Running Head: INTERNATIONAL MARKETING (RESEARCH REPORT) 1

International Marketing (Research Report)

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Executive summary

Even though Japan is well known for its high levels of technological advancements, the

same cannot be said of its online education programs that have continued to lag because of

various challenges related to the country’s employment and educational cultural contexts. In the

face of a heightened interest in education out of the mainstream Japanese universities by

students of Japanese origin, lifelong learning is usually not the norm within Japan, and any

strides into promoting awareness of higher education programs to such a population needs to

take this into consideration. With most students who study from Japan in international

universities finally settling back in China, the hiring practices in Japan nonetheless illustrate a

greater affinity of desiring graduates who have undergone via the traditional colleges age. Both

structural and cultural changes therefore remain crucial components if Japan is to adopt the

integration of online platforms to woo students, providing for Western universities an

advantage in wooing students from Japan.

Ultimately, the education and technological services aimed at international marketing

have much in common. In both, there is the element of public-private participation in the

provision of services. It is important that much as there is a component of higher learning, the

marketing component also embodies the local culture. Technological changes are afflicting both

drastically, providing for an increase in the scope of not only higher education, but the scope for

global trade, leading to the ultimate consumption of the service being offered.

Introduction

Higher education service exports are an area of increasing popularity providing for

increased interest related to the opportunities and challenges of contemporary digital marketing

within international marketing settings. The identification and the maintenance of a flow of
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international students is an area that would pose a challenge for many institutions of higher

learning across the globe. In alignment however with technological developments, if

universities were to adopt the implementation of information communication technology (ICT),

this has been argued to have the capability to support the sustainability of modern

competitiveness in dealing with international students. As a result, it is imperative to study how

contemporary technologies can meaningfully be implemented to encourage and enhance higher

education service exports (Jung & Dieck, 2018). This report seeks to provide insight and

provide an evaluation for the Australian National University to decipher how Japan can be an

end-point for student enrolment and learning success given Japan’s country market settings as

well as the potential viability of international growth via a digital marketing approach.

Opportunities and Challenges for Australian National University in Japan

Japan is undoubtedly the one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With the

continued growth of its economy, many of its citizens move into cities, seeking better education

opportunities, coupled with increased exposure to regional air travel and even international

education opportunities. If the Japanese air traffic is anything to go by with an average

increment of about 20 percent per annum, this is a clear indicator of the opportunities being sort

out of the country. Subsequently, Japan is deemed to be a high-context culture, wherein for a

learning situation to effectively occur, the speaker and the listener would need to rely on a

mutual comprehension of the context; a rip condition for the Australian National University to

consider in its delving into international marketing for Japan’s student population (Czinkota &

Ronkainen, 2012).

Tokyo in Japan has a population of about over 8 million residents. The international

education scene is multi-faceted, with students in Japan seeking education opportunities

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outside, while foreign students also seeking enrollment into the Japanese education system.

Japan has a long-term target to congregate at least 300,000 foreign students by the close of the

decade. It is notable however that there has been a gradual diminishing school-age population

in Japan. International student demand initiatives need to be privy of the fact that at least 93%

of foreign students studying in Japan are privately sponsored, with Japanese government

scholarships not very available more so for foreign students. The study of foreign student

enrolments is a key indicator in deciphering how much interest there could be from Japanese

students seeking an international education from an institution such as the Australian National

University (‘Strong Growth in Japan’s Foreign Enrolment’, 2015).

In 1947, the University Standard Association, a university union was established and

came up with the University Standard. This standard was meant to improve the quality within

Universities offering courses for Japanese students. As such, the University Standard came up

with the criteria of what defined universities in terms of standards for the qualitative

improvement of higher education. For many years, Japanese universities have been stringently

regulated by the Ministry of Education. It was not until the 1990s that the Japanese government

embarked on the debate pertaining the introduction of an Independent Administrative

Institution System aimed at the deregulation of its mandate and in effect separate the

relationship between institutions of higher education and the government. The reality has

however remained unclear, which any institution wanting to attract Japanese students need to

understand (Masataka, 2002).

For Japanese students to be interested in learning at the Australian National University,

one need to comprehend that Japanese Universities are actually very similar to those of the

United States of America, with both offering both bachelors and master’s degree programs in
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various academic disciplines. However, unlike the US, it is mandatory for all Japanese

universities, to follow certain stipulated standards as set forth by the Japanese government. It is

such variances that could be providing for the sudden increased interest in foreign students of

Japanese origin to the Australian National University. Seeing as it is the interest in education by

foreign Japanese students, a distance education approach would be a viable avenue to increase

interest and enrolment numbers. It is however important to have a distinction between distance

education courses and distance education programs, with the latter being differently regulated

and with different accreditations (Nakamura, 2017).

