Local Economic Impacts of Unconventional Energy

Question: Discuss about the Local Economic Impacts of Unconventional Energy. Answer: The University of Melbourne is a famous public research university that is situated in Melbourne, Australia. This university was established in the year of 1853 and is the second oldest university of Australia. As per Times Higher Education, this university is ranked 33rd in the world and Academic Ranking of World Universities has placed it as 40th in the world (Goodall, 2015). However, according to both of these organizations, The University of Melbourne is a top University in Australia. This is the reason, that this university is selected for this report. In this report, a detail description will be provided about the university including its segmentation, target market, marketing mix, PEST analysis, competitor analysis, SWOT analysis and value brand positioning. Segmentation and target market Competition is increasing among the universities of Australia and as resources constraints have become more intense, meeting the requirements of the students has become extremely important. In order to gain competitive advantage, The University of Melbourne has undertaken a unique segmentation strategy and targeting a specific market. Those are, Quality buyer: The management of the university is targeting students who are looking for premium services and are not anxious with expenses. Value buyer: There are some students who look for superior value as distinct by a fair quality-to-expense proportion (Davis Ferreira, 2017). Those students look for elevated eminence for the money exhausted and anticipate that service levels will equal the price levels. T6hese type of students is also targeted by the authority of the university. Career learner: The authority of The Melbourne University also target t hose students whose main motivation is to seek career oriented educational services. These students look to learn educational skills that can help them in their career development. As this university is the number one in Australia, it can easily target those students via its ranking and popularity. Marketing mix analysis The University of Melbourne offers nearly 80 different study areas to the students. There are more than 270 graduate courses available in the university along with a number of under graduate courses. However, along with these courses, the heath service program of the university is developed to assist the students and other staff members during health issues (Hawthorne, 2014). The university authority also provides preventive health care services to the students. All education related services are mostly provided by the online student portal of the university. On the other hand, the university is also committee to distribute education to overwhelming and increasing majority of students from disadvantaged groups. The University of Melbourne is using programmatic advertisement strategy, mainly in social media sites. As mentioned by the survey team of Zinch and Inigral Survey, 72% students search for colleges on a social media sites (Coaldrake Stedman, 2016). This is the reason, that Melbourne University is displaying their current rank along with the successful individual researches on their social media sites to showcase their brand. Australian governments, regardless of political affiliation will be increasingly monetarily constrained. This condition will remain constant for next 3-5 years, and probably beyond. Therefore, the chances are high that governmental endowment as a share of university proceeds will decrease drastically. Therefore, The University of Melbourne will have to search for methods to move further than the fight for funds relationship with administration. Australian economy strongly depends on its resource sectors, especially on its mining industry. Australia will experience a 3% growth its economy by 2018, however a decline will be seen in its resource industry (Marginson, 2015). Therefore, the chances are high that towards the end of 2017, a tightening in monetary policy will be implemented. It will definitely affect the universities of Australia along with the University of Melbourne (Fleming Measham, 2015). The educational employees in Australia are aging more than the rest of the employees in other industries. It is seen that more than 25% of the Australias educational employees is aged 55 and over, compared to only 14% for the rest of the workforce (Liu, 2015). This is a major social problem as universities along with Melbourne University will have to look for new talent to replace this workforce. Technological advancement is providing both positive and negative effects on the universities and their educational systems (Shahiduzzaman, Alam, 2014). Each of the universities in Australia has their own students portal. Thorough those portals students can easily download any type of notes and study materials without waiting for the teacher (Cahill, 2015). On the other hand, popularity of social media sites is hampering the educational development of the students. Competitor analysis The biggest competitor of The Melbourne University in The University of Sydney that is located at Camper down NSW 2006, Australia (Crain et al., 2017). Your Company (The University of Melbourne) Competitor #1 (The University of Sydney) Brand positioning and overview Number one University in Australia Ranked 33 in QS world university ranking Fourth top university in Australia Ranked 45th in QS world ranking Target market Quality buyer Value buyer Career learner Quality buyer Value buyer Career learner Social media strategies Programmatic Advertisement Not such strategies. It focuses more on campaigns than social media. Total number of social media accounts One One # of Twitter followers 73k 54k # of Facebook followers 262,121 324,161 # of Instagram followers 38.8k 23.2k # of LinkedIn followers 167k 171k # of Google+ followers Not accessible 2k Strengths Reputation for excellence Ranked #1 in Australia Flexible degrees along with world-standard curriculum It is a city with in Melbourne with its own postcode No 1 in QS employability rankings No 1 in sports r elated subjects in Australia No 1 in anatomy and physiology in Australia No 1 in Medicine related subjects in Australia No 1 in English literature subjects in Australia Threats Decline in resource sector will affect investment opportunities by government Same Competitive advantage Highest number of courses provided As per QS Graduate Employability rankings, graduates from Sydney University are the most employable in Australia. Table 1: Competitor analysis between The University of Melbourne and The University of Sydney (Source: Created by Author) SWOT analysis The University of Melbourne Strengths It offers most number of courses than any university in Australia Its health benefit plans are well organized and useful than most of the universities in Australia In Australian education industry, inequality is a major problem. This university promises to deliver education equally for every student. Its worldwide ranking that reflects its reputation Weakness Inequality in educational system Universities are dependent on government for investment Increasing average age of employees Dependant on foreign students Opportunities To deal with upcoming problems related to governmental investments, it can join hands with other universities for campaigns and events Its closest rival, The University of Sydney is No 1 in many subjects. The University of Melbourne has the opportunity to improve this areas Threat Decline in resource sector will affect the economy of the country Governmental funding will be decreased The Melbourne University has placed it-self as the number one university in Australia. This has allowed them to have a strong brand identity. Whenever consumers think about low price retail shop, they think about Wal-Mart. Similarly when the students will think about best university in Australia, they will think about The Melbourne University. Conclusion In the end, it can be concluded that The University of Melbourne is the number of university in Australia. This organization is properly distributing education among all the students in its campus without any type of inequality. However, its closed rival which is The University of Sydney is close as it has gained number one position in several courses that it offers. This is a place where The University of Sydney will have to improve. On the other hand, all the universities in Australia along with The Melbourne University will have to become ready for an economic break down that is approaching Australia. References Cahill, T. (2015). Research engagement for Australia: measuring research engagement between universities and end users. Coaldrake, P., Stedman, L. (2016). Raising the stakes: Gambling with the future of universities. Univ. of Queensland Press. Crain, T., Gramoli, V., Larrea, M., Raynal, M. (2017). University of Sydney, Australia.arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.03068. Davis, J., Ferreira, J. A. (2017). Creating Change for Sustainability in Universities in Australia, One System at a Time. InHandbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education(pp. 217-230). Springer International Publishing. Fleming, D. A., Measham, T. G. (2015). 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