1. Target market of our MBA education

 According to its vision and mission, the School defines the targeted markets of MBA and EMBA programmes, which’re connected with and distinguished from each other. For details, see Table 2-3. From Table 2-3, we can see that the MBA programme of the School targets at those who would like to further improve their professional skills in finance, accounting, and law as well as improve their comprehensive managerial ability through the integration of finance, economics, law, and politics. As for subject of enrollment, the School expects its applicants to have got bachelor’s degree with at least 3 years’ working experience, or to have at least 5 years’ working experience after obtaining associate degree from vocational colleges, or to have at least 2 years’ working experience after obtaining an equally qualifieddiploma with a bachelor’s degree, or obtaining a master’s or doctor’s degree between 25 and 40 years old.

 Table 1 Comparison of Target Market between MBA and EMBA Programmes of the School of Business Administration

 The School also, making full use of the scholarships granted by the Chinese government or the scholarship for the overseas students by the University, offers IMBA programme to enroll international students.

 As for region of enrollment, the School, targeting at central China, does its utmost to develop the economically dynamic Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta market. As for industry of enrollment, the School focuses on the industrial and business enterprises, financial agencies, and the economic management departments of the government.

          The EMBA programme targets at those senior executives who want tosolve the financial, economic, and legal problems in the growth of their organizations as well as further improve their comprehensive leadership. As for subject of enrollment, the School expects the applicants to be the senior executives of the enterprises or of the government who have more than 8 years’ working experience, more than 4 years’ managerial experience between 30 and 50 years old. As for region of enrollment, the School, targeting at central China, mainly explores the economically developed Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, or the regions where there is a strong need of business administration education. As for industry of enrollment, the School targets at relatively large-scale or promising industrial or business enterprises, financial institutions, and the economic management departments of the government.

2. Major rivalries of the SBA’s MBA programmes

 ZUEL is located in Wuhan, Hubei Province in central China, one of the several cities where China Higher Education institutions converge, and 14 institutions are authorized to conduct MBA education while 3 institutions to conduct EMBA education. ZUEL, Wuhan University (WHU), and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) are the first-batch orsecond-batch three ones which were authorized to conduct MBA education. The three universities are both partners and competitors of MBA education.

 From the perspective of disciplines, Wuhan University is a comprehensive university, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology is a university of science and technology, whereas ZUEL is a university of finance and economics. As a result, the three universities differ greatly in structure, systems, modes, positioning and resources of MBA education. Due to these different natures, disciplines related to MBA education are in Economics and Management School at Wuhan University.

 School of Management at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and School of Business Administration as well as the other schools at ZUEL. The last pattern highlights the integration of the three key disciplines of economics, management, and law. The MBA faculties are mainly from the Schools of Business Administration, of Accounting and of Finance. For more information about the MBA faculty of the three Schools, please see Table 2.

 Table 2Comparison of MBA Faculty among ZUEL, HUST, and WHU

 Note: The data are taken from the websites of the above-mentioned universities.

 In addition, according to the Evaluation Report on China PostgraduateEducation and Disciplines (2018 / 2019) issued in October 2018 by thefollowing agencies, China Institute of Scientific and Educational Evaluation (Hangzhou Electronic Science University, CASEE), China Scientific Evaluation and Research Center (Wuhan University, RCCSE), and China Science and Education Evaluation Network, etc., the graduate education of ZUEL ranks the third among the universities of finance and economics in China, only after the Central University of Finance and Economics and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

 As for the position of the first-grade disciplines, ZUEL management ranks the 24th out of 374 universities, ranking in the top 10%, and economics ranks the 21st out of 261, and the overall ranking is also in the top 10%. As far as the second-grade disciplines are concerned, its business management discipline ranks the 16th out of 303 universities, ranking slightly lower than Wuhan University (11th), but higher than Huazhong University of Science and Technology (18th). The applied economics ranks the 14th out of 244 universities, and the overall ranking is also slightly lower than that of Wuhan University (No. 7), but higher than that of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (No. 18).

 According to the 2019 Report on the Evaluation of Chinese Universities compiled by China Alumni Association Network, ZUEL ranks the first (universities of economics and finance) in the ranking of various types of universities in China in 2019, and together with Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, has won a six-star university title in China（6★）, taking the lead in joining the camp of the world high-level universities and the top universities in China.

 Here’re the number of MBA and EMBA applicants, number of enrollments of the three universities (including ZUEL, HUST, WHU) between 2014-2018 taken by the websites of the said universities. See Table3.

