A Marketing strategy for higher distance education : case study on the institute for the development of language teaching programs : the open university of Indonesia
Date
1994
Authors
Juliana, Ari
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Abstract
Organizations--in profit, nonprofit, and government sectors--are expected to give balanced attention to their external and internal marketing environments variables. This line of thought leads to the two major purposes for conducting this investigation. The first major purpose was to obtain understanding of marketing strategy for higher distance education institutions, such as the Open University of Indonesia (Universitas Terbuka), by undertaking marketing audit and research. The marketing audit and research could identify several variables in the institute's marketing environments (external and internal). The second major purpose of this study was to develop a strategic marketing plan for Universitas Terbuka's programs, by utilizing the marketing audit and research results.
Triangulation of methodology was employed in investigating the problem being studied. In this case, the data were gathered through the utilization of multiple methods such as observations, interviews, document analysis, and questionnaires. A case study was conducted on one of the Universitas Terbuka's programs, the Institute for the Development of Language Teaching Programs (the Institute).
The research was carried out during June-August 1993. Observations were performed during this 3-month period in the Institute's central Office, in order to fully understand the complexities of the Institute's program situations. Interviews were conducted with several senior administrators and staff members of Universitas Terbuka and the Institute, using audit template questions, to ascertain their views of the role of marketing activities in Universitas Terbuka, specifically in the Institute's program; and to gather ยท information for the analysis of the Institute's marketing strategy. Document analysis was done on the Institute's official documents to obtain understanding of the Institute's mission, objectives and goals, structure, and marketing activities. Questionnaires were distributed to 400 students and 22 staff, and were completed by 81 students (58 active students and 23 passive students) and 20 staff of the Institute. The questionnaires were designed to identify the perspectives of students and staff members to the marketing activities of the Institute and obstacles in performing marketing activities.
The findings revealed three broad conclusions. First, there was a lack of a thorough and comprehensive marketing orientation on the Institute's marketing activities. The Institute, however, has an appropriate understanding of marketing and has initiated some marketing activities. Second, there were, generally, positive perspectives among the students and staff on the Institute's marketing activities. Third, there was a lack of internal marketing activities in comparison with the external marketing activities of the Institute's programs. This was demonstrated by a lack of understanding of the Institute's marketing activities among its internal publics, the Universitas Terbuka's staff.
This study resulted in a recommended plan for the Institute's marketing activities. The plan was organized under the audit trail sections from which the Institute's opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses were identified.