CHAPTER 4: MAJOR OF FINDING
II. SWOT Analysis:
3. Opportunities:
SEV is located in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) where is the best place to open an English Language School as this city has a clear market for learners of English summarised with the following advantages:
- The largest and highest population city as well as the most developed city in Vietnam with more than 10 million people. The income per household is the highest in the country (Vietnam Works survey, 2017).
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- High demands of English studies for the purpose of studying, working, and studying abroad. HCMC has around 5 million learners with more than 700 Kindergartens, 800 schools of Primary, Secondary, High schools, and 80 Universities and Colleges.
- Increasing of FDI companies: More than 2800, representing 38.4 percent of Vietnam’s total FDI inflow in the first quarter of 2019, Ho Chi Minh City has outpaced the country’s financial hub by US$1.57 billion.
- Increasing of Tourism Industry: HCMC welcomes around 6.3 million international tourists per year.
Figure 4.5: Ho Chi Minh City Population
51 4. Threats:
- Lots of competitors and strong competitors: as of 2018, there are 204 English schools in HCMC. It makes up a huge competition in this field. That also requests SEV to find out its value, rareness, imperfect imitability and substitutability for sustained competitive advantages
- Difficulty in hiring qualified people. High qualified teachers need high budgets for paying as well as employee’s benefits such as labour contract, insurance, compensation and others.
- The competitiveness of this business sector is still very limited, mainly due to the weak capacity and qualifications of managers. No or few experienced employees, leaving or changing human resources due to many factors such as salary, labor benefits, career pathways.
- Weaknesses of Management: SEV is running the business as a small firm, local staff assume many tasks, Marketing Departments and specifics departments may even not exist at all.
Figure 4.6: Vietnam's Tourism Revenue
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Table 4.2: SEV - SWOT Analysis Strengths
- Shane English Vietnam is a FDI school
- 100% English native speaker
- Shane schools and Shane English - Increasing of FDI companies
- Increasing of Tourism Industry with the international visitor
Threats - A lot of competitors
- Difficulty in hiring qualified people - The competitiveness of this business
sector is still very limited.
- Weaknesses of Management
53 III. Resource-based – viewed analysis
1. Value Propositions:
- Novelty: beside classroom contact. Field trips would give opportunities for students to practice English in authentic situations. Online lessons are running to afford the changes in the educational methods during the coronavirus outbreak.
- Efficiency: the programmes are designed to be suitable for the levels and ages of the learners.
- Design: programme per course for general English, grouped by age and level. Extra courses in business English, exam preparation or ESP.
- Brand/Status: very important to attract students and parents. SEV has an international Brand.
- Lower risk: The education sector is low risk, except where the centre is bankrupted due to low student acquisition or poor student return rates. In any unfortunate case, The Department of Education and Training (DOET) will ask other centres to take over the education of the students. Other centres will be very willing to help out due to additional revenue from new students which can be absorbed into their current classes.
The new centre can then enrol them and collect the fees from students if their quality is good and students are pleased to stay.
- Affordability: tuition fees will need to be thoroughly researched and an analysis of the competition conducted. With this information, SEV has offered a competitive price to make sure that is affordable for most parents/ students in HCMC. Teacher wages are key factor in achieving affordability.
- Convenience: flexible schedules are planned to match with students’ available schedules, meaning large volume of business on the weekend.
54 2. Rareness:
- FDI: in HCMC and VN, there are not many schools owned the FDI. Besides ILA, APPOLO, ASSET, WALL STREET, SEV takes the honor to have its name in the list of FDI schools in HCMC and Vietnam.
- The material of teaching and learning: as mentioned in Strengths analysis. Materials for teaching at SEV are mostly provided by Saxoncourt publishing. The series of books are designed consistently to make sure students can develop the full skill of English and bits of knowledge of Social, Science, Environment, mathematics… It helps students can be easy to sit in any international Academic English exam such as ILETS, TOFLS, or other Cambridge Tests.
- 100% native English speaker teachers are recruited by Saxoncourt and trained by the Director of Studies. Parents are happy to send their child to English School to study full of foreign teachers teaching. Parents expect that students can make a progression of listening, speaking as well as pronunciation skills.
