Communication Optimisation for Education Export Export Readiness Examination from an Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective of the University of Tampere

We argue that media management is increasingly becoming an indispensable management competence for organisations and communities. This thesis examines the current state of education export operations in a leading university of Finland, the University of Tampere (UTA), as a timely opportunity to address the importance of managing media in an organisation that lacks a marketing tradition and is now attempting to enter the dynamic and increasingly competitive global education export market. The study seeks clarity about the factors that explain performance success in education export. In short, the answer highlights the importance of managing an organisation's communications in a systematic manner. This encourages taking a strategic approach and the thesis argues for adopting Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). Renowned firms advocate this approach because IMC enables organisations to develop competitive advantage in export business. It is widely considered a necessary and sufficient condition for an organisation pursuing a market orientation, which is the antecedent of "export readiness" and, in turn, determines the export success (or failure). Firms that are successful with IMC are usually reluctant to share the details of their implementation, because that information is considered an essential aspect of competitive advantage. Fortunately a study conducted by the American Productivity & Quality Centre (APQC) has identified IMC best-practice companies that agreed to tell their experiences. Our study utilises these valuable benchmarks to examine the state of communications strategy in the education export schema of UTA. A two-level (organisational readiness and management readiness) research design was implemented to answer the main research question "How ready is the University of Tampere to export education to China?". The organisational readiness is examined within the APQC's Four Revolutionary Stage Framework, which consists of the best practices. Management readiness was tested with Chris Fill's Marketing Communication Planning Framework (MCPF). The research results suggest low degree of integration on the organisational level, and moderate degree of integration among the management in UTA's education export operation. Consequently, the organisation as a whole arguably needs to do more to ensure success in export education to China