Strategic Marketing Audit Report

Introduction to BNU

In this immensely competitive and dynamic world, qualitatively superior education is an imperative for success. Over the years, higher education has assumed a pivotal role in the development of the required acumen of the students to better equip them to meet the emerging challenges. Universities and higher education institutions are thriving social and cultural centers with much to offer students of any age, nationality or social background. A modern university aims to provide its students with a wide array of courses and degrees to choose from, according to their embedded career interests and aptitudes. At Beacon house National University (BNU), we offer our students broadbased education in which a student studies a variety of different subjects in order to gain a better working knowledge of the world around him or herself, thus preparing them for lifetime of opportunities and challenges.

BNU is the first Liberal Arts University of Pakistan. Chartered by the Government of Punjab, the BNU was established in 2003 for the purpose of imparting education with modern and rational course content while ensuring that the history and culture of Pakistani society are respected. BNU is planned as a non-profit, private university disseminating learning and encouraging research in diverse areas where the essential focus of the programs offered has been determined by the type of the work force identified for the future economic, business, academic, cultural and technological advancement of the country. As such, BNU offers students a range of subject areas which are of immense relevance to the countrys economy.

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Over the years, Liberal Arts education has assumed a vital role. One armchair philosopher once said, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." All knowledge is one, a unified wholeness, and every field of study is but a piece or an angle or a way of partitioning this knowledge. Thus, to see how one's chosen area fits into the whole, to see the context of one's study, we at BNU believe, liberal education is not merely desirable, but necessary.

The diverse body of knowledge that a student gains at BNU, together with the tools of examination and analysis that one learns to use, will enable him or her to develop opinions, attitudes, values, and beliefs, based not upon authority or ignorance, whim, or prejudice, but upon ones own worthy evaluation of argument and evidence. We foster the development of an active engagement with knowledge, and not just the passive reception of facts.

At BNU, the knowledge disseminated will help you learn new subjects by one of the most common methods of learning--analogy. As George Herbert noted, people are best taught by using something they are familiar with, something they already understand, to explain something new and unfamiliar. The more you know and are familiar with, the more you can know, faster and more easily. Many times the mind will create its own analogies, almost unconsciously, to teach itself about the unfamiliar by means of the familiar. The education at BNU creates an improvement of perception and understanding.

This is done by a number of unique, innovative practices at BNU:

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An academic format which encourages the student to read across the curriculum allowing for cross registration in courses offered at Schools other than the one the student is registered in. These courses may be taken as minors or electives.

The University underscores the importance of the creative and performing arts which form an integral part of any liberal arts education. Open workshops and seminars are offered where students interact with scholars and practitioners of international repute.

Each student works with an academic adviser who helps design a program of study most suited to the individual students talent and is also available for personal guidance throughout the students stay at the University.

A system of education in which students learn in small, interactive class sessions.

A system of student evaluation based on frequent written assignments and research projects rather than a traditional method of examination.

At Beacon house National University, education is enriched through a free exchange of ideas and debate which is expertly guided by qualified faculty. Most courses are intensive and year long in which students are encouraged to question assumptions, listen to diverse opinions and challenge convention. This strategy is further developed through disciplined and motivated work on the students part and the evaluation of individual progress through written reports and ongoing interaction between students and teachers. The University is fully cognizant of the fact that the formative years of a young adults life i.e. the years spent at university must be enriched through a variety of experiences,

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both within and outside the classroom. Study tours therefore, form a regular feature of University life and serve as a means of research and exposure to life in other regions of the country and varied socio-economic groups. BNU is a non-profit, apolitical, non-sectarian, equal-opportunity institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in modern disciplines, many of which are not offered anywhere else in Pakistan.

Mission Statement:
BNU's mission is to promote the Liberal Arts education in Pakistan. It wants to create liberal space where students from different school of thoughts can learn values prevailing within different cultures. Mission of BNU is to carry out career oriented, financially viable vertical and horizontal expansion of the schools to deliver quality education with the support of distinguished faculty and through improvement in quality of student intake. Schools also aims at making significant research contribution associated with the most pressing issues at local and national level in Pakistan.

