INTRODUCTION

Todays education is seen as oppurtunities that it opens up for everyone. These day branding is reaching newer frontier and the latest in this increasing tribe of marketable categories is education across all categories such as primary, secondary, vocational and higher levels. As the economic status of the people of the country has improved, people are not hesitant to spend larger share on quality education. Nowadays more people sees education as a priority. Sabah Skills & Technology Centre (SSTC) is Sabah's very own skills development centre, and the result of close cooperation between the Sabah government and the industry. Established in November 1999, it is set-up as a non-profit society in which the government - State and Federal will provide the funding and infrastructure whereas the industry provides the support and leadership. SSTC aims to provide training and educational programs to enhance the skills level of Sabah's workforce. The areas of training are such as technical skill, ICT Skills, Management, Manufacturing and Safety and Health.

SSTC was established to meet the following objectives :

Short term :

a) b)

Meet the training needs of member companies by organizing customized coursed Continuosly upgrade the skill level of workforce in line with technological progress

c)

Establish a mechanism to coordinate and utilise resource from industry and Institution

Long term :

a) b)

Promote technical and vocational courses Position the centre as a leading training institution

By providing fully sponsored training known as Industrial Skills Enhancement Programme (INSEP) and Workforce Transformation Technical Programme (WTTP) and targeting unemployed graduate and spm leavers, SSTCs existance do really contribute to the society and the industries. To maximize its beneficial impact SSTC has done various strategies asides from achieving its goal. In the recent years, the educational market has become more complex and dynamic. There are many market forces that are trying to shape the educational environment.the competition between educational institutions is increasing and will keep increasing as long as the number of student falls due to a decrease in the number of pupils enrolled in primary and secondary education (Ioan, 2011). Aside from INSEP and WTTP, SSTC also provide plenty improvement programme for organization and individual that wish to improve their skills in order to meet the industry requirement.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Marketing is managing profitable customer relationship. The two-fold goal of marketing is to attract new customers by promising superior value and to keep and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction. Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and organization obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others. Hence we can also define marketing as the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return Many peole think of marketing only as selling and advertising. However selling and advertising are oly the tip of the marketing iceberg. Marketing should not be be understood in old sense of making a sale but it should be understood in the new sense of satisfying customer needs.

Marketing is all about creating value for customers. So, as the first step in the marketing process, the company must fully understand consumers and the marketplace in which its operates. There are five core customer and marketplace concepts which are :

a) Needs, wants and demands b) Market offerings c) Value and satisfaction d) Exchange and relationship e) Markets

The most basic concept underlying a marketing is that of human needs. They include basic physical needs for food, clothing, warmth, safety and education. These needs were not created by marketers as this are all part of the human makeup. Wants are the form of human needs take as they are shaped by culture and individual personality. Wants are shaped by ones society and are described in terms of object that will satisfy needs. When backed by buying power, wants become demands. Given their wants and resources, peoples demand product with benefits that add up to the most value and satisfaction. A company must go to great length to learn about and

understand their customers needs, wants and demands. They must conduct consumer research and analyze mountain of consumer data.

Consumers needs and wants are fulfilled through market offerings. Market offerings are not limited to physical product such as groceries, electrical appliances, furniture and clothing but it also include services and education. Many training institution nowadays are looking for new ways to improve their market presence and to increase the satisfaction of the partners. Marketing can be one of the solutions. Even though at this point many learning institution are not fully market oriented, the changing environment and the increasing pressure from social groups and the public will force the educational institution to develop ways to address the challenges of their market (Ioan, 2011). Studies have shown that, by using a marketing approach, new information can be gathered and the decision can be improved (Ivy, 2008). Marketing management do wants to design that will build profitable relationshipt with target consumers. A philosophy should guide these marketing strategies and wieght that should be given to the interest of the customers, organization and society also should need to be take into consideration as these interest conflict. There are five alternative concepts under which organizations design and carry out their marketing strategies which are :

a) The production cencept b) The product concept c) The selling concept d) The marketing concept e) The social marketing concept

Learning institution such as SSTC is obvious importance in supporting national economic objectives every country in the world and for the development of the indigineous labor forces, including the direct rise of extra-national income. In United states of America (USA), education is the second largest export market after agriculture and the second largest domestic industry after health care (Abeless, 2001). In term of investment, countrys such as Australia, Canada, USA and Korea, invest respectively, 1.1, 1.5, 2.5 and 2.7 per cent of theiw GDP on higher education (Cornuel, 2007). In Malaysia, besides government funded Higher Learning Institution

(HEI) there are a quite number of HEIs from subsidiaries of major conglomerate and SSTC can be classify one of them. Some of these HEIS are listed in the Bursa Kuala Lumpur as their role are understandbly enterprenuerial in nature. Many educators are approaching marketing with cautious for it carries the image of being primarily a tools for profit making enterprise and has been considered to be synonymous with selling and promotion. The top administrators have treated marketing as mereley tool for generating income and student recruitment (Conway et al. 1994). Other scholar in the marketing field have emphasized the importance of an institution being responsive to meet the market demand and customer satisfaction (Doyle 1976). However, when considering the market demand, a company should recognize that marketing also entails educating and motivating prospects latent needs. These means whilst providing their services, HEIs have a particular responsibility of providing leadership and direction.

According to Tan (2002), for Malaysia perspective, there are four National goals which need to be realized in restructuring the learning or training programme provided by an institution :

a) To produce the necessary human resource for the country. b) To export higher education. c) To stem the flow of higher education students offshore in order to reduce the outflow of malaysian currency. d) To enroll 40 per cent of student age cohort in higher education by the year 2020 in order to realize the aim to make malaysia an industrialized country.

METHODOLOGY

The study will focus on measuring the marketing effectiveness of SSTC. In this research there is a need in distinguishing some concept relevant to performance measurement such as efficiency and effectiveness. In the marketing literature, marketing effectiveness is described as the extent to which marketing action contribute to a firm;s achievement of its bussiness goal (Ambler et al. 2001). There are three major approaches to study and measure marketing effectiveness which are structure, culture and learning organization (Abas et al. 2011). Structure stresses a customer based strategy, culture assess if the companys culture reveals shared values, beliefs and corporate commitment to the marketing concept. Learning organisations on the other hand examines management receptivity to, and absorptive capacity for, organisational learning in its marketing environement. Marketing effectiveness compares performance outcome with goals, whereas marketing efficiency concerns marketing output in relation to resource allocation. Efficiency and effectiveness may not converge over time due to inherent trade offs between them. For example, decreasing resource allocation to marketing actions such as cutting advertising expenditures and reducing the size of a sale force will improve short run marketing efficiency but it affects marketing effectivesness in the long term in term of reducing brand awareness and eroding brand positioning (Morgan et al. 2002). The measurement of efficiency can be complicated because of the indirect and lagged effects of marketing actions as input in addition to its diversity (Stewart 2009).

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this research are

a) Identifying the marketing methodology of SSTC b) Identifying the goal of SSTC c) Measuring the marketing effectiveness os SSTC d) Planning a suitable marketing strategy in order for SSTC to achive its goal

HYPOTHESIS

The marketing strategy of SSTC is effective enough to achieve its goal

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