Global Marketing Management 530: West Australian Foundation for Deaf Children - Marketing Assessment Answers

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Introduction

The West Australian Foundation for Deaf Children is reported to be one of the oldest charities in Australia. WAFDC was developed in 1896 with the aim of improving the lives as well as education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing children in Western Australia. Back when it started the Foundation was the only the institutions offering education of Deaf children in the state. It does this through advocacy as well as the provision of practical supports, in assistance of hostel accommodation. Currently the organisation continues to strive in responding to the learning and educational needs of families with Deaf and Hard of Hearing children in Western Australia. The organisation is involved in a number of initiatives and activities such as training teachers to become qualified teachers of the deaf, professional development, assistive technologies for families with deaf and hard of hearing children, community engagement, and preservation of deaf history. WAFDC vision is 'skills for life', and has the aim of promoting and supporting education, life skills as well as learning opportunities for the deaf and hard of hearing children as well as young adults. The foundation achieves this through advocacy on behalf of children and parents, providing information and support, provision of resources and fostering training and development.

Organisational Issues and Challenges

NFPs adopts business like techniques which have been used in the profit sector with the increased market pressures which is typical in the profit organisations for instance competition for funding as well as the need to earn money in order to fulfill their mission. The techniques as well as the approaches which have been recognized are important to nonprofit. This is why understanding marketing concepts is important as it focuses on advocating in understanding the customer. However, Ramia and Carney argues that the competitive advantages which can be gained from using the full portfolio in the marketing techniques which are not acquired as it could be.

Other than embracing the marketing concept and in the beginning the marketing process with the customer and understanding what the market needs and wants. Instead of focusing on the Not for profit organisations have been organisation-centered on the marketing mindset and may result to falsely believe in that their product or service which is needed by the market. Marketing concepts as utilized in NFP organisations focuses on understanding the customers in order to ensure that the needs and demands of these customers are met.

There are two major customers which are focused on in NTP organisations include the end customers such as the clients, volunteer workers, committee members, local community and patrons among others as well as intermediary customers which include those customers who are involved in the process but are not the main customer group such as government agencies who refer individuals to seek help in such organisations. For instance, other government agencies such as hospitals can refer children and families with children who are deaf and hard hearing. It is important for these organisations as to undertake and focus on marketing concepts to ensure that they are able to not only have returned but also to meet the demands of the institutions.

Ethical Issue Recognition

Ethical issues are critical in NFPs as they ensure that when carrying out the different activities and operations of the organisations. This is because ethical issues and standards enable these organisations to observe the ethical issues which it is faced with and further ensure that issues which might cause challenges to the organisation are avoided. Ethical issues facing NFPs is first ensuring that the returns acquired by the organisations are returned to the organisations at a 100%. The operations of an organisation such as WAFDC operations are funded by grants, income and the returns it acquires and further the volunteer work from these volunteers. It is therefore important to ensure that, after the costs of running the institutions are deducted, the returns are fully returned into the organisation.

Internal Environment TOWS

Light argues that the ability of groups as well as individuals in connecting and collaborating within the organisation is essential in driving innovation. As illustrated, one of the major organisations facing WAFDC is the reduced volunteer for the organisations as well as reduced motivation for the unpaid employees. Being smart organisations which is focused on internal collaboration and capacity building is critical as it enables the organisation to realize the power of internal contributions and putting the processes in place in fostering regular, sustained as well as quality collaborations as well as communication amongst teams’ members in all the levels of seniority.

The form of internal encouragement of collaborations as well as position of senior executive support within an organisation is required is effective in making sure innovation and capacity building for the organisation. Having a culture of team members in WAFDC provides a frank as well as constructive input to each other’s illustrating it as a hallmark of an innovative organisation. However, robust discussion in WAFDC is inhibited by a hierarchical organisation and thus the importance of breaking down the hierarchical barriers in order to ensure an effective innovation status. In addition to internal collaboration, it is also important for there to exist an effective external collaboration. Effective collaboration should include the supports and contributions of stakeholders.

PESTEL Analysis

One of the major political issues facing the NFPs sector in Australia is the reduced government funding as well as rules and regulations on tax deductions. The government has so many places to fund and as such the NFPs which are supported by governments have to compete for resources. This requires such organisation to develop strategies which enable them to acquire maximum benefits from the limited resources available to them.

