Production of Digital Content for Academic Purposes - Assignment Example

Running head: MARKET ATTRACTIVENESS REPORT Production of Digital Content for Academic Purposes Name: Course Information: Professor Information: Date Due: List of Acronyms CIE- Centre for International Economics DCIAA- Digital Content Industry Action Agenda ESA- Educational Services Australia OECD- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development PC- Personal Computer Executive Summary This marketing report will focus on Australia’s digital content industry. The industry has developed various products and services, which have been utilized in various sectors of the economy. This has been made possible by the high technological strides that Australia has made in recent years. Consequently, the Australian government is moving towards the development of a comprehensive Digital Content Strategy, which will accelerate and improve the use of digital content within Australia and beyond its borders. Introduction This report starts by identifying the service of providing digital content to schools then highlights the target market followed by the cultural, political, demographic, and economic issues that led to its success. This will be succeeded by an assessment of countries that would be a possible destination for the introduction of the service. The report concludes by outlining the challenges and identifying the possible strategy to be used in entering the market Chosen product/service: Digital content in the education sector The role of technology in education cannot be downplayed. Even as the world continues to adopt new technologies, so do the education sector. Several policy frameworks have realized this need and have structured their strategies in recognition of the critical role expected to be played by new technologies. The Adelaide Declaration of 1999, for instance, recognizes the fact that the future will be shaped by ICT. It argues that students should therefore be ready to use these new technologies. Consequently, there are plans to support education through digital means and elimination of perceived barriers (MCEETYA, 1999). The specific service chosen is the production of digital content for academic purposes. There is content that serves the needs of learners in various institutions. This sector was chosen because it is a rapidly growing sector and there is room for growth. According to estimates by the CIE, the industry employs about 300,000 people and has an annual trade deficit of about $2 billion. The other factor that makes digital content worthy of study is the fact that it is one of the first in the region and has quickly become a success story (CIE, 2005). Currently, digital content in Australia is controlled and regulated by the Education Services Australia (ESA). Digital content sector especially as regards to academic purposes has not been fully utilized in Australia. As early as 2001, the procurement and use of digital content has been assigned to business enterprises. One such institution is The Learning Federation (TLF), which has so far procured in excess of 8,800 items of digital content for use by schools. Such content has so far been able to fill the void and meet the needs of most curriculum areas (Baker, n.d). Basis of segmenting the market While developing the digital content there will be a need to segment the market into different characteristics. The basis that will be used to segment the market will be educational attainment of learners. There will be three categories of digital content with each targeting learners in different categories of attainment. These will be learners at primary level, secondary level then eventually learners in post-secondary institutions such as colleges and universities. Target market The key target market is learners at the primary school level of education. This is because these learners are the next crop of digital leaders. The young are the future and they have a keen interest in new technologies. The project has maximized on the interest of young learners in availing digital content offered in the school curricula. There is a lot of support for the project by the government through a program of sharing digital resources through education portals. This has been done through the National Digital Learning Resources Network (NDLRN). This is an infrastructure created to distribute and share digital resources through education portals (NDLRN, 2013). Issues that would make a market attractive for the product The concept of digital content for learners makes economic sense to both the learners and the government. This is because it saves costs in terms of time and money for the learners, they do not have to waste time looking for the prescribed content since all that they are required to do is to access the required portals and get all the information that they require. For the country, it saves many resources since all the effort is directed to the area of generating content, which will serve a wide and diverse group of learners. In terms of geographic aspects, the service is attractive because content can be accessed without regard to the constraints of geographical location. Digital content can be accessed from anywhere as long as one is able to access the internet. This has the capability of attracting markets towards the product because there are no travelling costs associated with the product. Culturally, digital content would resonate well with a variety of cultures. This is because content developed is universal and is not in conflict with other cultures. Furthermore, the Australian people have for a long time been interacting and exchanging ideas with people from diverse cultures. The content will thus not be new to other cultures. In demographic terms, it will cater specifically for learners in the school curricula, which will be relevant to all learners as long as they are pursuing the designed curricula. Politically, the concept of introducing digital content was an idea supported fully by the leaders both locally and nationally. It has served to place the country firmly on the map as a technologically advanced nation. The country’s leadership therefore allocated enough resources and this enabled a steady growth of the sector. The political support was therefore the most important factor in the development of digital content for learners. Going by recent indicators in the sector, the concept of digital content has contributed positively towards development in the education sector. An OECD’s latest PISA survey of the skills of 15 year olds found that Asian countries outperform the rest of the world. Specifically, it found that more than 10% of students in Australia are top performers (OECD, 2012). Overseas countries: Potential destinations Indonesia One potential area where digital content can be marketed to is Indonesia. Indonesia is a close neighbour of Australia and is currently making great strides in the utilization of new technologies, especially the use of internet. There is exponential growth as regards the use of internet in Indonesia and statistics show that in 