Evaluate and Recommendations

Global marketers need to stay abreast and even ahead of trade regulations and laws within

a country one is targeting. The political conditions of a country will often impact international

marketing efforts such as that of higher education. It is because of the various outcomes of

varied political environments that institutions must be conscious of the political risk assessment

of a country or marketplace. Marketing a University to especially international students are

usually aimed at attracting additional revenues for an institution, while promoting the

institution’s brand outside its local jurisdiction. As marketing progresses over the decades, there

is an increasingly different way higher education institutions interact with their clients. The

traditional exchange process that is also known as transaction-based marketing is now gradually

being replaced by longer-term approaches emphasizing more on the building of relationships

with customers and students. Clients even in Japan are today more sophisticated, thus their

openness to seek quality education from universities in Europe, Australia and North America

(Boone & Kurtz, 2014).

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The throes of a major higher education reform are nigh for Japan’s universities and

colleges. With the tempest of change embarking from the early 1990s, it continues to bear its

stripes across he globes of higher education. As such, the most influence on the international

marketing efforts of the Australian National University would be on the inherent megatrends as

well as specific country factors within Japan. The first megatrend has been the move towards a

universal contact to higher education. The enrolment rate in Japan to institutions to higher

education has been on the increase especially from the 2000s, reaching to about 45.2% as of

1995, and rising to 55.1% as of 2013. These enrolment rates encompass fully fledged colleges,

universities and junior colleges. The second trend which this report is largely focused on is that

of marketization. Only until the last decade or so, higher education was largely deemed to be a

component of life requiring or deserving public funding support in Japan. However, to market

to students in Japan, there is need to keep in mind that Japan’s higher education sector is largely

exceptional with the private sector accounting for at least 80% of all enrolled students (Ikuo,

2014).

The third megatrend is globalization. The world is today closer than ever before

especially with the startling revolutions in communication technology and transportation. These

revolutions have brought with them effects that transcend beyond economics and politics, but

especially so in academia. The Australian National University is undoubtedly amongst

universities across the globe that are part of a network transcending the globalization sphere. It

is important therefore that such an aspect is taken into consideration as pertains to customer

insight, customer demand, consumer behavior, product or service modification, branding and

labelling, distribution, brand positioning, price and promotions of any institution of higher

education. Increased opportunities to go global and into Japan would see that such a network is
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not only sustained by the global nature of learning and knowledge, but there is also the mobility

of students and researchers from different countries creating an increased demand for higher

education services (Ikuo, 2014).

Looking at the Japanese factors that would need to closely be investigated in the

provision of a strategy most apt for penetration by the Australian National University, the

population, economy and deregulation are factors that are especially unique to Japan and that

have made higher education reforms within the country crucial and necessary. These

geographic shifting trends of the population component provide for the changes that Japan has

witnessed since the 1980s within its higher education setup and in lieu to its population. While

there was a gradual peak in a young student population in the 1980s that reached 2.02 million

by 1992, this population dipped and by 2010 was 1.22 million. Such a drop-in population is a

factor in being able to extrapolate the kind of trends one would need to keep an eye on while

marketing the Australian National University. Such a drastic drift in population no doubt has

provided its share of challenges within Japan’s higher education system from which even its

huge private sector depends on. At the time of rapid growth, there was a rush by private

universities to increase their capacities, but many over time found themselves struggling to

attract just enough student numbers in subsequent years (Ikuo, 2014).

It is fundamental to note that even if there has been a recent increment in international

student demand at the Australian National University, the later half of the 1990s witnessed

Universities struggle to attract and retain student numbers to fill courses at their institutions.

Such institutions easily today make up for over half the total. This paradigm shift was in

contrast from a past where universities generally always saw applications exceed availability. A

salient feature even when dealing with Japan’s student populations is in the knowledge that
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Japan has a history of subjecting applicants to rigorous selection criteria, as well as extremely

competitive entrance examinations. Any foreign university would not want to come out as

having an admission system that is too easy in the way they select their students (Ikuo, 2014).
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References

Boone, L.E. & Kurtz, D.L. (2014). Contemporary Marketing, Sixteenth Edition, Mason, OH:

South-Western Cengage Learning.

Czinkota, M.R. & Ronkainen, I.A. (2012). International Marketing. 10th Edition. Mason, OH:

South Western-Cengage Learning.

Ikuo, A. (2014). ‘Globalization and Higher Education Reforms in Japan: The Obstacles to

Greater International Competitiveness, Nippon Communications Foundation. Retrieved

from <https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a02801/>.

Jung, T. & Dieck, M.C. (Eds.) (2018). Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality: Empowering

Human, Place and Business. Manchester, UK: Springer International Publishing AG.

Masataka Murasawa, a. (2002). The Future of Higher Education in Japan: Changing the Legal

Status of National Universities. Higher Education, (1), 141.

Nakamura, M. (2017). THE STATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION IN JAPAN. Quarterly

Review of Distance Education, 18(3), 75-87.

‘Strong Growth in Japan’s Foreign Enrolment in 2014’ (2015). ICEF Monitor. Retrieved 17

May 2018 from <http://monitor.icef.com/2015/07/strong-growth-in-japans-foreign-

enrolment-in-2014/>.