3. Imperfect Imitability and Substitutability:
The above rareness of SEV make it become the school that other schools hardly copy or replace. Take an example, it is not easy for any school to create and publish if they do not the publishing to do this job like Saxoncourt Group. Also, not easy to use full of foreigners to teach the courses due to budget balance for the wages cost.
IV. Marketing Strategy at SEV
1. Programme/ Products/ Services:
SEV has a diversity of Programmes for students, adults, corporate training for companies such as hotel, kindergarten, company, University, ….study abroad. In details, Costumer Segments’ SEV includes:
- Kindergarten age students: CP, CK Groups, 2.5 – 6 years old
55 - Children: CL and CH Group, 7 -12 years old - Teenagers: CJ Group, 13 -16 years old - Adults: 18- 22 years old and above - English for companies
- Private English lesson
2. Price
SEV implements many pricing strategies. Prices are made by level, course, monthly (8 lessons), and package (a 3- month course with 24 lessons or 30 lessons).
For indoor lessons:
- They are flexible and let study pay per month (monthly payment) and full course payment (3 months per course). Whenever a student registers/ pays for one course, he/
she will get a discount of 5% on the total amount of tuition fees for package payment.
Similarly, students move to the next level, they also get 5% off if they pay before the due date that was given by the school.
- New student payment: every new student is allowed to have 2 trial lessons before signing for the course. Therefore, the student just pays 6 lessons for a monthly payment and 22 lessons plus 5% discount for package payment.
- Referral Discount: SEV has the policy to encourage students to introduce their friends to study there. With every new student is referred, the referrer will be discounted 5% in school fees.
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- Family payment: each student will get 10% off if there are 02 members, 15% discount for 3 members, 20% for 4 members… in a family study together at SEV. The maximum discount for family studies is 20%.
- Special promotion: at some months of low sales in the year such as Summer, Chinese New Year (students often take holidays) SEV will give out big discounts to push Sales such as 20% off for full package payment.
For outdoor lessons:
- Kindergartens: SEV will receive 80% of school fee per headcount, Kindergarten will keep 20% for recruitment and other fees
- University, Schools, Hotel or One to One studies are offered the prices of hour payments.
3. Place:
SEV has offered:
- English Indoor (in-person) lessons at the campus of SEV, District 10, HCMC for all the levels
- English outdoor Lesson - on the location of students such as Private houses, companies, schools, …
- Online lessons are implementing since the effectiveness of coronavirus outbreak and students are in the social distance as well as self-management, so they cannot go to school. SEV is quick in catching up on the trend and find out the solution for students to keep learning, school revenue, staff, and teacher’s payment.
4. People
- Employees:
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SEV has been operating as a private education organization. Services are the priority;
local staff and foreign teachers play important roles here.
Staff: the first point of contact with customers who consult/ recruit students to the
classes. Consulting is a very important job; this happens between counsellors and students/ parents. Counsellors need to identify students' and parents’ needs. Based on that to give effective advice, selling the strengths of the centre and finally help them complete the registration process.
Teachers: who deliver the course and maintain the highest quality of teaching.
Teachers are in charge of teaching of Children, Adults, Business English and Exam Preparation. Conduct Academic reports as needed. Teachers at Shane Vietnam shared their experiences during their studies and tips on how to use English in their everyday life and study. With the most practical sharing, the students who have been studying at Shane Vietnam will help us to have a realistic view of the learning process and develop the ability to communicate in English. And based on that, parents can feel more comfortable choosing Shane as the best and most reliable English learning environment for their children.
Customer services: activity cannot be missed to keep good relationships with current
students and parents as well as reaching potential new ones. To ensure that costumers are satisfied with the service they receive.
Shane English Vietnam is a small-sized business and a minimal human resources department. Overall there were less than 40 employees. It included:
01 CEO
01 Director of Studies
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01 School Manager
10 Native English teachers
4 Programme Advisors
10 Teaching assistant
2 Security guards
2 Cleaners
01 Outsourcing Accountant
Figure 4.7: SEV Organization Structure
- Culture: since SEV has multiple nationalities of employees such as Vietnamese British, American, South Africa, Scotland, so they have international cultural characteristics. The managers here try preparing foreign employees in advance to avoid culture shock. The culture at SEV also a combination such as Foreigner teachers will take Christmas and New Year holidays while local Vietnamese will take Chinese New year and some other National holidays… These differences are announced to let employees and students have their plans in advance.