2010, there were 30 million users, which represented 13 percent of the entire population (Indonet, 2013). The rising statistics in terms of internet usage suggests a population that would readily embrace the use of digital content especially in its education sector. There are spirited efforts in the country to advance teaching and learning using technology and there are currently efforts to initialize the use of tablets in classrooms through the “SabakMoE” project by the Indonesian Ministry of Education (IntelFree, 2012). Another prospect that would make the adoption of digital content in Indonesia to be more attractive is the fact that it is a populous nation with 120 million people who are younger than age 30 (IntelFree, 2012). This provides a wide market and a big pool of youth who are ready to adapt to the new technologies of the modern world. Similarly, Australia and Indonesia share a lot in terms of their origins and cultures. The introduction of digital content from Australia will therefore not serve as a culture shock for Indonesian students. This is because they are already aware of certain aspects of cultures, which may find way to be part of digital content. Furthermore, there would be a general sense of contentment that content is adopted from a local source and is therefore not alien. This would lead to faster adoption and implementation. Malaysia Malaysia is another neighbour of Australia that is currently struggling hard to keep up with technological advancements. Having recognized the important role that knowledge plays in an economy, the Malaysian government is rolling out projects to distribute PCs to students. One such example is the Malaysian state of Terengganu which distributed 93,000 PCs to students between the ages 10-14(Intel, 2012). These current efforts to provide learners with PCs mean that the next step is provision of content to be used. The provision of digital content to learners in Malaysia would therefore be a godsend opportunity to them. Kenya The other destination for digital content to be used in schools is the African continent. This would target Kenya, which is currently intending to roll out a program of providing laptops to students in lower classes of primary education. Kenya is among the countries where adoption of new technologies is moving at a fast pace. One factor that supports the use of digital content in Kenya is the exponential growth of internet users over the past year. Statistics released by the country’s regulatory authority shows that the number of internet users rose to 17.38 million in 2012 when compared to 8.89 million users in the previous year (CCK, 2013). Out of the three countries of possible destinations, Kenya has much potential as an international market. My choice stems from the fact that Kenya is currently rolling out a program dubbed “laptops for primary schools” and there is a lot of content that is yet to be put into digital form. This presents a big chance. Another opportunity for rapid use of digital content is the increasing amount of bandwidth available in the country. The total amount of bandwidth available in 2012 was 862,850 Mpbs up from 818,119 Mbps in the previous year (CCK, 2013). This significantly high level of bandwidth is a supporting factor for the successful adoption of digital content. Furthermore, Kenya currently has four undersea fibre optic cables. This increased capacity makes the utilization of digital content to be an attractive venture (Nyabiage, 2013). Expected challenges The challenge envisaged in the introduction of digital content to the Kenyan market is competition from other prospective providers of content. As the country makes the big leap of technology in the provision of digitized learning, many organizations would like to benefit from this transformation. Secondly, some of the digital content to be developed may not be relevant in some aspects to the Kenyan education system. There will therefore be readjustments of content to fit into particular needs of Kenyan learners. Similarly, there will be variations in terms of attainment levels such that content that is relevant to learners in Australia may turn out to be difficult to grasp for Kenyan learners. The third challenge as regards initiation of the project relates to the failure of the computers to be used by the learners. The laptops provided for use by learners may prove to be inefficient. This is because the laptops will be given to young children who have no experience with the gadgets. Furthermore, these laptops may be of low quality and may not withstand the challenges of time. Strategy for entering the market The entry strategy to Kenyan market would be a three-step process. The initial step would be to perform a market analysis through to gain a good understanding of competitors and the potential challenges. The next step will be to assess internal capabilities especially in terms of competencies and infrastructure in place to be able to initiate and implement the digital content project. The last step would be to enter the market in a stage-by-stage process, measuring the achievements at each stage. References Baker, R.( n.d). Pedagogies and Digital Content in the Australian School Sector. Retrieved December 14, 2013, from http://www.ndlrn.edu.au/verve/_resources/ESA_Pedagogies_and_Digital_Content_in_the _Australian_School_Sector.pdf. CCK. (2013). Quarterly Sector Statistics Report. Fourth Quarter of the Financial Year 2012/2013, April-June 2013. Retrieved December 14, 2013from http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/downloads/Q4_201213_STATISTICS_final_25th_oct_2013.pdf. CIE. (2005). Australian Digital Content Industry Futures. Sydney. Retrieved December 14, 2013 from http://www.archive.dcita.gov.au/data/assets/pdf_file/0007/37474/AppendixC.2_Austr aliandigitalcontentfutures.pdf. Indonet. (2013). Internet Access Options in Indonesia. Retrieved December 14, 2013 from http://www.expat.or.id/info/internetaccess.html. Intel. (2012). Research shows 1:1 eLearning enriches education in Malaysia. Retrieved December 14, 2013 from http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/program/education/us/en/documents/Intel%20E ducatio n%20Research%20Summary/intel-education-research-summary-malaysia.pdf. IntelFree, (2012). Bridging Indonesia’s Digital Divide. Retrieved December 14, 2013, from https://www.intelfreepress.com/news/bridging-indonesias-digital-divide. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training, and Youth Affairs, (1999). The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the 21st century. Melbourne: MCEETYA. NDLRN. (2013).Developing Digital Resources. Retrieved December 14, 2013, from http://www.ndlrn.edu.au/default.asp. Nyabiage, J. (2013, June 3). The Future: Battle for Inland Fibre Optic Cables Set to Shape Telecommunications Industry. The Standard. OECD. (2012). Asian countries top OECD’s latest PISA survey on the state of global education. Retrieved December 14, 2013, from http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/asian-countries-top- oecd-s-latest-pisa-survey-on-state-of-global-education.htm. Read More