 Table 3  Comparison of MBA Applications and Enrollment in the three Universities in 2014-2018

         It can be seen from Table 3 that, during 2014-2016, the MBA programmes of ZUEL had certain advantages over those of HUST and WHU and had a significant lead in terms of the number of applicants. However, since the beginning of 2017, challenged by both of limitations from the external environment and its own governance structure, and the MBA enrollment of our university has been greatly affected, obviously lagging behind the other two universities. Hence, in the second half of 2018, our university adjusted the governance structure of the MBA education by rescinding the MBA School and re-incorporated it into the School of Business Administration. Currently, compared with Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, our university has unique advantages in the disciplines of finance, economics and law although its comprehensive strength and brand effect are still lagging behind the other two. Therefore, how to make full use of the platform of the School of Business Administration and to better display the leading roles of the advantageous disciplines, and to maximize the resource integration advantage will be the top priorities of the future work of MBA education in our university.

3.Marketing strategy and its efficiency of ZUEL’s MBA education

 Firstly, making the marketing strategy fitting the development of theMBA education. The SBA, taking account of its market positioning and its competition environment, on the basis of “4Ps” marketing mix, has formulated its marketing strategy in the following four aspects—market positioning, brand construction, channel expansion, and enrollment procedure optimization. Secondly, diversifying the promotion campaign. The marketing strategy features “Informationization, Personalization, and Precision”, which is specified in combination of traditional media marketing and new mediamarketing, online marketing and off-line marketing. Lastly, optimizing the mode of allocating marketing resources. The SBA runs MBA education by obtaining the support of the whole university, i.e., making full use of the disciplinary resources, faculty resources, and alumni resources. Teaching, learning, and research of MBA and EMBA programmes are greatly backed up by the strength of the universities—the application-oriented education and research as well as the cross-disciplinary merits.

 Thanks to the appropriate development strategy and marketing positioning, the School has established sound relationship of interaction with government, enterprises, and industrial associations on the market-oriented base. Furthermore, it keeps innovating modes of fostering talents through integrating resources, aiming at promoting its social influence and clients’ satisfaction. Here’re the effects:

(1)Serving decision-making of the governments and local economic development.

 By following the strategy of the University “Actively serving the society”, the University and the School stimulate faculty members to take social responsibility and provide the local decision-making agencies with support for serving local economic development. Since 2014, a great number of faculty members were on the list of the Decision-Making Consultation Expert Bank of the Hubei governments at all levels.

 Meanwhile, in 2018, the Intellectual Property Research Center, Hubei Cooperative Innovation Center for Industrial Upgrading and Regional Finance, Rule of Law Development and Judicial Reform Research Center, and China Income Distribution Research Center, being closely related to MBA education, were included on the list of the top 100 think tanks of CTTI (List of China Think Tanks). In addition, most of the teachers in the MBAEducation Center hold part-time jobs in government  and various societies, and become the think tanks of governments, societies and industry organizations at all levels. The ability and reputation of the MBA education of the University in serving the society also help itself get the support of the governments at all levels. Among them, the Ministry of Finance and China Asset Evaluation Association jointly awarded the School as “the National Construction Base of Asset Evaluation Discipline” and the Hubei Provincial Listed Enterprise Management Office and the school co-built “the Hubei Provincial Training Base of Backup Listed Enterprise”. What’s more, the School co-built “Zhuoyue Wuhan Business College” with the municipal government of Wuhan.  

(2)Promoting innovation of programme modes via integration of resources.

 Firstly, the SBA further improves the EMBA joint programme of “1+1” double certificate, which is run jointly by the SBA and the National Accounting College. This joint programme, which grants students both degrees and professional certificates, are applauded by them and their employers. The SBA employs the faculty members of the National Accounting College to deliver courses. The EMBA students, after passing the exams, obtain “Medium and Large State-Owned Enterprise GeneralAccountant License” while obtaining EMBAdegrees.

 Secondly,theSBAimplementstheVirtualSimulatedExperimentTraining Programme in an all-round way. On the basis of the cross-disciplinary virtual simulated experiment, the SBA demonstrates to the students various kinds of authentic business practices in real economic environment and expects to stimulate students’ interest in learning, help themclarify their learning purposes and sharpen their managerial ability as well as cultivate their innovative spirit via providing them with simulated experience.

 Lastly, the SBA designs customized EDP training programmes for enterprises. By taking advantage of its own disciplinary and faculty strengths, the SBA altogether provided nearly 60 sessions of EDP training programmes for governments and enterprises, the trainees of which exceeded 4,500, from 2015 to 2018.