In Australia, there are about 600,000 not for profit organisations (NFPs). Majority of this organisation rely on voluntary contributions of members and other supporters. In 2013, there were about 57,000 economically significant and relevant NFPs with an active tax role including significant market NFPs and non-market NFPs. The NFPs sector makes significant contributions to the Australian economy whereby in 2013 it accounted from $54,596 million which is 3.8%. It should be noted that this does not include the contribution of volunteers and this contributions is larger than the agricultural, forestry as well as fishing industries which is 2.4% and that of IT and media industries at 3%.

The NFPs sector provides critical social services to the society. They aid in the provision of public services. They also provide for individuals in the community to provide and give back to society. As mentioned organisations such as WAFDC rely on funding from different stakeholders such as the government and private institutions but also ensure that the society members who are willing and able to give back to society do so through participations of volunteer programmers in provisions and meeting of the needs and wants of the organisations. As such, they provide a critical social service and enable individual to participate in the society.

The heart of capitalist system is for the profit ethics which is based on the premise that humans are selfish and competitive. It argues that the best approach to incentivize innovation and the facilitation of economic activity is by appealing to people's self-interests. This is seen in the for profit of business model which central in the current economy with the owners and investors going into business expecting a proportion of the firm’s from dividends, options as well as shares. Light argues that this way and form of doing business results to socioeconomic inequality with the capital and gains acquired to the largest contributors in income divides. WAFDC follows a not for profit business model which increases the generations of their own income as opposed to the traditional non-profit approach on depending on philanthropy and grants.

WAFDC is legally incorporated as a not for profit organisations whereby in addition to being a charitable organisations it focuses on being a successful business/organisations whereby it is effective in making returns. The main difference between the not for profit and profit organisation is that the organisations invests back its returns and income into the government. Under law, 100% of the returns of the business are reinvested into the business in a move to meet the needs and aims of the organisation.

Stakeholders and Competitors Analysis

The stakeholders of WAFDC include the government, the families of deaf and hard of hearing children, and Hartley Industries and Lottery west among others sponsors. The sponsorship from such institutions and groups enable the organisations to get funding for education and supporting the education of deaf and hard of hearing children. The organisation has a number of volunteers who provide their resources and time to the organisation. It also has paid employees who develop the capacity and educations as well as the management of the organisations.

Employees are the backbone of an organisation as they ensure that the organisation is run efficiency with its operations effective in meeting the organisation goals and aims. In addition the organisation helps and aids families and careers of the deaf and hard of hearing children into offering them and helping them to develop them as young adults. The employees as well as the volunteers working at WAFDC enable the organisation to meet this aims and achieve its vision. As illustrated in WAFDC it aims to promote and support educations, life skills as well as learning activities for the deaf and hard of hearing children enabling to develop and acquire skills for the deaf and hard of hearing children in Western Australia.

Strategy and Budget

There is urgency in the development of new and comprehensive strategies which solve the challenges and realities associated with NFP organisations. This should help these organisations to meet and improve their needs and performance and also help in the preservations and regaining of qualities they need to install. As NFP organisation are not corporations charities or government despite behaving at ties look the above examples from time to time, they need to develop strategies which not only help them to get good returns but to meet the other critical element of their goals such as meeting social needs. One of the areas WAFDC needs to observe is the need to invest in acquisition of human capacity which will enable the organisation to meet the organisational goals.

As illustrated by Light, NFP organisations rely on the both paid employees and volunteers. WAFDC needs to observe the requirements and needs of both the employees and volunteers by developing programs and initiatives which retain these human resources. Benjamin illustrates that human resource elements such as competitions, experiences and knowledge, tacit knowledge and innovations are critical in meeting the missions and vision of NFP. In addition to human resource capital, NFP organisations need to develop and establish structural capital which involves learning and knowledge which is acquired in the day to day activities of the organisation.

The pool of knowledge which is gathered can then be retained even when the volunteers for example who are very temporary leave the organisations. This enables the organisation to better meet the needs of the organisation. Further, the organisation needs to invest in relational capital which involves relations to its stakeholders. As illustrated above, the major stakeholders of WAFDC include the government, the volunteers, the sponsors and the families of children who are deaf and are hard in hearing. The use of three capital (relational, human and structural) enables the combination, utilisation, alignment and balancing of knowledge flow between the three components. This will enable WAFDC to deliver the best services to its clients and develop a sustainable business model. This approach enables the company to acquire an organisational strategy. The approach focuses on competence enhancement and not really on cash flow improvement. As majority of the organisational resources are retained and reused within the organisation, their effective management is very critical in ensuring a sustainable organisation.