Vision Statement
The vision of BNU is to produce graduates who can compete academically, technically and professionally with the best in the country.

Objectives

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We want to provide an opportunity for students to enhance their personal and professional development through highly supportive academic atmosphere so that they are in a position to play leadership role in economic management and resolve critical public policy issues of the country.

BNUs objective is to provide liberal arts education, to promote an understanding of diverse cultural foundations while stimulating social responsibility.

We in vision to be a world class liberal art university. And we want to protect and extend the liberal art

We want improved access to be in academic environment. We also want to become the institute with original features. We aim to get comprehensive support from the entire stacks holder. BNU aims to create a magnetic attractiveness together stack holders under one roof.

1. Corporate mission and objectives

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The mission statement of BNU is giving clearly guide to the product market because as BNU's mission is to promote the Liberal Arts education in Pakistan and BNU is creating liberal space in the environment, so people who come to BNU feel free and they have liberty in doing whatever they want to do in their respective field of interest which makes them professionals and expert afterwards. In this manner one (Product-market) can have a clear idea about the organization at the time of selection this is because the Product market is clear what mission statement provided. The objectives have been established for the organization as mentioned in the report, considering the goals of organization as together and the different schools and institutes prevail within the organization. So collectively they tend towards the objectives of the organization.

As BNU has different schools and each having its own management team which deal with their issue or problem then there is a top management committee who reviews the performance of all schools and institutes before and at the end of each semester (semi annually) either it is progressing towards the objectives or not. Corporate strategies are essentially about what the business wants to achieve and how those corporate objectives are to be achieved. As the nonprofit organization (Foundation) BNU is achieving career oriented, financially viable vertical and horizontal expansion of the schools to deliver quality education in a liberal environment as defined in their objectives. As within the educational industry there is a potential in market to grow in the Liberal arts education and until now BNU is focusing on quality to attracts the students which will help in availing the opportunity of growth.

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Corporate strategic planning is about formulating, implementing, and monitoring the operational or tactical plans to achieve interim objectives. Chief marketing executive is contributing in corporate strategy by leading four different departments, named as Public 0relation, external relation, fund raising and student affairs & activity.

2. Business composition and strategies:

BNU is segmenting its market on the basis of psychographic variable as in this it target its customer according to their personality and BNU is offering different courses for the different type of personalities. And the product market of BNU is as follow: 1. School of liberal Arts and Social sciences 2. School of visual Arts and design 3. School of fine Arts 4. School of Architecture 5. School of Education 6. School of computer and information technology 7. School of media and mass communication

Two Institutes
1. Institute of psychology 2. Institute of public policy All of above schools and institution has its own strategic planning unit and management team that is responsible for the basic organization function.

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At BNU each planning unit has product market attractiveness because it has well known personalities of their particular field. And they are serving on the designation of Board of Governors, board of trustees, management, Deans and permanent faculty members. Develop Strategy is a plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal of the organization in this manner each planning unit of BNU is developing its strategy so that each planning can meet the overall objectives of BNU. Each planning unit has a strategic plan for the achievement of their objectives, accomplishment of the academic excellence, for the identification in market and for achieving the Objectives of BNU.

As marketing department has sub department under it:

1. Public relation office 2. External relation office 3. Fund raising office 4. Student affair and activities So according to the requirement of each planning unit, it may assign responsibilities to marketing department for example at the time of admission public relation office is given task for admission campaigns, for the promotion of media and mass communication student affairs and activates is given task for organizing events.

3. Marketing strategy 3.1 Strategic planning and marketing

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As corporate strategy planning is about to Setting of goals to be achieved within a specified timeframe. And in this manner the marketing roles and responsibility of marketing department is clearly defined and it is contributing according to the organization objectives. The responsibilities for marketing strategies is not assign to one executive it distribute among four departments.

Marketing strategy is about strategy development and changing according to the environment and delivering superior values to customers and in this way BNUs marketing strategies working well like BNU having students across the Pakistan and international students as well. And because of its strong marketing plan it is also have international and local donor who support financially for expansion of BNU. In future if the market environment changes it will not make any affect on it because BNU is the market leader in liberal arts studies and himself a benchmark. And if new entrant occurs in market then they can compete with it by making or changing its strategies.

