Competitive Analysis: Positioning AAU Business College in the UAE

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the marketing and competitive positioning of Al Ain University of Science and Technology (AAU), focusing on its Business College and MBA program. It includes a SWOT analysis of AAU and its key competitors, Abu Dhabi University (ADU) and Khawarizmi International College (KIC), highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report identifies the inherent attributes of AAU's services, explores its distribution policies and marketing activities, and profiles direct and indirect competitive brands, noting points of parity and difference. A perceptual map is used to visually represent the positioning of AAU's Business College relative to ADU and KIC, assessing factors such as monetary value and service efficiency within the UAE's business education market. The analysis aims to understand AAU's strategic advantages and areas for improvement in the competitive landscape of higher education in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.

Positioning the collage of business in Al Ain University of Science and
Technology (AAU)
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Executive Summary...............................................................................................................3
3. AAU Description...................................................................................................................4
4. SWOT Analysis.....................................................................................................................5
3.2 SWOT of competitor 1- ADU..............................................................................................6
3.3 SWOT of competitor 2- KIC................................................................................................7
3.4 opinion by comparing Al Ain University of Science, and Technology competitors of
ADU &KIC................................................................................................................................8
5. Identify the inherent attributes of the service.........................................................................8
Distribution policies...................................................................................................................9
Other relevant marketing activities..........................................................................................11
6. Profile direct and indirect competitive brands, for points of parity and points of difference
among AAU and the two competitors......................................................................................12
7. Use perceptual maps/charts to see where the AAU collage of business is positioned among
other business collages in ADU & KIC...................................................................................13
Reference list............................................................................................................................23
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................26
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1. Introduction
This assignment will highlight about the marketing activity of Al Ain University of Science
and Technology. The college provides its students with several important and quality courses
in different fields that will help them in building a strong and successful future. They try to
incorporate technological advancements for enhancing the studying experience of their
students. The college is dedicated to work on its services so that it is able to increase its brand
image, to be the best in the field of education. The report also provides details about the
strengths and weaknesses of other leading collage such as Khawarizmi International College
and Abu Dhabi, which enables the learner to gain knowledge about the policies and strategies
that are being used by leading educational institutes in UAE. The marketing strategies of
AAU will be defined that will help in understanding how the university is better than other
business colleges of the country. The analysis will highlight about the strengths and
weaknesses of the University and will elaborate about the ways they use their strength in
order to gain competitive advantage from other competing institutes. The management of the
university works on their weaknesses in order to improve them and enhance the experience of
their students.
The learner will gain knowledge about the inherent attributes of the services. The business
market of AAU can be analyzed with the help of perceptual map that will elaborate about the
business environment of UAE and the strategic position of AAU as per the business
environment. The assignment will allow the learner to understand the factors that contribute
towards making AAU University better then rest of the business institute operating in Abu
Dhabi and Al Ain.
2. Executive Summary
This report evaluates the strengths and weakness of the Al Ain University. The University is
popular for its business college program, where it helps students getting MBA degree. The
University has a strong faculty base that is dedicated at imparting knowledge to the students.
The management of the college keep enhancing the services of the institute and introduces
latest facilities and service that will help in increasing the efficacy of the educational institute.
The SWOT analysis conducted for Al Ain University, Abu Dhabi University and
Khawarizmi International College helps in understanding that the due to the high fee
structure Al Ain university is facing a shortage of a students, in order to handle the situation
the faculties have introduced scholarship facilities for their students. The organization must
analyze the strategic positioning of their competitors so that they are able to enhance their
operational strategies. The perceptual map developed in this report help in understanding the
position of AAU as compared to Abu Dhabi University and Khawarizmi International
College. The analysis reveals that as per the monetary value the services provided by Abu
Dhabi University is more efficient and provides value for money.
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3. AAU Description
Al Ain University of Science and Technology is one of the most rapidly growing higher
educational institutes of UAE that was established in the year 2005. The Ministry of
Education in the Higher Education Affairs had given license to this college. This college has
played a major role in enhancing the education of UAE and helped in the development of the
country.
