Hurricane Island Outward Bound School Case

Hurricane Island Outward Bound School Case

The paper starts with a consideration of the current position of Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (Hurricane) - Maine location of an international organization with 30 schools around the world - and their marketing activities vs. organizational culture, the threats and opportunities they face, the impact of political and regulatory controls, economic influences social influences, competitive forces and technological factors. The paper then looks at how marketing should take place to maintain the schools values, use the core competences, maximize the use of resources and keep stakeholders happy.

Outward Bound is a program that challenges people of all ages, skill level and backgrounds to move beyond their traditional Ў§comfort zones,ЎЁ to challenge themselves physically and emotionally to discover positive qualities about themselves of which they previously were unaware. There appear to be many more people who could benefit from Outward Bound USAЎ¦s programs than will be able to join any course based on personally prohibitive cost. The paper recommends that the School stress the availability of scholarship money more strongly that it currently does.

Hurricane Island is the leader of the Outward Bound system, has 3,700 students (70,000 SPD) and sells a variety of courses (over 50 at any of 13 sites in Maine, Florida, New York, New Hampshire and Maryland), being specialized in sea area, for two main segments:

- specific groups (Vietnam veterans, handicapped youth, juvenile delinquents, substance abusers) often through government agencies (special programs);

- public courses ЎV targeting all other students except specific groups, divided into four segments by location and activity ЎV Maine Sea, Florida Sea, Winter Land, Summer Land.

Customers, as defined by 1986 marketing plan, are:

- high school and college students;

- juniors (age 14 and 15);

- municipal and agency contacts (for special programs);

- unprivileged and minority groups;

- young professionals;

- corporations;

- PDP ЎV groups of managers.

Target groups are:

- demographically ЎV 14 to 19 year olds as primary and 20 to 35 year olds as secondary targets;

- geographically ЎV northeastern US (six New England states and New York) and, as second priority ЎV mid-Atlantic states plus Florida.

Hurricane competition in the US is defined by:

- other Outward Bound schools in the US, especially Colorado (which enrolled the most students);

- summer camps for juniors;

- vacation, summer job, and other wilderness experience organizations beckoned college students;

- other Ў§classicЎЁ and Ў§wildЎЁ corporate trainings for corporations, including in-house ones;

- other sailing companies, US Coast Guard;

- other companies providing services to managers;

- other companies providing similar services for specific groups, having good connections at governmental agencies level;

- holidays for managers in summer.

Hurricane Island Outward Bound goals for 1987 were: continued growth and financial stability. To realize this, Mr. Chin is determined to deliver three marketing objectives:

„« 2,700 students;

„« 47, 800 Student Program Days (SPD);

„« $3.4 million in revenues.

Mr. Chin has developed four marketing proposals for 1987. The purpose of this analysis is to:

„« Evaluate the strength and weaknesses of each proposal;

„« Recommend what plan should be adopted, rejected, or modified and adopted;

„« Determine the best marketing mix with respect to the marketing budget.

First solution (expand Ў§Alumni in MarketingЎЁ network) implies hiring of a manager dedicated to the network ($15,000 starting spring 1987). The benefits generated through AIM would mostly be intangible. There are risks for too few or too many volunteers (alumni), resulting in wasted effort to reach them or complex network