3.2 Marketing planning and organizational structure

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The longer and annual strategic marketing plan has been developed like, for long term vision for 2020 it has aimed to reach 3000 students, expanding the educational offering horizontally and vertically. In marketing department, Public relation office, External relation office, Fund raising office, Student affair and activities has specifically assigned responsibilities as per their given objectives. Marketing structure is in decentralized form, where every sub-department is given different targets as per their expertise in given time period to achieve market plan of the organization and they are doing very well by attracting new students, donor agencies, government authorities, national and internals linkages by implementing marketing plans.

3.3 Market target strategy.

As The target market of BNU is students who like liberal space to learn and want to explore themselves and in this manner BNU is targeting clearly this type of students by offering different specialization in different schools and in institute as name mentioned in business composition of BNU and all schools having their own objectives or planning to achieve, which are directly for the establishment of liberal arts university. As BNU is market leader in liberal Arts education and it really knows about the market demand and specially about its competitors because each of its schools and institute competing with a complete universities or colleges like Kinnaird college, National college of arts, FC college, Lahore school of economics and Government university

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Lahore and these competitors are threats also for BNU and when we talks about the opportunities then As within the educational industry there is a potential in market to grow in the Liberal arts education and until now BNU is focusing on quality to attracts the students which will help in availing the opportunity of growth. BNU doesnt need any repositioning or any exit from market because as per saying of CME all of planning units is doing well and in future they will grow definitely.

3.4 Objectives

The objectives of each planning unit are established for each target market and objectives are consistent with the planning on the basis of available resources and they are realistic as well because they are working according to the environment. The performance of marketing department (in form of promotion by conducting different activities) is available to monitor planned and actual progress. The plan performances of BNU will be its defined objectives and actual will be what really they are getting from market.

There is no gap exist between planned and actual result as they are market leader in liberal education so they are getting what they plan or desire.

3.5

Marketing program positioning strategy.

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BNU having an integrated positioning strategy on the basis of its product, channel and price like In product it is having liberal education because BNU encourages liberal arts critically and in Channel it is having well known personality in faculty and in the designation of dean who drive peoples at BNU and likewise it is offering courses on low prices then other universities and also offering scholarships on the need and merit basis. And these are consistent with their objectives. As the BNU is a foundation and Supported By well known peoples who are having strong financial background to donate so BNU has adequate resources to carry out the marketing program and which can be properly utilized for the marketing and advertising purposes. From the promotion budget most of the part used to create awareness among the students about the uniqueness of the product, features and benefits which make students to perceive about product and about to take some action.

The allocation of various marketing mix component (Product, Place, Promotion and price) is average in term of expected accomplishment because the marketing team using these component to meet their objectives. The effectiveness of the marketing programs By BNU is appraised on the semiannually by management board to check either it is working according to defined objectives or not.

4. Marketing program activities

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4.1 Product strategy

As BNU having different schools in its product line and each of school is helping in gearing the BNU to fulfilling its need and preferences according to the each product market. As they design their objectives to provide social agents to market through liberal education, on which their product line performing best to attain their market objective. BNU is using unique branding strategies to brand itself as in unique branding you brand yourself by bringing something unique in your product and to make yourself different from your competitor and in this manner BNU is providing liberal education for branding as it is clear from its slogan an emerging world class liberal arts university. Product positioning is about making your product image in your target customers mind and here BNU is positioning its product by differentiation on the basis of liberal arts education.

In BNU each school have its own management for making decision independently. Any type of addition, modification and deletion is not required, because product line of BNU is doing well and the performance of product mix is evaluated on semiannual basis.

4.2 Channel of distribution Strategies

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BNU is Following vertical Coordinated for its Distribution Strategy as the Product of BNU is education and it is providing it on the basis of different channel which are Campus, faculty, IT labs, auditorium and library and these all channels are appropriate for each product market.BNU has two main campuses in Lahore and student can access channels of distribution easily from campuses. As above mention BNU using the decentralization structure for its management so that each channel of distribution carry out their assign function in well prescribed manner.

