Luận văn thạc sĩ UEH 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

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Building and Developing Brand Name – The Case of Eastern International University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................ 3

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Overview of the market of higher education in Vietnam...................................................................... 4

History and Profile of Eastern International University ...................................................................... 5

STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS ............................................................................................................... 6

Brief description of beginning process .................................................................................................. 6

Summary the result of in depth interview............................................................................................. 7

The point of view of the director of marketing department ............................................................. 7

The point of view of EIU students ..................................................................................................... 8

Statement of problem............................................................................................................................. 9

Initial identification of possible problems ......................................................................................... 9

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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 do not know school brand name

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