Identification off the Student Enrollment Problems at London School of Beauty and Makeup - Assignment Example

?LSBM Research Project Report College Table of contents Table of contents ………………………………………………………………..2 Report outline……………………………………………………………………3 Introduction……………………………………………………………………...4 Research process………………………………………………………………….4 Marketing plan and marketing strategy…………………………………………..5 Research proposal …..............................................................................................6 Research resources………………………………………………………………..7 Implementation…...................................................................................................8 Data collection and analysis …..…………………………………………………9 Recommendation …………………………………………………………………11 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………13 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….14 Report outline 1. Formulation of the research out line 2. Introduction and general background to (LSBM) 3. Identification of the research process 4. Body Identification off the student enrollment problems at (LSBM) Literature review of the possible reasons why (LSBM) has less students Writing a research proposal for the project Preparation of a timetable Matching resources to the different research questions Implementation of research Collection and recording of data Using the best evaluation techniques Interpretation and analysis of the data Recommendations 5. Conclusion Introduction I will begin this essay by looking at how the general plan and strategies of the marketing department is affecting the student population of the school. Being at the centre of London, and having a well financed marketing department, LSBM is expected to have the highest number of students who come seeking education in the school. However this is not always the case. Our main question in this essay is to find out if indeed there is a way that the plan and the general strategies of the marketing departments have influenced the student population of the school. What are some of the actions that the school can take to improve the student population in the school and to try to keep the existing students in the school. If there is a problem with the marketing department and their overall marketing strategies, what are some of the things that should be done to help improve their general performance to the school. Different methodologies have been used in this research to collect data and to find out how this data relates with the research question. Research process Marketing process, involves the systematic identification, collection distribution and analysis of data for the purpose of knowing the problem and coming up with a solution. The timing for performing this research is perfect and we will use quantitative marketing research to come up with the general research methodology and strategy. The strategies that are used here are mostly quantitative since most of the data that we use here is numerical. Factors determining the research project There are lots of influential factors which determine the type of research project to be selected. The main influential factor however is the relevance of the topic of the research paper. A research paper with a more relevant topic has high chances of being selected as compared to a research paper whose topic is completely irrelevant. To know how relevant the topic of a research is, you need to look deeply into the issues which are discussed in the research proposal. If the issues are genuine, then the research qualifies to be chosen. In our case here the most influential factor that has led to the research project is the reduction in student population which is predicted to affect the running of the school in the next coming years. Marketing planning and marketing strategy Any business or institution needs proper running. Marketing is one of the most useful tools in running a business. It is all about making people know about your company and the services that you offer to the general public Ferrell (2004, P. 42). For marketing to be effective, you have to let people know about your products and services more and more often. A marketing plan is document that is written to describe the current market position of a business and the marketing strategy. Without a marketing strategy a marketing plan is of very little use and chances are that it will not succeed. Marketing plans always have life span over which they are expected to last. Most marketing plans have a lifespan of between one to five years. The main aim of creating a business plan is to show the steps that are required to achieve business marketing objectives. Most parts of a marketing plan are always included in the overall business plan so that they look like they are one Ribald (2009, P. 123). However it is important for one to always remember that the two are not the same but highly depend on each other and have the same goals which are to help bring in more to the organization that they are meant to support. Research project proposal To: LSBM From: student name Date: 26/11/2011 Subject: Marketing research proposal Proposed topic: an analysis of the marketing plan and the way that it influences the student population of LSBM. Purposes: many people claim that the reason why the student population of LSBM is reducing each year unlike what is expected is because of the poor marketing strategy that the school has. The marketing strategy is completely away from the plan that is provided. Background: My research is conducted on secondary data that relates to student population of LSBM and the way that this population is influenced by the marketing strategy. The school has