Universities face increasing challenges from changing student expectations, financial pressures, and disruptive technologies. Students now demand more flexible, personalized, and technology-enabled educational experiences. Increased competition comes from private providers adopting new models. To succeed, universities must focus on recruiting, engaging, and satisfying diverse students through tailored programming and services available anytime on any device. Leveraging student data and technology, universities can better understand student needs and intervene to improve retention, outcomes, and employability. This will help universities develop sustainable models and compete in today's shifting landscape of higher education.

1. Focusing andworkinglocally– whilereaching
globally
Nathaniel Harvatt
ProductMarketing Partner
Tribal
Daniel Barrass
Marketing Business Partner
Tribal
1

2. A changing landscape…
Reduced government support
Rising public scepticism about the
value of a degree
Increased institutional
competition
Emergence of disruptive
technology
Universities worldwide are grappling with powerful forces colliding at once
Increasing Student
Expectations
Removal of
student cap

3. Attract successful students
Improve student retention
Increase student success
Student employability
Institution goals
Impacts
A changing landscape…
As technology evolves and the financial climate shifts, the world of Higher
Education is changing quickly and dramatically.
Universities are deploying new strategies to Attract Students, Cut Costs and
Increase Revenue in the hope of developing a sustainable business model for
the future.

4. Students Expectations are Changing
These 21st century learners have choices. Empowered by technology’s broad
reach, they act more like a consumer than a student, comparing products and
selecting the best fit for their individualized needs. What’s more, today’s
learners are learners for life. Gone is the norm of a once in a lifetime education.
Students today want just-in-time learning to gain employment or a higher
paying job. Degrees are not necessarily as important as learning outcomes and
life experiences.

5. • How do you recruit, retain and satisfy students?
• Which students do you recruit?
• Do you diversify or focus on core competencies?
• How can technology help?
The burning questions…

6. Student Recruitment
Universities are allocating more time and
money to marketing open days, engaging
with students on social media, improving
their prospectuses and developing their
university websites.
Social media is a great marketing tool for
recruiting students, but needs to be used in
the right way.
Don’t use it to advertise, but as a tool to
engage. Invest in the stories you place
there, whether that be capturing and
celebrating the student experience or
creating content to provoke that
engagement.

7. Data challenges
There is too much data to see what is going on
Knowing what data matters
How do we use our data more proactively?

8. Segmentation
Collect Data
Predict and
understand
Patterns
Relationships Trends
Behaviours
What to do with the data…

9. Student Expectations
Most students now come to university having already embraced mobile technologies,
social media, and online service delivery, and many students are also highly consumer
oriented, able to navigate the choices open to them in the higher education sector and
less forgiving of offerings that fail to meet expectations.
Challenge Description Customer Impact
1. Student
Engagement
Students want to be engaged in the online
environment through collaboration, connection,
and communication with their peers and the
University
1. Consistent online experience – connected
and seamless systems
2. Surveys to benchmark and measure student
experience
3. Expand channels (social media, chat, SMS,
Alerts etc.)
4. Improved Online Support Services
2. Flexibility Students expect flexibility in accessing the
resources and services they need to support their
learning, regardless of time or location
1. 24 x 7 access to resources – online deliver
(i.e. electronic assignments etc.)
2. Anytime, Anywhere and any device
3. User Friendliness Students want the University’s online
environment to be simplified, user-friendly, and
consistent
1. One common university process
2. Online where possible – all in one location
3. Highly customer focused services
4. Courses – easy to plan and navigate (within
rules and resolutions)

10. Student Expectations
Challenge Impact Description Customer Impact
4. Personalisation Students want to be known by the University as an
individual, either through personalised interactions
with staff or through the ability to personalise the
online environment.
1. Provide ability to personalise digital
workspace - resources and services which
they believe they will use frequently
2. Assumes they capture student data and
relevant information, and use these to inform
and support services and interactions
3. Need to suggest pathway options to each
student based on the courses they have
completed and their academic performance.
These options should be specific to each
student and their chosen award
5. Supportive
Environment
In order facilitate a connected learning community,
students and staff need a supportive environment
that provides suitable and reliable tools and
equipment, and access to training.
1. 24 x 7 support for students
2. Online knowledge base and interactive
support for service requests
3. Case management (appeals / hardship etc.)
4. Establish SLA’s and make staff responsible
5. Establish planning tools (open day planning
etc.)

11. Increased Competition
Governments are increasingly moving towards market-based models for the
delivery of education services, for a variety of reasons. In part, increased
competition and contestability between public and private providers have
the potential to deliver improvements in efficiency, innovation and choice.
Under the government's "competitive neutrality" policy, public institutions
will cease to enjoy advantages over private sector groups simply because
they are government-run or owned.
Deregulation has increased private provision, with Online learning as a key
focus. Private providers at forefront of technology innovations.

12. Increased Competition
Challenge Description Customer Impact
1. Profitability Vs
Social
Responsibility
 Private for-profit education can cater for non-
traditional markets in a cheaper, accessible
format - The commercial model calls for bigger
volumes and shorter courses
1. Understand segments
2. Review and develop targeted programs and
services
3. Established cost effective deliver methods
2. Technology  Private providers are often at the forefront of
technology and offer better support for student
interaction
1. Develop diverse online offerings right for a
different person, or same person at a
different time (MOOCs, Flipped Classrooms
etc.)
2. Investment in new support mechanisms and
infrastructure to support new delivery
models
3. Differentiation  Private providers have traditionally excelled in
marketing their courses by offering flexible
short courses
1. Refine recruitment strategy
2. Highlight brand
4. Tuition Fees  Tuition fees for private providers have
traditionally been more expensive due to
government support for public education. This
model is now changing as government promote
competitive neutrality by offering private place
funding.
1. Review courses and fees and deliver better
visibility in terms of value for money (i.e.
living costs, success etc.).

13. Disruptive Technologies
Challenge Description Customer Impact
1. New learning
paradigms
 Students will study what they want to study, not
what academics wish to teach. They also expect
content delivered anywhere, anytime.
1. Technology tailored to student needs and
segmentation
2. 24 x 7 access to support and recourses -
online
2. Institutional and
User Adoption
 Traditional universities can be slow in adopting
new technologies and often need to observe a
negative
 User adoption of new technologies can be slow
in traditional universities. For example lecturers
must come to grips with blended modes of
teaching and adopt new technologies to do so.
1. Slow to adopt and hence fear of being left
behind
2. Cost of risk vs reward
3. Competition from
private providers
and new
institutions
 Traditional universities will find it increasingly
difficult to compete with new institutions that
are able to invest in content without the labour
and capital intensive overheads that grind
universities down
1. Understanding course costs
2. Need to Review offerings and tailor to
compete

14. Vision
• Be accessible and responsive anytime, anywhere and on any device
• Ensure sufficient flexibility to create tailored experiences for all students
• Create sustained positive relationships and connections with students
• Create a secure, robust and dependable system that is sustainable now
and into the future
• Build inclusive collaborative partnerships that utilize the capabilities and
strengths within your University, locally and the global community
• Create a cohesive, integrated and student focused approach to
recruitment, retention and success

15. Why do it?
• Leverage investment in SIS and data
• Greater and more meaningful engagement with
students
• Greater understanding of student needs
• Target strategic interventions with the right
students
• Drive student progression

16. Thank you…
Nathaniel Harvatt
@NHarvatt
Nathaniel.Harvatt@tribalgroup.com
www.tribalgroup.com
Daniel Barrass
@Tribalgroup
Daniel.Barrass@tribalgroup.com
www.tribalgroup.com
16