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The main research problem is a lack of suitable methodology to analyse and assess information-based activities in IIOs, especially in the marketing process. Though there are many methods to model an organisation and measure its performance, there is no suitable and practical methodology to model information flows to enable the assessment of operational effectiveness in IIOs.
The problems can be seen both from the literature and the appraisal of marketing activities in one Chinese university chosen as the object of analysis.The main problems for marketing from literature are as follows.
(1) Lack of suitable modelling framework to model information based marketing activities in IIOs.
The marketing activities in small and medium organisations are complex due to the complicated environment they exist in (Carson, 1990; Gilmore,2001). Current business modelling frameworks for marketing focus on the process of business (Zoric, 2011). Fit between business process modelling and marketing in IIOs is a popular research topic. There is a shortage of suitable frameworks that can represent and analyse information based marketing activities in the information age (Trekman, 2010).
(2) Lack of suitable methods to analyse and assess marketing effects based on informational activities in IIOs.
Though business performance measurement methods focus on the process of business, in the marketing effect measurement field, they focus more on the result rather than the process (Oliya et al., 2010). Information based behaviour in the marketing process is critical (Nuffel and Backer, 2012) because it could affect the value of marketing activities and the final outcomes (Popovič et al., 2012). Methods to assess the value of information based activities in marketing are even less common (Trainor et al., 2011).
(3) Lack of an effective approach for marketers to apply in small businesses.
The marketers in small business suffer from lack of professional knowledge in assessing marketing effects (Rocks, 2005; Morgan et al., 2009).It is difficult for them to understand and use the complex approaches for performance measurement. After the year of 2000, due to the impact of the“dot-com bubble”, revenue and profit of business declined generally.Businesses tried to calculate and limit the budget for marketing from 5% to 20% of overall plan to maintain and increase profit (Clark, 2007). As small businesses in the service industry have a short life cycle and fierce competitive environment (Petty et al., 2011), they require a tool to understand the feedback from the market in time and make quickly positive changes to their marketing activities and improve the efficient of capital use in marketing(Muehlen and Indulska, 2010; Uncles, 2011). Current business performance measurements focus on middle and large businesses and the models for assessment are complex. They are not effective to understand and use by small businesses (Nuffel and Backer, 2012).
From the observation of interviews with the staff in CCU MBA Centre for two years, the similar problems are raised by employees in the Marketing and Admission Office. Marketing methods are changing all the time according to the change in the market. There is lack of an effective method to assess marketing effect in education industry in a timely manner and then make changes based on the assessment. Current marketing plans in CCU MBA Centre are informal and flexible. This is mainly due to the limited staff knowledge to conduct analyses that effect marketing activities. A practical method for assessing the effectiveness of marketing activities is required.