Cracking the Indonesia market

ACU International Marketing students at the North Sydney Campus will team up with Indonesian students from BINUS University in Jakarta in an innovative project that involves developing ways to market goods and services inside both countries.

ACU students have been tasked to come up with ideas for goods and services inside Indonesia, while the Indonesian students will focus their marketing efforts Down Under, and both groups will share local knowledge along the way.

Lecturer in Marketing Dr Al Marshall said the new 12-week initiative will give ACU Bachelor of Commerce students a unique insight into one of the world’s fast-developing economies.

“ACU students will work with their Indonesian counterparts in a culturally rewarding project that will really help develop their international marketing skills,” he said.

“Working in small groups, the students are communicating through Skype, Facebook and other technologies to learn from one another about the differences in each country, in order to identify marketing opportunities that might fly in each country.

“This project is really the first of its kind and if it proves successful we plan to operate similar projects with universities from other countries, such as the United States.”

The project shows ACU students how marketing it is influenced by a variety of cultural, economic, environmental, legal, technological, logistical and political forces in the global marketplace.

It forms a significant part of assessment in the unity delivered at the North Sydney Campus.

Dr Marshall said the International Marketing unit places particular emphasis on the emergence of global marketing and patterns of consumption, and the need to develop specific strategies and plans for marketing in the international context that is sympathetic to, but nevertheless, distinct for, domestic marketing strategies and tactics.

Firstly, ACU marketing students at the North Sydney Campus must prepare a briefing on Australian culture while Indonesian students prepare a briefing on Indonesian ‘national culture’ as well as any differences by geographic region within the country.

At a mid-point in the Market Opportunity Analysis project, students must submit a progress report presentation on YouTube for their matched team in the other country to view and to provide constructive feedback on. The ACU and BINUS lecturers will provide a short brief to their respective students as to the nature of the feedback, and key points for review.

At the end point of this Australian-Indonesian project the ACU and BINUS student groups will submit their written final report to their lecturers, and complete a mandatory peer group assessment form.

“There is huge growth potential in the Indonesian market and this project will give our students a better cross cultural understanding of business opportunities in one of our closest neighbours,” Dr Marshall said.