The University is very popular for its business studies and has two campuses that are located
in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. AAU provides 21 undergraduate programme courses; they have
five graduate programs, and one professional diploma that the students can choose institute.
The college provides education to 4,862 students coming from different parts of the world
(Al Ain University of Science and Technology, 2018, A). The vision of the college is to be
one of the leading learning institutes of the region by establishing international quality
standards in their research, teaching, and community engagement. The mission of AAU is to
be the best learning institute by responding to the market requirements and prepare qualified
students that possess the technological and scientific competencies that are required for their
careers. In order to improve the quality of their services, the university focuses on creating
partnership with organizations and institutions through a commitment to the technological,
educational and economical development of the region and the country.
The University has a separate Business college that provides the learners facilities for
learning business management by indulging the courses that are offered by the business
college of the University. The Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree course
available at Al Ain University of Science and Technology is ideal for students interested in
business studies. After completing the MBA course, the students will gain adequate
knowledge to proceed in the business community and will be able to achieve their long-term
goals in order to occupy managerial positions. This program is one of the most popular aspect
of the University as it has a gained a lot of acknowledgement due to its business course. The
University is also recognised for the well-educated and qualified faculties that help in
teaching the students. The University is well updated and tries to implement latest
technologies that will allow them to increase the efficiency of their services. The
management of the University follows all the current trends and tries to maintain
international academic standards in AAU. As all the major courses are available in the
college and the college has all the advanced facilities available at the campus, most of the
students of UAE are inclined to take admission in AAU. Moreover, increase in the number of
students helps in increasing the market share of the company.
The fee structure of the University is high as the services quality of the University is required
to be maintained as per the international standards. The management of the college has
developed some scholarship program that helps the students in reducing the fee amount.
There are certain criteria that are required to be met so that the student is eligible to get the
services and facilities of scholarship.
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4. SWOT Analysis
3.1 SWOT of AAU
SWOT analysis will help in understanding the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats of Al Ain University. The information gained with the help of SWOT analysis will
help the organization in utilising its resources in an efficient manner that will allow it to gain
competitive advantage and increase its market share by positioning itself effectively.
SWOT analysis of Al Ain University
Strengths: The capability of the institute to use their resources in an efficient manner
contributes towards the strength of the organization. The organization is focused on
producing responsible learners by improving their services. The college provides its learners
the opportunity to study business studies in the business college that has become popular in
UAE because of increase in the number of business organisations and higher requirement of
management positions. The college has a good brand name due to the strong faculty and
international academic standards available at Business College.
Weaknesses: The fee of this University is quite high as compared to other universities in
UAE, due to which majority of students are unable to take admission in this university They
are unable to pay the fees of the college because of their economical conditions.
Opportunities: Improve the retention, recruitment and graduation rate within the student
body that will help them in increasing well skilled students that are capable of entering a
nurturing environment. Recruit qualified staffs and faculty members that help in improving
the knowledge of the students of the university. They should keep interacting with the
community to understand the opinion of community members that will assist them in
increasing their services (Wheelen et al., 2017).
Threats: There are a number of educational organizations such as Khawarizmi International
College and Abu Dhabi University that increases the competition level for Al Ain University.
Competitors that are able to keep pace with the current market trends and improve their
services and courses consistently are also considered as threat for AAU. Increasing interest of
individuals to continue education from well-known foreign universities are also major factors
that acts as a threat for AAU.
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3.2 SWOT of competitor 1- ADU
SWOT Abu Dhabi University
Strengths: The Abu Dhabi University have a positive reputation in UAE, due the services
and courses that are offered by them. The management of the college uses internet in order to
interact with their existing students and create awareness about their courses and services.
The college has been strategically placed and provides education to diverse student body. The
university has received the Bizz award for three years of successful running (Adu.ac.ae,
2018). This award indicates that the college is maintaining the standards of education
provided by them.
