Analysis

Discuss about the International Marketing for Australian Education Services.

Australian education services are currently exporting to China with the capital of worth $4 billion in 2013-14 as per the federal government (Dou, Yoo & Ma, 2003). Communication going on between the government for enhancing the opportunities for Australian education service marketing is ongoing, and the demand for China for the services remain active at both the tertiary and school level with the universities. As per the various sources, Australian vision is to teach around 10 million abroad students within a present decade (Dou, Yoo & Ma, 2003). The government of China holds high ambition for bringing reforms in the educational sector. It includes the intention towards developing the various world-class universities by the year 2020 and by 2050 to have the best education system to become best in the world. Along with this, Australian education service is planning to send students to China, due to the educational growth in China and various opportunities to expand (Dou, Yoo & Ma, 2003). The primary results of the china-Australia free trade agreement are the intention of China to get listed in around 77 private higher educational institutions of China on the website of Ministry of Education (Dou, Yoo & Ma, 2003). The desire of China for conducting the educational programs can offer some excellent opportunities for educational service providers of Australia (Dou, Yoo & Ma, 2003). This report had successfully tried to discuss the possibilities for Australian service providers in China, and what all challenges they face in the China. Strong recommendations at improving and mitigate the issues is also offered.

China is the largest export market for the educational services within Australia. It accounts for around AUD4 billion worth of investment by the year 2013, and this investment is highly protected (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003). The FTA had offered the unimportant benefits to the educational providing companies of Australia by adding government named websites, but again this site is the core channel that exists for the students to select the educational preparation institution for studying abroad and this website is quite trusted (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003). This website includes around 77 organizations, which are added in the previous 105 institutions of Australia (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003).

In fact, it is noted that around 90% of the students in China are studying in Australia, selected from the provider list, placed on the website of Ministry (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003). It is most likely to offer the enhanced exposure, and finally, students demand to the educational providers in Australia (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003). While Australia is known as one of the countries, which spends less on the training and research by the year 2013, and the ratio was around 0.44% of the total GDP dedicated to research; China is heavily investing in the work of investigation (Mahesh, Ford & Latour, 2003). The GDP of China devote to the education had also enhanced by 3.93% in the year 2011 and the same increased up to 4.15% by the year 2014.

Review the Literature and Industry Publications

The China is also working towards upgrading the system of technical training and its programs too. Recently, Chain had announced the three-year action plan for promoting the professional and technical training (Pavlou & Chai, 2002). Just like, most of the universities of the world, China too is planning to enhanced the global students towards international recognition (Pavlou & Chai, 2002). The government of China, for the benefit of Australian education providers, had come up with 10-year plan to enhance the number of global students from 265090 in the year 2010 to around 5 lakh by 2020 (Pavlou & Chai, 2002). The aim of these programs is to enhance the diploma and degree students over the period (Pavlou & Chai, 2002). It is true that universities in Australia are highly concern about the impact of the rising of universities in China, which will later on demand for the Australian courses because the students of China account for around 30% of the global student population of Australia (Pavlou & Chai, 2002).

China is considered as the largest educational service market from Australia, having a value of $4 billion between the years 2013-14 (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005). The Chinese and Australian government had approved to work in coordination towards enhancing the recruitment and marketing opportunities for the educational institutions of Australia in China (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005). Along with this, both China and Australia students and teachers exchange their knowledge, and offer Australians with the cultural and language skills, to engage meaningfully with China (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005).

The government of Australia is also highly committed to improving the reputation of Australia for offering quality education and work towards every Australian education institution for the purpose of increasing the opportunities, which are presented through the high demand for the educational services within China (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005). The agreement of China has listed within study abroad website, including round 77 Australian private educational institutions, and the country had successfully gained the excellent results, due to the quality as well as the reputation of the Australian education (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005). It also clearly depicts the high in the context of China for the robust regulatory framework of Australia (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005). China had also approved towards discussing the services and programs offered to Australian students in China (Misko, Liu, Jiang, Wu & Wang, 2005).