had fewer students and many students transfer from the school and little transfer into the school. This is the reason why I took the chance to look and try to see if indeed there is any relationship between t he student population and the marketing strategy Ramsay (1988, p. 54). Scope: I will take the data from the school database and analyze it then provide the information in a graph to show if there is any clear relationship between the two variables which in this case are the marketing plan and the student population. Methodology 1. Conducting a literature review of the marketing strategy of the school 2. Observing the data and the way that the population of students has been reducing every year. Below is the timetable Activity Duration Start End Finding the research question 2 hours 11/28/2011 10:00 am 11/28/2011 12:00 Data collection 2 days 11/28/2011 2pm 11/30/2011 Data analysis 5 hours 12/1/2011 10am 12/2/2011 3pm Writing a proposal 2 hours 12/2/2011 5pm 12/2/2011 7pm Writing the essay 6 hours 12/2/2011 7pm 12/3/2011 1am Presentation 4 hours 12/4/2011 2pm 12/4/2011 6pm 3. Collecting both primary and secondary data to be used in the research 4. Analyzing the data that is collected and coming up with graphs that are used for analysis. Research resources There are different research resources that were used in this research. One of the recourses that were used is the internet. The internet was used to collect information that relates the student population and the way that the population has been reducing over the past years. This related to the question of the research which was t know if there is any relationship between the reduction in student population and the way that the school is marketed. Another useful resource that was used is the data from the school. The data was very useful in knowing if truly the allegation is true. Information relating to similar schools like this school were also taken and used as a resource to know if the population was not right or if these were just allegations Idaho (2000, 232). Another major resource that was useful in the research is the marketing manager of the school who came and gave out primary information about the marketing department and how it has been performing over the years. Implementation My research is to take 9 days. After analyzing all the resources needed, it is now time to implement it and do the research. However implementation is not an easy task and there are various limitations and barriers that has to be overcome in order to be successful. One of the main barriers to this research is the finding of the data from the database. Most institutions do not provide information that relates to their customer population due to fear of what competitors might do and so is LSBM Ferrell (2004, P. 42). Most of the population data is kept secret and the data that I have to use are the approximated data from various firms and not the real data that I must have. This makes my research to be made on assumptions. I also need to have primary data but this will require a lot of work a resources which I might not have. Therefore I am left with no choice rather than to use the secondary data which was available. The only primary source that I have is the marketing manager who may be forced to lie so as to protect his department from being termed inefficient in doing their work. Before I could start the research, we had a talk with the marketing manager about the different problems that face the marketing department and how this is affecting the student population of the school. He stressed that over the past years, there has been little funds that are set aside for the purposes of marketing the school. Most of these funds are used for the advertisement of new courses in the school and in the long run, few researches are left for the marketing of the school. The other major problem that he said was affecting them is the reduction in the number of staffs that are deployed to the marketing department. Most of the new recruits in the school staff end up in different sectors and departments and this has really affected the marketing department. The plan of the marketing department cannot be achieved with less staff members and this is the reason why they need more staff to help in the marketing process. On the issue of students leaving the school, he said that his department had nothing to do with that but he strongly thought that their reason for leaving is due to the changes that are seen in the school every day in terms of changing of staff members and also the way that the administration handles the student matters. However those were just his suggestions. Data collection I began by collecting the student population information over the past few years. This data was collected over the internet from the school website, though it was hard to access the information, I had to get a computer that was in the schools domain in order to access the data. After collecting the data, I went ahead to find the amount of money that was set aside for the marketing purposes over the past few years. This proved even harder to get and I had to go to extreme ends to get the data about the financial status of the school. However with the aid of the marketing manager, I received the confidential information about the funds set aside for the marketing purposes. The table below shows the student population in LSBM in the last 7 years, and the amount of money that is set aside for marketing over the same period of time. This data is from secondary sources and I used the internet as my point of data collection. Year Population Money set aside for marketing 2004 5000 $25000 2005 5005 $26000 2006 4700 $24000 2007 4600 $25000 2008 3900 $20000 2009 4000 $30000 2010 4500 $35000 The graph above clearly shows how the student population related to the amount of money that was spent in marketing. Whenever there was a lot of money spent in marketing, the population had to increase by some number. In 2004 which is the year that we start collecting our data, there was a total population of 5000 students. The amount that was used for advertisement that year was $25000 and in the next year the population increased by 5 which is not such a significant change. However the $1000 more was used for advertisement purposes in this particular year. Looking at the two years, we notice that a small change in the amount used in advertising caused a change in the student population. The next 5 years that follow see the student population reducing as the amount of money that is used in advertising is reduced. Whenever there is a reduction in the amount of money used in the advertising process, the student population also increases. Since the money is used to market the school, then we can say that there is a relationship between the level advertisement and marketing of the school to the population of the students in the school Idaho (2000, P.132). Another useful data that was collected is the information regarding the number of staff members that are allocated to the marketing department. Year Number of staff members 2004 20 2005 16 2006 16 2007 16 2008 21 2009 20 2010 22 Relating this information to the population above, we notice that this is a small number as compared to the general population that the department is required to fetch. I used summative evaluation to evaluate the project. The outcome of the project is that there is significant change in population whenever the amount of money used for marketing is reduced or increased. We all know that marketing needs money so we have used the amount of money to represent the level of marketing that was done by the school in each year. This shows that for population to be increased in this school, there are costs that need to be taken by the school in marketing the school. Similar findings have been made at different businesses and institutions and it has been clear that for success, marketing is very necessary in a business. Recommendation I would recommend that if the school wants more students then they have to change their marketing strategy and cost. They should increase more funds in marketing the school and this does not mean that they have neglected other student areas of interest such as accommodation and transport. To increase the population, more funds are needed to market the school. Another recommendation that I would give is the use of the internet to market the school especially international students. The marketing department needs more staff to help it achieve its goal of getting all t he students needed. In order to fight the strong completion from the schools around, the school needs a strong team of marketers who will work towards the realization of the main objectives of the school. However the population that is shown above is not capable of completing the task of getting more students into the school. Few advertisements are available in the internet that is related to the school. These advertisements in the internet are necessary because they are cheap and reach a lot of people within a short period of time so they should adopt this method of advertisement. Other areas of further consideration are the accommodation department and the transport areas. Most of the students who transfer from the school do so due to poor accommodation and lack of adequate transport methods sometimes forcing the students to walk to their various classes. This is a major problem and the administration should look into this so as to keep their students from going to other places. In conclusion, it is evident that the fall in population of students who join LSBM is due to the situation in the marketing department. The department which has had few resources in terms of staff and finance and so it is finding it hard to fulfill its obligation of providing the school with the right number of students. This however can be reversed by coming up with a new marketing plan and a new marketing strategy to help recover the students population. The services that are given to the students should also be increased so as to match the expected standards of the school this will help to maintain the student population that already exist. If this can be done within a few years then we expect to see a rise in the student population of the school. Bibliography Chartered Institute of Marketing. Marketing Planning. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000. MONASH UNIVERSITY, & AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION. (n.d.). Marketing planning. FERRELL, O. C., & HARTLINE, M. D. (2004). Marketing strategy. Mason, Ohio, Thomson/South-Western. RAMSAY, P. D. K. (1988). Research proposal. Hamilton [N.Z.], Education Dept., University of Waikato. BOUMA, G. D., & LING, R. (2004). The research process. Melbourne, Oxford University Press. COLWELL, R. (2006). MENC handbook of research methodologies. Oxford, Oxford University Press. HOFMEISTER, A. M., & LUBKE, M. (1990). Research into practice: implementing effective teaching strategies. Boston, Allyn and Bacon. SAPSFORD, R., & JUPP, V. (2006). Data Collection and Analysis. London, Sage Publications. SAPSFORD, R., & JUPP, V. (1996). Data collection and analysis. London, Sage in association with Open University. SAUNDERS, M., LEWIS, P., & THORNHILL, A. (2003).Research methods for business students. Harlow, England, Prentice Hall. Read More