Weaknesses: The bureaucracy structure is a problem for the university. The college is weak
at retaining their faculties; continuous change in faculty may hamper the studies of the
students. One of the major weaknesses of the institute is that it is unable to manage the high
workload, which is distributed unequally among staffs and faculty.
Opportunity: The College can establish partnership with other university initiatives, that will
help them in increasing their courses and allow them to enhance the experiences of their
students. They should try to expand their academic program and cultural activity. They can
take initiative in order to expand their services on a global level by providing tuitions and
courses to students with the help of online medium. Technological advancements will
increase the efficiency and business of the organization and enhance the market share of the
institute.
Threat: the competition in educational sector of UAE is increasing at a rapid rate, Abu Dhabi
University faces major threat from competitors such as Al Ain University of Science and
Technology and Khawarizmi International College, which provide similar courses to the
students of the regions. These Universities are well reputed and uses various policies that
help them in attracting students towards their institute; thus, competitors are major thereat for
Abu Dhabi University.
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3.3 SWOT of competitor 2- KIC
Strengths: Khawarizmi International College is first private institute of UAE and thus is one
of the oldest and most trusted universities that help in providing a number graduate program
to the students of UAE. The University endorses as well as advocates UAE’s social system,
cultural and human rights of country while maintaining teamwork, equality, transparency and
a progressive learning approach. These approaches help the college in attracting students to
the university. The college recruits well-qualified and talented faculties that are hard working
and help the students with their academic issues (Kic.ac.ae, 2018). The fee structure of this
University is quiet reasonable that helps in attracting a huge crowd of students.
Weaknesses: The University is only focused on endorsing the culture of UAE; students are
required to understand the business culture prevailing on a global scale. As the students are
from diverse backgrounds, the University should address group diverse culture. The internal
communication and coordination of the University is not up to the mark. The organization
does not have a post-graduate program
Opportunities: The organization can include more courses that will help them in increasing
the number of courses that will be offered by the university. More courses will allow the
university in increasing the student base of the institute. The college can use social media and
other effective marketing strategy in order to enhance their brand image. It can also increase
its branches by expanding across UAE (Luxton et al., 2017).
Threat: The increasing popularity of Business college of AAU is one of the rising concerns
of Khawarizmi International College. The students are more inclined towards colleges that
offer them international courses and maintain international standards. The college also faces
major threats from Abu Dhabi University as it has been able to grab the attention of foreign
university due to its excellent services and dedicated faculties.
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3.4 opinion by comparing Al Ain University of Science, and Technology competitors of
ADU &KIC
The SWOT analysis conducted reveals the strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats of
Al Ain University of Science, and Technology, Abu Dhabi University and Khawarizmi
International College. By comparing the analysis of the Universities, it can be said that the
business college of Al Ain University is very popular in UAE due to its MBA course and
skilled faculties that assist the students throughout the course program. The MBA course
helps the students in gaining knowledge about the business strategies that are based on global
standards. Thus, students interested in business studies are inclined towards Al Ain
University as compared to Abu Dhabi and Khawarizmi International College.
The analysis helps in revealing that due to high fee structure of Al Ain University majority of
students are unable to afford the services of the college. The fee structure is a major issue for
immigrants that are coming from developing countries for educational purpose. Thus, the
University loses students to Khawarizmi International College, which has a very reasonable
fee structure that is affordable by people from various economical statuses (College, 2018).
The management of the organization must take initiative of managing their fee structure it is
one of the major reason due to which the business of the institute is hampered. If the
management can maintain the fee then the organization will be able to increase its business
and increase its market share as compared to the other two competitors.