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- Customer Services: are used to manage relationships with existing customers with students and parents. A high level of customer care ensures customers are happy about the services of the schools. Furthermore, customers can give vital information to maintain and develop the quality of teaching and services. It can also be a key area for new business ideas/ products and gauge interest for new courses.
- Management: again, we can see in SEV’s Organization Structure (Figure 23), Management here is divided into two. One for Academic foreigner management is controlled by the Director of Studies. Another one for local in charge of admins, Sales, Human Resource, Marketing, and so on is managed by the School Manager. Both will report to the General Director.
5. Promotion
- Direct consulting: for students/ parents who pass by (footfall can be measured at locations) or via telesales.
- Advertising: Like other firms, SEV is using many effective ways to use promotion in digital marketing: E-banners, Email, Websites, Social Media, Video Advertising, Digital PR, Social Influencers, …
- Demo class/trial class: to help students experience the real class before signing up for the course.
- Publicity: By joining the students' affairs is one of the good ways to approach students and promote the brand and products to promote your brand and programmes. A few million students attend these fairs per year and students affair is normally organised by DOET or Education organization.
- Sale promotion: regarding the Price analysis, SEV has many sale promotions from regular 5% discount from package payment to 20% sale-off to push sales
60 6. Process:
Most of the costumers at SEV include young students from 2, 5 years old to 16 years old.
The sampling process below could be applied to young students. The process includes the following steps:
Step 1: Consult potential students/ parents through direct consultation for those
walking in, telephone consultation, email invitation, online consultation (Website, Facebook)
Step 2: Invite coming to trial classes or do a placement test to indicate the students’
level.
Step 3: Sign up the course
Step 4: Announce studies results/ Exam result whether students are qualified for the next level to the parents/ or students.
Step 5: Announcement for course renew and payment
Figure 4.8: Process of Enrolment
61 7. Physical Evidence
- Facilities: SEV owns a building with 10 classes. The maxi of 10 can be opened at the time and classrooms are cleaned after every class ends. The schedules are busy at the weekend. There are 4 shifts per day at weekends.
- Receipt: once students and parents register and pay for the course, the receipt will be issued with their signature.
- Brochures: SEV has brochures with the content of courses, programmes, and tuition fees for each level separately.
- Communication book: is compulsory in class for Children's classes at SEV. This is a good way of communication for parents and teachers and teaching assistants.
Teachers will write their comments every lesson whether students make the progression or not or anything they want the parents to help and remind the students at home. Parents can be updated on their child's situation in class such as what their child learned, what homework students need to do, and so on.
- Academic reports: besides the communication books, the end of every course, there is a parent meeting and Academic report cards are given on this day, too. And teaching assistant calls parents to inform the results in case there is no meeting or parent cannot attend the meeting. Academic reports show the performance of students in the class.
- Certificates: Every student at SEV will receive a certificate that proves which level students have completed successfully.
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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
I. Research results:
After using research methods of interview, observation, comparison, and qualitative analysis in order to analyse the data and information, our research can be summarised in the below table:
Table 5.1: Summary of Research results
Schools SEV ILA APOLO
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Flexible Flexible Flexible Flexible
Return/
Around 5,000 300,000 515,274 180,000
Physical Evidence
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Within the scope of research and analysis, we recognize that SEV doesn’t have the Marketing department as well as Marketing experts. Thus, if anything we could suggest for SEV is to build up the Marketing Department or corporate with Marketing agencies. Accordingly, this department can improve marketing strategies, select suitable marketing channels for education Business, especially Language Schools as well as develop SEV’s branding.
