused on provinces belong to the South and East, especially is Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City They considered that most people in Binh Duong Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University province know about the school but in other provinces the brand name of EIU still very faint However the marketing department did not have specific information to support her consideration In the point of view of the marketing director, EIU is trying to enroll as many student as possible because they considered that if they approach a high number of students they could increase their successful rate in enrollment They set up a quite low entry criteria and supply high entry scholarship for student who have high result in the national examination EIU is trying to approach as many high school as possible Year by year, they established enrollment activities in many high school in Binh Duong province, Ho Chi Minh city and the vicinities of Binh Duong such as Long An and Dong Nai province In Ho Chi Minh City, the school used to organize festival of information of enrollment in top and middle class high schools like Bui Thi Xuân high school, Thu Duc high school, Nguyen Khuyen high school, Long Truong high school and so forth In Binh Duong province, every year the school organized event of information in over 20 high schools in total of 26 high schools The budget for enrollment of the school is limited and control by Becamex Corporation The budget was not clear for each year It depend on the decision of Becamex Corporation, therefore the marketing department is very passive in preparing enrollment budget The point of view of EIU students Students living in Binh Duong province Students know the brand name of EIU because they participated some of enrollment activities of the school They also received brochure of EIU from their high school They expected to study in a popular public university because of the cheap tuition fee and an expectation of easy job finding in future They thought that EIU was still new and did not have high brand name The students chose EIU as their second choice They registered to the school because of recommendation from their parents, their friend’s choice or the location of the school When recall the brand name of EIU, the image was different in the case of distinct students One student perceived that EIU was a very advantageous in English environment However the perception of another student is advantageous in supporting from a big enterprise Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University Students living in Ho Chi Minh City Student know about EIU because the school used to establish a counseling program of enrollment in EIU Students found impressive about the infrastructure of the school and she love the English environment of EIU However in the national examination she chose the international university Ho Chi Minh City as the first choice However her national examination result was only 15, therefore she could not pass the IU and decided to study at EIU They expected to study in IU because it located in Ho Chi Minh City which close to her home In addition, most of her friend also studied in Ho Chi Minh City When I remind the name of EIU she think about English and high tuition fee She chose EIU as the second choice because her good feeling when visiting EIU and she decided by herself However the first choice was IU based on both her decision and advises from her family Statement of problem Initial identification of possible problems In the general overview, I considered that the performance of EIU in enrollment would be affected by two types of environmental factors They are external environmental factors and internal environmental factors It mean that the possible problems which cause low performance in enrollment at EIU during the past could be factors which occurred within EIU or factors which took place outside of the school The possible problems belong to internal factors would be high tuition fee, high entry requirement, limited ability of marketing employees, restricted budget for enrollment activities or inefficient marketing program In the meanwhile, the external problems could be threat from competitors, political or cultural factors, regulations from the Government, the situation of market of higher education in Vietnam and so forth However if we consider the external factors we could see that these problems are objective and the school is not able to affect to it by themselves In addition, even suffering the same condition of external environment but some private universities could remain a positive result in enrollment For example RMIT Vietnam could easily achieve from 1200 to 1500 new students in one year of enrollment Therefore I considered that the internal factors would be able to affect significantly to the result of enrollment of private universities and if we could solve these Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University problems we would improve the performance of EIU in enrollment activities Therefore, in initial identification, I decided to focus on solving problems from internal environment of the school The problem of market segmentation The first category is EIU was confusing in market segmentation They has not yet had clear criteria for segmentation of the market of higher education to clarify their targeted customers EIU also segment the higher education market by geographic criteria They had priority in running enrollment programs in the South East of Vietnam, especially are Binh Duong province, Ho Chi Minh City and the vicinities of Binh Duong including Dong Nai, Long An and Binh Phuoc In geographic market segmentation EIU clarified it in the level of province It mean that people who live in different towns or districts in the same province would be considered to belong in one group EIU also segment the market by the academic performance of high school students They provided entry scholarship to attract excellent students who have high score in national examination However EIU still try to approach as many students as possible by setting up a very low entry score to achieve their target with around 1,000 students every year According to the marketing department, there was around 90% high school student in Binh Duong recognized EIU brand name The proportion would be around 30% in Ho Chi Minh City and from 25% to 30% in the vicinities of Binh Duong including Dong Nai province, Binh Phuoc province and Long An province The data of structure of EIU students which was collected from the office of academic affair at EIU also support the picture of the marketing department: Year Binh Duong Ho Chi Minh City Dong Nai, Long An Others 2013 50% 24% 11% 15% 2014 58% 25% 6% 11% 2015 55% 23% 8% 14% However, based on the result of the interview with EIU’s students, we could see that many students chose EIU as their second choice instead of the first choice and they studied at EIU because they did not meet the criteria to register to public universities in Ho Chi Minh City 10 ... Unclear in brand positioning Weak Brand name Lack of faith New Brand name 16 Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University We could see that the symptom of EIU... comparison with other universities However we could not interfere into 17 Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University the problem of new brand name Therefore we... that their brand strategy was very dim and weak Therefore the solutions which help EIU building and developing brand name should meet requirement to strengthen and clarify their brand strategy The