What are the main Opportunities for the Firm in China/region in China?

With the rise in international trade, the global economy as well as the globalization of English usage more, Chinese are accepting students from abroad, to gain the understanding about the intercultural, for obtaining the personal independence, as well as to attain the goals of individual academic (Mazzarol & Soutar, 1999). Students of Australia are the highest source of abroad students coming in China (Mazzarol & Soutar, 1999). One the fundamental reason for the Chinese universities to accept students from overseas is to enhance their English competence as well as to improve the communicative ability with others (Mazzarol & Soutar, 1999). But at the same time, Australian companies face a challenge in the China, as the use of English language is less and the intercultural issues still exist (Mazzarol & Soutar, 1999).

One of the impacts of the increase in globalization of the English language is the significant rise in the various interaction between intercultural (Mazzarol, Soutar, Smart & Choo, 2001). More and more people are getting involved in the communication with the communities and foreigners, which had raised multicultural and multilingual issues (Mazzarol, Soutar, Smart & Choo, 2001). In result of the international trend, Australian education services are getting more and more populated with the enormous diversity of the students coming from different countries around the world, including the Australian students as the high global student population in China (Mazzarol, Soutar, Smart & Choo, 2001). Despite of the Australian student’s prominence in Chinese universities, the previous studies had revealed that students of Australia faced issues in China, because Chinese prefer to get mix with the people of their same community, instead of interacting with the students coming from different cultural backgrounds (Mazzarol, Soutar, Smart & Choo, 2001).

Garnaut (2010) had analyzed that Chinese native language and culture create influence on both the verbal as well as nonverbal communication on the students of Australia in China, as Chinese cannot interact in English correctly and they try to use their native Chinese language (Garnaut 2010). From both the interview and survey conducted with the Australian student immigrants in China, it is explored that both the nonverbal and verbal communication is profoundly embodied with the customs and cultural values (Lin, 2005). It is pointed that both the culture and background of China impacts the Australian way of life and sometimes it do create miscommunication and challenges in the new environment of living (Lin, 2005). It is specifically discussed that it might create influence through the variation in social status, opportunities of work, the approach used in the academic study, verbal and nonverbal communications, and recreation when Australian students study within the new cultural community (Liu, 2003). The non-native language acquisition through the immigrant is considered as culture-orientation (Luo, 2002). It is true that more one is ready to embrace the culture, the more one can tune towards the language of culture, and in the result of that one can quickly become competent with the language (James, Ma, Hooke & Larden, 2005).

What are the Challenges for the Firm in China?

In China, private kindergarten, secondary and primary schools are going to China, and they provide the supplement English training to all the people between the ages of 2-18. These areas are developed and marketed with the interactive learning tools, which are mainly designed to provide a supplement to the previous textbooks of China and get involved in the products of electronic learning. Particularly, the segment of training education, includes K12 tutoring, childhood education as well as vocational training, both personal and corporate, are considered as the key driver of expansion in coming time. Australian educational service also focuses on online education segment that includes content sharing as well as associated derivatives as the critical trends for development. The content production profit point exist in the real teaching content. Australian educational services also emphasize over the China international education cooperative sector, which is divided into three categories, such as the jointly managed department of China and Australia, jointly administered schools of China and Australia, and cooperative programs between China and Australia. Cooperative education segment of China and Australia is matured in the segment of higher education that penetrates in all the three categories.

In the modern time internet is one of the primary media for marketing the product or services in the international market (James, Ma, Hooke & Larden, 2005). In various areas, the internet is the best source for communicating with the customers (James, Ma, Hooke & Larden, 2005). In the case of marketing the product and services of Australian education services in the Chinese market, the internet can be used as a best medium in contacting students and in informing them about the courses and programs going in different Chinese universities (James, Ma, Hooke & Larden, 2005). As per the agreement between the Australian and Chinese education sector, students from Australia can study in Chain, due to the present of various educational opportunities over there (Hayhoe & Qiang, 2004).