66 1. Marketing Strategy Process
a. Market research:
Educational marketing is understood as the process of analysis, orientation, planning to help schools reach the target customers (here are the learners, the people involved with the learners, the parents or the employers, ...) through marketing tools to be able to identify the needs and wants of customers before the training period and meet those desired needs. At the same time, monitor, review, cultivate, draw experience from which to have more specific solutions, engage and communicate to potential students in the future to achieve successful results for the whole school and students study.
The process of understanding the needs and desires of the students because it is the main object of service to enhance the value of "planting people" as well as the quality of subsequent training for the school. Therefore, it is necessary to understand students' needs through the following questions:
- Students know the school through any tool (Internet, friends and acquaintances, books "Things to know about admission" published annually, newspapers, ...)
- The reason you study at the school (teacher qualifications, school reputation, future guarantee, tuition rates, learning environment, ...)
- What does the school need to develop (sports activities, library, scholarships, financial support, ...)
To operate successfully, the school needs to identify which markets are attractive and evaluate the potential of each of its programmes into those markets as accurately as possible. The market research process consists of the following steps:
# Step 1: Establishing research issues (need to understand the root and source of management issues)
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# Step 2: Research Methods (empirical research methods and non-empirical research methods)
# Step 3: Data collection techniques (communication and observation)
# Step 4: Sample ((1) where the sample was chosen, (2) the sampling process, (3) the size of the sample)
# Step 5: Data collection (data collection itself or buy data from data collection and sale organizations)
# Step 6: Analyze and process data (collected data must be checked, edited, coded, analyzed, and processed before being put into use)
# Step 7: Report the research results (conclusions are drawn and if possible to make recommendations for action accurately, clearly, and honestly)
b. Run a SWOT analysis
The school pays attention to what are the strengths and weaknesses of its training so that it can offer appropriate and more effective remedies in training. This is also the factor that addresses the wishes of any recruiting agency. Based on these desires, an evaluation toolkit can be built based on the criteria: professional qualifications, practical skills, thinking - creativity, ability to work in groups, the ability to communicate information. , moral qualities, bravery - under pressure.
The SWOT matrix is built by listing, evaluating, and summarizing internal factors of the business operations of the enterprise (strengths, weaknesses) and external factors of the business environment (opportunities). , threatening). SWOT analysis can assist: Figure out school’s value proposition; Understand customer; Define buyer personals;Analyze markets and competitor.
68 c. Determine marketing strategy objectives
The mixed marketing strategy consists of 7 part strategies: product, price, distribution and promotion, also known as the 4P strategy (Product - Price - Place – Promotion – People – Process - Physical Evidence). Marketing strategy combined with the strategy to penetrate the world market creates a business strategy for a long time (5, 10 years) according to a predetermined goal of the business. In order to make a decision on marketing strategy, especially for Education Businesses, it is necessary to pay more attention to other factors such as Progarmme, teachers, campus, facilities, including quality, class size, activity,... The chosen marketing strategy must be a marketing strategy that can help businesses achieve set goals.
d. Organize the implementation of Marketing strategies
An excellent marketing plan will not lead to success without the right implementation process. Implementation is the process of turning marketing plans into actions with tasks to accomplish the planned goals. While the marketing strategy answers the "what",
"why" questions, the implementation will answer the questions "for whom", "where",
"when" and "how". Strategy and implementation of a close relationship with each other.
In order to organize the implementation of successful marketing plans, Schools need to have the following capabilities:
- Predictability (predicting the development trend of the market, forecasting revenue, forecasting profits ...)
- Schools qualifications (business, advertising, sales promotion, information gathering and processing skills, etc.)
- Implementation ability (ability to organize, listen, interact, the ability to control the annual plan, control profitability, control performance and control strategy).
- Ability to evaluate implementation. In the process of implementation, it is necessary to set up a detailed timetable
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- The implementation process is the process of detailing activities to implement each plan step by step.
e. Check, evaluate and adjust:
Testing and evaluation must be conducted continuously based on the goals set out in the marketing plan, which can be yearly, quarterly, or even monthly. Inspection and control reduce uncertainty, increase predictability, and ensure the smoothness and coordination of activities in different parts of the school to achieve the common goal of the school.
The school can check the implementation of the number of students, check the
The school can check the implementation of the number of students, check the