Marnie Watson has spent 10 years with Study Group, primarily focusing on the Asian region. Last year, she became Sales & Marketing Director for higher education and has her eye fixed firmly on the future.
The PIE: Please tell me about your background in industry?
MW: I studied Asian studies at university [in Australia] so I was always interested in international students. I was learning Indonesian and I volunteered to pick up international students at the airport so it kind of started there with volunteer work and orientation activities with students. The opportunity came up to go to Indonesia after about 12 months so I worked with UNSW in Jakarta for two and a half years and that’s when I moved into student recruitment.
The PIE: When did you join Study Group and why?
MW: I went back again to Australia [after Jakarta] for a couple of years and I got itchy feet and wanted to be back in Asia where it was happening. I really felt I had to pretend to be an expert, I’d pop into market and have to pop out again, I wasn’t really getting a feel of the market. So I joined Study Group and applied for a job in Taiwan, Vietnam or Singapore. Vietnam sounded the most different, unusual and exciting.
Vietnam is where I am still living. I took on the role for sales & marketing role for higher education about 7 months ago, which has been great because my knowledge has always been Asia and it’s now valuable to have that expanded responsibilty and outlook.
The PIE: Please tell me about the Study Group footprint… how many centres/schools do you have?
MW: We are teaching in more than 40 centres, with about 55,000 students ever year coming from 140 countries. Study Group has three divisions; we have higher education, language education and career education [only in Australia at the moment]. Those statistics are across the entire organisation. We also have 31 sales offices around the world – in our strongest agency markets: in China we have 6 offices; we have 5 offices throughout south and southeast Asia; and Dubai, Mosocw, Kazakhstan, Mexico City and more…
The PIE: What proportion of your business is accounted for by higher education?
MW: HE is the majority, not necessarily in terms of student numbers but in terms of the business value.
The PIE: Looking ahead, what are Study Group’s business priorities?
MW: Ultimately when a student is coming to us the parent/child is spending that money for their future career opportunities, whether it’s on language, higher education or our career division. So we will consequently continue to focus on all three divisions. My job is in the higher education division and that is the largest part of our business – we are growing significantly in that area as well and its very much a driving force behind the company.
“In this business you’ve got to be focusing on where the student flow is happening”
The PIE: How do you ensure cohesive standards in an organisation of your size?
MW: The success of the organisation is only as good as the success of the students. Our outcomes are strong and it’s very measurable in fact; you can measure progression very easily. We have over 90% progression on average from our instituions and we’re very proud of that and we’re focused on not dropping that standard.
That’s controversial – the agents for example want different entry requirements and our business demands suggest maybe we should be more flexible but we are acutely aware that we’ve got to maintain that standard.
The PIE: Can you give me a breakdown of world regions and how Asia figures in the mix?
MW: The combination of China, southeast Asia and south Asia would make up 60% of our business. We’re seeing growth particularly from Africa, but also in Mexico, for example.
The PIE: Do you have campuses ISCs in Asia?
MW: Yes we have 3 campuses in China, teaching foundation, diploma and pre-masters but in English. So we are actually preparing the students to study abroad..
“An institution is at risk based on the behaviour of its agents”
The PIE: do you foresee getting involved in traffic the other way?
MW: Absolutely yes, Asia is absolutely the way of the future. There are so many students coming into China now, it’s huge. The number of programmes available in China is immense but also in Malaysia and Singapore. All three of those destinatons are attracting actually different students: Malaysia is particularly attracting the Muslim markets while Singapore is more diverse with a lot of Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese and China itself is attracting a lot of Western markets, Russians and a lot of Americans for example.
In this business you’ve got to stay dynamic and you’ve got to be focusing on where the student flow is happening. [more>>]
The PIE: How are you adapting your sales and marketing strategies given the changing consumer?
MW: In terms of the sales, the one key aspect for the younger generation is immediacy. “I’m in Indonesia, I’m in Russia and I want an answer now”: and we are really responding to that. Naturally by having 31 offices that helps but also in terms of the work hours of our teams… we’re looking at that, to make sure we can answer questions in live time. It’s something we are still developing but it has been a focus for the last 12 months.
The PIE: Is live chat available now?
MW: It depends.. in certain markets…it depends on where we’ve got the capabilities.
The PIE: STB in Brazil [big outbound agency] has offered live chat for two years…
MW: This is what the students want – email is so old-school! The other side is marketing, and we’re making sure that is localised as well, getting involved in social media with a very localised mindset.
The PIE: Are more direct sales inevitable?
MW: I think it’s inevitable. The agents are important and will remain important – they are our backbone – and any smart education provider is going to continue nurturing them and looking after them. But some customers will prefer to go direct and you would be foolish not to be looking after your customer. It’s incredibly important to be looking at the direct sales opportunities.
The PIE: How have you seen international education in Asia change in 10 years?
MW: People can be very quick to think of their competitors as ‘who is it in UK, Australia and the USA’ but actually the competitors are also very much those players in Singapore, Malaysia and China; that is increasingly the case and particularly for pathway providers. Companies such as Limkokwing University, INTI in Malaysia, Raffles…
The PIE: What is biggest challenge to Study Group’s business progression?
MW: Probably the biggest actually is the fact that we are so dependent on the agent network. That’s ok – but with the UKBA changes and the fact that Australia looks to be mimicking UKBA changes – what that means is that compliance is much more focused on the education provider. Therefore an institution is at risk based on the behaviour of its agents and that is a huge part of my focus at the moment; making sure that our agent management and training is measurable… With 31 offices, we are very strong on agent management but to prove that is another step in itself.
“It’s incredibly important to be looking at direct sales opportunities”
The PIE: Do you foresee agent accreditation schemes becoming government mandated?
MW: That kind of jumping through hoops is essential. We have a lot of agents out there and we’re proud of that because we can handle a large group of agents but we’ve got to be so much more careful now. All sorts of dynamic changes are going to happen as a result of this compliance being on our shoulders more than ever before. It would be more helpful in a way if there was government regulation of agencies.