Through online marketing, consumer demands could be easily understood, as there can be direct interaction between the educational providers and students (Binsardi & Ekwulugo, 2003). In the present time, many Australian companies are coming up with different educational programs at various cost and facilities and customers can select them, as per their interest and budget (Binsardi & Ekwulugo, 2003). Through internet market, it becomes easier to modify the product and service as per the demands of the customers (Binsardi & Ekwulugo, 2003). In the world of social media, it has become easier to promote the products at the different platform by using Google ads, social media ads, etc. (Binsardi & Ekwulugo, 2003).

Social media has become an integral part of the education sector in both Australia and young Chinese generation (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005). Using social platforms like Weibo, one can easily sell their products and services as the part of the digital marketing strategy within China (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005). The education providers take benefit of all these online communication channels.

The educational providers can facilitate the group chats, which relates to courses, college, and universities, which are effective (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005). Direct interaction with the students over the platform of social media si efficient. It can be considered as an excellent opportunity to efficiently disseminate the content in China market, which could be shared with many users (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005).

It is important to take proper time, in understanding how this network should work, and operate over the various digital landscape (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005). The internet marketing ways can help in boosting the different functions like gaming, messenger, e-wallet, micro-stores, and social network (Boone, 2006). The internet marketing strategies can easily employ and transferred (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005). Various educational providers are adopting it and marketing their products and services (Bremner, Hibbard, Rosenbush & Green, 2005).

References

Binsardi, A & Ekwulugo, F. (2003). ‘International marketing of British education: research on the students’ perception and the UK market penetration’. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 21(5), 1-6.

Boone, J. (2006). ‘Decline in Chinese student numbers seen as permanent Asian powerhouse is pouring resources into its own university system’. Financial Times

Bremner, B, Hibbard, J, Rosenbush, S & Green, H. (2005). ‘There’s more where Baidu came from’. Businessweek

Dou, W, Yoo, B, & Ma, L. (2003). ‘Consumer patronage of ethnic portals’. International Marketing Review, 20(6), 1-5.

Garnaut, R. 2010. ‘Australian opportunities through the Chinese structural transformation’. The Australian Economic Review, 4(4), 1-5.

Hayhoe, R & Qiang, Z. (2004). ‘Becoming world class: Chinese universities facing globalisation and internationalisation’. Harvard China Review, 5(1), 1-7.

James, P, Ma, T, Hooke, A & Larden, D. (2005). ‘Transnational trials, tribulations and translation—Taming the tiger!’ Proceedings of Breaking Down Barriers Conference. Adelaide: Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia

Lin, J. (2005). ‘Internet: China internet plays point way to success with customization’. Hong Kong Media Journal, 3, 1-7

Liu, Y. (2003). ‘Firm-based training’. China: Central Institute for Vocational & Technical Education

Luo, Y. (2002). ‘Partnering with foreign firms: How do Chinese managers view the governance and importance of contracts?’ Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 19(1), 1-6.

Mahesh, N., Ford, J, & Latour, M. (2003). Cultural Dimensions of Switching Behavior in Importer-Exporter Relationships. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 1, 1-13.

Mazzarol, T & Soutar, G. (1999). ‘Sustainable competitive advantage for educational institutions: a suggested model’. The International Journal of Educational Management, 13(6), 1-13.

Mazzarol, T, Soutar, G, Smart, D & Choo, S. (2001). ‘Perceptions, information and choice: Understanding how Chinese students select a country for overseas study’. Australian Education International

Misko, J, Liu, J, Jiang, D, Wu, Q & Wang Z. (2005). ‘Linking vocational education and training with industry in Australia and China’. China: National Centre for Vocational Education Research

Pavlou, P. & Chai, L. (2002). What Drives Electronic Commerce Across Cultures? A Cross-Cultural Empirical Investigation of the Theory of Planned Behavior. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 3 (4), 240-253.