4.3

Price Strategy

Generally BNU is following Value based Pricing methods because BNU is giving more benefits on the low cost and making the students satisfy in each product market. As BNU is working as a nonprofit making organization the pricing is not playing an important role while setting price because they having numbers of donor from whom they get finance. BNU is not positioning itself on the basis of pricing infect it is positioning itself on the basis of quality. BNU compete with its competitor on the basis of its services rather than price. But BNU is offering need or merit basis scholarship for promotion or to position itself. There is only logic behind setting low price is that BNU wants to give maximum benefit to its students at low cost.

4.4 Advertisement and sale promotion strategies

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Advertisement and promotion is a process that allows an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. And the objectives of BNU for promotion are to establish brand identity, to increase numbers of students and to increase market share. The creative strategy used by BNU in advertisement and promotion is consistent with positioning strategy. BNUs current promotion campaigns are on print media because it is cost effective for organization and for students as well and BNU choose this media for promotion because they are using reach strategy.

4.5 Sales Force strategies.

The role and objective of personal selling in the market positioning strategy clearly specified and understood by the sales organization, like sales of prospectus, interacting with students at the time of admission. Sales force may be considered as the people in the public relation office. Numbers of people are adequate as per the requirements of sales of prospectus and admission accessories. Creating the image of the service they are providing to the current students and new students to get admission here.

5. Implementation and management.

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A performance gap is the difference between the actual or present performance and the optimal or future performance. BNUs actual performance can be measured through their market share and their desired market share as the vision of BNU 2020 has much enough time to reduce the gap between actual and desired performances Implementation of plans being doing well in marketing but not in the finance point of view as BNU is facing operational deficit in the current period of time. As new campus is being constructed and need more and more funds to be utilized in the expansion of campus but need to identify the lack of strategies so can overcome the operation deficit.

Control is the way that we catch failures in implementation or strategy. The organization may have implemented poorly, set the wrong marketing mix, aimed at the wrong target market, or done poor initial research. Control is not a singular thing but a host of tools for making sure that the company is on track. The tools fall under four types of control shown here

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Types of marketing control

Type of Control Prime Responsibility Purpose of Control Approach

Top I. Annualmanagement; plan control middle management

Sales analysis Market-share analysis Sales-to-expense To examine whether the planned ratios results are being achieved Financial analysis Market-based scorecard analysis Profitability by: Product Territory Customer Segment Trade channel Order size Efficiency of: Sales force Advertising Sales promotion Distribution

I I. Marketing Profitability controller control

To examine where the company is making and losing money To evaluate and improve the spending

III. Efficiency control

Line and staff management; marketing controller

Efficiency and impact of marketing expenditures

Top IV. Strategic management; control marketing auditor

Marketing effectiveness rating instrument To examine whether the company Marketing audit is pursuing its best opportunities Marketing with respect to markets, products, excellence review and channels Company ethical and social responsibility review

5.

Budget Allocation

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Total budget allocated = 100, 00,000 Reserve = 10% of the total amount = 10, 00,000 Budget available for use = 90, 00,000

20% for operational deficit 50 % of total budget on following:

o TEDx BNU o Bestival session 02 o Fashion show o Tele film

o

Exhibition media culture and visual arts

o National Meet up on Liberal arts

12 % for print add in Dawn news & Jang 8 % Publications or BNU

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7. Recommendations

Shifting of students from city campus to Tarogil Campus as city campus is congested

Even thought their vision is to increase quantity until 2020 but as per the growth in educational sector it may increase the number of students as well.

Sport activities seems to be less over there it may increase those activates like conducting competitions

More events like Bestival form more promotion of concept it is working on working

Better and modern functioning of training and development department and It must prepare the faculties for the upcoming challenges and threats in the education industry.

Better financial plane to overcome the operational deficit in the organization More kind of BTL activates as suitable for the institution like BNU. It should also build campus in other city of Pakistan.

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