Adopt modern-day marketing practices for growth — Prof. Amartey
The Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University of Professional Studies (UPSA) Accra, Professor Abednego Okoe Amartey, has urged public sector firms to adopt modern-day marketing practices to improve service quality and also ensure effective client service delivery.
He said public sector organisations must recognise the fact that they no more enjoyed monopoly, for which reason they must sit up and face intense global competition.
At a lecture in Accra last Friday, the VC said: “Organisations need not merely satisfy clients or their publics but go beyond to delight them”.
Advertisement
The lecture was organised by UPSA, in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG), on the topic: “Public sector marketing: A catalyst for national development”.
Prof. Okoe Amartey, who is the reigning CIMG Marketing Man of the Year 2018, also said: “Internal marketing would help organisations treat their members as internal customers working in close relationships.”
He added that marketing research should be an engrained culture to identify, anticipate and meet customer needs.
Branding
The VC said in the contemporary world, organisational success depended on image and, therefore, it was important for public sector organisations to create and maintain a desired brand identity, using contemporary branding models to build brand equity.
“They must understand the strategic and tactical applications of extended marketing mix elements to support brand building,” he added.
Prof. Amartey also asked public organisations to develop skills for segmentation, targeting and positioning.
“A good example is the Passport Office segmenting their product offers to regular and premium services, and charging commensurate fees for each segment.
Other Trending Stories
Service development must be an ongoing research-based intentional process, and services must be packaged to be attractive to users,” he said.
Prof. Okoe Amartey further said given the importance of marketing and its relevance to the public sector, the government must insist that personnel of public sector organisations undergo training in marketing, adding that recruitment into the public sector must also be tied to marketing literacy.
"Having successfully transformed our university from a young and less known public sector university to a leading university in Africa using marketing, we can assist other public sector organisations to achieve same," he said.
The UPSA story
Prof. Amartey said the application of marketing philosophy was the panacea to repositioning UPSA to gain public acceptance and international recognition.
He said the transition from a public sector university previously known as the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) into a fully fledged marketing-oriented, nationally competitive and a globally recognised university was largely hinged on a marketing philosophy.
“Today UPSA is the university of the moment, having successfully applied a marketing philosophy to gain a positive reputation and international recognition, and currently jointly ranked as number one in Ghana by a Times higher education university impact ranking, which assesses the social and economic impact of universities based on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The previous IPS was as public as any other institution, but the question is what changed along the line; the application of the marketing philosophy was the game-changer,” he said.
The VC expressed the hope that the dialogue would ignite processes which would lead to the creation of a new public sector that was fit-for-purpose and also guaranteed a Ghana Beyond Aid agenda.
Changing mindset
The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Prof. Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo, also urged organisations and individuals to change their mindset by using marketing as a tool for development.
"We need to change our mindset to ensure that all these recommendations work," he added.