Brand Strategy Study Of Independent College, South China Institute Of Software Engineering

According to the statistics from the department of development and planning in the Chinese Ministry of Education, from 1999 till the end of 2013, the total number of independent colleges nationwide is up to 292 with students enrollment of 2.75 million and educational assets more than 200 billion RMB. During the 5 years after 1999, the enrollment scale within higher education in China has expanded 5 times but just with less than two times expansion of related investments. In 2008, the Ministry of Education issued the "Independent College Setting and Management Regulations" (also short for NO.26 Decree of Education Ministry) of which requested that "the reference and execution standard of setting an independent college should be as those of general undergraduate colleges". This requirement means the development of independent college is now entering the stage of transition and will be on track gradually. Under this background, from the perspective of college development, in order to survive and develop substantially, one must emphasize on the branding strategy of college education and enhancing the core competitiveness by grounding on the needs of regional economic and social development, as well as the self-positioning.However, due to the relatively late start of branding development and overall less brand influence for independent college, there are quite a few problems existing in current branding development path such as college-running positioning not accurate, running quality to be enhanced and branding consciousness not strong and etc. These problems have already impacted severely on the branding image of independent college. And without development strategy of branding, it also has dramatically impacted on the survival and development of independent college.Based on the branding development theory, this study has analyzed and demonstrated those problems mentioned above currently existing in the college-running of independent college and thoroughly analyzing the brand development strategy by resorting to literature research method, comparative research method, survey study and case analysis method in combination of the case study of Guangzhou South China Institute of Software Engineering (hereinafter referred to as SISE). This study intends to find out the problems and root causes existing in the implementation of branding strategy of SISE by making qualitative and quantitative analysis with SWOT and branding strategy background information. The final goal is to bring out the implementation plans for SISE branding strategy and accurate branding measures in order for SISE to gain advantage and hold grounds in the future fierce competition.