The competition in the education sector of UAE is increasing at a very rapid rate, as the
government of the country is also taking initiative in order to improve the educational
standards of the country (Ashour and Fatima, 2016). The technological advancement and the
faculties of the universities play a major role in enhancing the experience of the students of
the university. The management and faculties of Al Ain University ensures that they are
implementing all the latest facilities and technologies that will assist their students with the
educational courses. The management of the organization is responsible to recruit well-
qualified faculties that can deal with the queries and difficulties that are faced by the students
of the university. One of the unique features of the university is its business courses that help
them kin grabbing the attention of the students that are interested in learning about business.
The organization has a very systematic website that helps the students in gaining details about
the courses that are available at the university.
It can be concluded that the facilities, courses and services of Al Ain University is better as
compared to the other two Universities. However, due to the high fee structure, the university
is facing a shortage of students and Khawarizmi International College is able to give tough
competition to the institute. The organization can also consider expanding in different part of
UAE so that students living in any part of UAE can access it. This will increase the business
of the University.
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5. Identify the inherent attributes of the service
Pricing
The fee structure of Al Ain University of Science and Technology is quite high, as the
University offers a number of facilities to their student as per the international standards. The
University accepts the fee in Cash, Post-dated cheque and Cash. This flexibility allows the
students to pay the fee in the medium that is suitable for them. The students are required to
pay a fee of 1000 Dirham for admission application; this fee is non-refundable. The
registration fee of the university is comparatively high; the university charges their students a
registration fee of 300 Dirham for each semesters. The tuition fee is 1100 per credit hour for
undergraduate, and 2500 per credit hour for the MBA program. A fee of 100 Dirham is
refundable once the candidate graduates from the University (Al Ain University of Science
and Technology, 2018, C).
The organization has certain policies that help the students in getting scholarship facilities
from the college so that they can get education from Al Ain University. The top five students
of UAE are provided a full grant from the University, while the students who were able to
achieve a grade of 95% in their General Secondary School are offered a grant of 40%
discount on the fee for the credit hours. Similarly, the University offers a number of
scholarships based on the merits of the students. The scholarship program helps the students
in reducing their fee structure and they are able to avail the services of one of the best college
of the country (Al Ain University of Science and Technology, 2018).
Communication
Communication is one of the most important criteria that helps in the development and
growth of an organisation. Al Ain is a well established University that is popular for its
business course, in order to maintain and enhance the brand image the management of the
University ensures to maintain their communication system. The management of the institute
conduct proper interview to ensure that well qualified faculty members are recruited. As
English is considered as a universal language, the faculty members of the university interact
with students in English so that those coming from diverse nations and countries are able to
understand them and can follow the course without any issues or problems. The management
of the organization maintain a systematic website that provides information in English so that
students visiting the website from any nation can understand about the services and courses
that are offered by them. They interact with their students on a number of social platforms
such as Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook etc (Powell and Oberg, 2017). The interactions allow
the institute to gain the opinion of their students regarding the quality of education and
facilities that assist them in enhancing their services for the students. The interactions on
social platforms also assist in increasing the awareness about the college. The University uses
the medium of email in their admission procedures, students can apply for courses with the
help of their website while the rest of the procedure is conducted with the help of email. The
students receive their coninstituteation letters on emails, while any query regarding the
admission procedure is answered with the help of email services (Blakeman, 2018).
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Distribution policies
AAU sets its mission and vision to be one of the leading learning centres of excellence.
According to this mission, they have designed their distribution process. Their distribution
process includes a strong commitment to the deliverance of quality graduate and
undergraduate programs, which are characterized by rigorous disciplinary profundity and
breadth along with effective, direct communication between staff and students. Design of
their distribution channel is divided under two main sub categories named as Degree
Programs and distribution of staff and faculty members (aau.ac.ae, 2018-B). This college
provides different kinds of degree programs to the students that are cited below.
