Alumni Giving

Summary of the Marketing Question

Alumni participation is an essential part in the success of a high performing university. The Alumni of record are the former full- or part-time students that received an undergraduate degree and for whom the university has a current address. Participation of alumni in the university is a voluntary affair, and the rates of participation are calculated by dividing the number of appropriate donors during a given academic year by the number of appropriate alumni on record for that given year. The main question is about how the rates of alumni participation can be improved. This is what the model prescribed below attempts to answer.

The case study of the University alumni participation presented led to a number of findings that prompted a raft of recommendations to improve the participation rates at a low participation rate university. One of the recommendations for improving participation rates would be to establish stronger connections to alumni who are almost getting to retirement age and are likely to seek stronger ties amongst themselves and with their university following the free time they now enjoy. Secondly, universities must consider what they are offering young donors in order to reward their financial fidelity. Thirdly, the alumni who no longer maintain frequent correspondence with the university and who no longer participate in alumni activities and fundraising should be purged from the alumni registers to increase the rates of participation.

The university has to do a proper partner evaluation in order to build the collaborative environment. There has to be good project management of the projects decided, with progress monitoring and communication. Collaboration is a delicate process, and it has to foster feelings of trust, commitment, respect, friendliness and continuity. The proprietary benefits and achievement of tangible outcomes have to be paid special attention to with regard to maintaining commitment of the industry partners. A proper balance between academic objectives and industrial priorities has to be sought and established.

Data Analysis

Alumni participation is one of the most important indicators of a high performing university. The determination of this engagement is pegged on various indicators.

Looking at the indicators above, it is interesting to see that most of these indicators are quite applicable to low participation universities that cannot simply be assessed on the basis of alumni giving alone. An advancement official would be interested in knowing the other areas other than alumni giving that can be used to measure the participation of alumni. Indicators like pro-bono services, voluntarism, university brand promotion and internship and job promotion have to be properly assessed and the liaison offices work together with the alumni to improve participation rates.

It is interesting to note that the trends of connection to the university by the alumni differ depending on the age groups of the alumni under consideration. This reality is represented in the diagram below

Fig: Strength of connection to Alma Mater diminishes over time

Source: The Engagement Strategies Group, The Mood of Alumni, 2010

Going by the current trends, it is a fact that with each passing year, there are graduates who qualify to be part of the alumni. This younger population, as the data shows, has declining rates of participation in alumni activities. As a university advancement official, this information would be essential for the purpose that it would make the officials determine what they can offer young donors to reward their financial fidelity. This data would enable an advancement official to establish the quality and frequency of alumni participation so that the reluctant demographics can be brought on board. Even while Alumni giving is a simple and measurable indicator for comparing alumni office results, it only serves as a snapshot of the present moment. It does not respond to the question of alumni relations can be diversified and made better.

In terms of alumni giving, the data provided below offers some glimpses of the differences in variables in Alumni Giving in various Universities:

The model above has made use of concepts from scatterplots like the one below from the SPSS data

Conclusion

The participation of Alumni in the affairs of the university has to be measured against variables like alumni giving, offering of pro-bono services, internships, university brand promotion and voluntarism. Alumni’s giving is shaped by the age group of the various alumni and the feeling of attachment and connection they feel for the university. It is high among those who have only recently graduated and reduces over time. The groups among whom participation is lowest have to be reached for the participation level to go up.

Recommendations

This model lends credence to a raft of recommendations that can be followed to improve alumni giving and in the process increase the level of alumni participation. The following recommendations would be appropriate:

• Establish stronger connections to alumni who are almost getting to retirement age and are likely to seek stronger ties amongst themselves and with their university following the free time they now enjoy.
• Universities must consider what they are offering young donors in order to reward their financial fidelity.
• The alumni who no longer maintain frequent correspondence with the university and who no longer participate in alumni activities and fundraising should be purged from the alumni registers to increase the rates of participation.
• Partner evaluations that assess collaborations are essential to the process of improving participation of alumni
• There has to be a balance between academic objectives and industrial priorities.
• References

Taylor, J. Alumni Participation. Advancement Solutions Consulting group, 2008.The

Engagement Strategies group. The Mood of Alumni, 2010.

3.QUESTION

Week 5 Discussion    

The author of the Transient Advantage article discussed several traps that can blind a company to the need for imminent changes to their strategy to preserve competitive advantage.

• Using the company of your choice, provide an example where the company fell victim to one or more of these traps.

• Discuss why you believe the company’s management missed the warning signs, and what recommendations you would make to ensure they don’t fall into the trap in the future.

The company that I want this written on is Nissan Motor Corporation.

Link to article:

https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/lti/links/content-launch

https://hbr.org/2013/06/transient-advantage

ANSWER

Transient Competitive Advantage

The Nissan Motor Corporation enjoyed long profitable periods in domestic and foreign markets until 2015 when the company started experiencing losses. The change was caused by declining sales which, hit a low point of 11% drop in US markets in 2019 (NISSAN MOTOR Co.,2019). The decrease is mainly blamed on the former executive leader Carlos Ghosn who headed the company for 12 years. In his time, Ghosn orchestrated the merger between the company and Renault and also aggressively pushed for a volume growth strategy by the Japanese carmaker (The Japan Times, 2020). At the time Ghosn was pushing for the volume growth strategy, Nissan was enjoying significant profits. However, three years after his departure, the company is in deep turmoil with declining sales, while partners such as Renault expect a continued decline in share prices with dividends for 2020 having been abolished.

The company's management fell to the trap of 'resource hostage,' as explained by McGrath (2019). In this regard, Ghosn's push for a "volume at all cost" strategy continually delineated the dealers who are essential in selling cars. Ideally, the company focused on increasing volume, thereby dedicating all the resources to the course. In so doing, the baseline group was neglected. As the experience continued, dealers could not offer solutions to these baseline group of clients, pushing them away inadvertently. Since the company was realizing profits, the management failed to see the declining baseline group and dealers' delineation as a red sign until it became late.

The appropriate recommendation that can help organizations avoid falling into the trap that can blind them regarding the need for imminent changes to their strategy to preserve competitive advantage is abolishing the norm that a single strategy can lead to long term success. Notably, having such a view can lead to a limited analysis of short term performances, which are essential in revealing warning signs to a strategy.  Another recommendation is for firms to engage in practices that continually develop and evaluate new strategic initiatives to exploit various transient competitive advantages.