Figure 1: AAU Degree programs by college
(Source: aau.ac.ae, 2018-B)
AAU also initiates new programs and National Accreditation programs for the interested
students. Under their new programs, “College of Law” has received the final official approval
for the “Master in Public Law and Master in Private Law programs”, by the Commission for
Academic Accreditation (CAA) (aau.ac.ae, 2018-B). Under the National Accreditation
programs, “College of Engineering” has received the official recognition of Board for
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Engineering and Technology (ABET) and accreditation for 2 programs. The “College of
Pharmacy” has also obtained global certification from the American-based Universities.
All these above mentioned degree programs are distributed to the students through the staff and
faculty members who strive to play a vital role in making of knowledge through quality research
and teaching. During the 2016-17 educational years, this university had managed to retain and
recruit skilled faculty members as well as administrative workers required to pursue the
university quest for excellence (aau.ac.ae, 2018-B). Most of the 162 administrative staff has
Doctorate degree from globally designated institutions especially in UK and USA and have
proper teaching knowledge and research capabilities in various other universities. Through this
kind of strong and experienced faculty members, this university distribute and deliver all kinds of
educational programs for students in their university.
Other relevant marketing activities
Al Ain University of Science and Technology provides several workshops and internships to
the students along with several degree programs mentioned in the above portion in this study.
All these certified programs are helpful for students to build a great career in future. As
required all the marketing and promotional activities of this University are described below.
 This University promotes community participation through their marketing process.
Currently, within the framework of AAU’s efforts to develop the spirit of knowledge
between staff and student, the College of Business at Al Ain University of Science
and Technology arranged a lecture named as “Community Participation Development
in public affairs through marketing tools" (aau.ac.ae, 2018-A). Main focus of this
lecture is to increase competencies of new generations who would contribute to the
UAE development.
 Apart from organizing open lectures, this University promotes about their programs
and internship information in their official online website page. Regular update of
important information has been done by the IT faculty in this university so that
students could get the most updated news (Gregory, 2016).
 News paper advertisement and template advertisements are also part of their
marketing process (Scott, 2015). Another important segment of their marketing
process is the word of mouth promotion. This is the most important marketing process
of this University as the old and existing students communicate with other students
and people about university facilities and educational scope that influence people
effectively.
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6. Profile direct and indirect competitive brands, for points of parity and points of
difference among AAU and the two competitors
The names of the colleges act as brands in the modern days and attract the students, for
studying in there. In terms of Brand name and recognition, KIC has the most stable position
in the market, since it is the oldest private college founded in UAE while the others have been
founded in recent times; ADU in 2003 and AAU in 2005. The business colleges have been
founded later and thus, the time of association with the clients and their families are actually
low for AAU and ADU. KIC and AAU possesses two campuses each, one in Alain and one
in Abu Dhabi while ADU possesses a campus in Dubai as well. The global positioning of
ADU is better as compared to other two competitors since Dubai is a famous and big city and
the presence of the college there improves its brand image. The educational councils and
bodies grant accreditations to the business colleges, and the courses offered by ADU
possesses most of the accreditations from famous educational councils that further adds to its
likeability.
The KIC college does not offer any Master’s program which acts as an inhibitor to its
attraction and the minimal availability of amenities for usage by the students further
discourages the students to join this college. In this case, ADU offers the maximum benefits
and amenities to the students, closely followed by AAU. ADU and AAU also offers
scholarships to its students, both deserving and meritorious students, while KIC gives away
scholarships to selected percentage of students only. The social media presence of AAU and
ADU is better as they are present on all social media sites, and it makes it easier for them to
reach out to the students while KIC is present on limited sites only. AAU also has a website
that is compatible with the Apple operating system, which increases its ability in reaching out
to the elite group of customers, who are abound in UAE. Transportation facilities are
available for the students studying in AAU and ADU, while students studying at KIC are not
granted any such facilities. 72% of the undergraduate students and 27% of the post graduate
students in UAE prefer going to ADU. From the year 2011 to 2017, 7138 students have
passed out from AAU while 13,207 students have passed out from ADU. 30% of the
international students travelling to UAE prefer availing education from ADU, as compared to
other universities (aau.ac.ae, 2018 B).
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