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 Hervé Biausser has been the Dean of Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP), a prestigious school of engineering, since 2003. He is a member of the board at the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles and became president of CESAER, the association of European engineering schools, in 2008. Here he talks about his view of the marketing and communication strategy of prestigious schools with an international student body.What are the major marketing and communication issues for institutes of higher learning such as Centrale Paris?  Hervé Biausser :
With over 2,000 students, an annual budget of 40 million euros, 200 professors and 1,200 seasonal staff, we are, in a way, a large SME. As another distinctive characteristic, ECP deals with several partners and stakeholders: the students, obviously, but also professors, researchers, the business world, and government bodies. With those two points in mind, a dual communication requirement becomes clear: a mass market image must be developed, and targeted, consistent communication activities must be implemented.What has your work focused on since 2003? HB : The 21st century definitely propelled higher learning into a new dimension. It no longer concerns only Europe, but the entire world. 30% of the students welcomed on our campus are foreign, and the trend is increasing. To compete with American, European and Asian universities, our main goal is to promote the "Centrale brand". Our school must position itself as a benchmark institution for engineer training on the global scale. How can this goal and message be transmitted in the world of higher learning, where competition has become an issue? HB : UAn effective communication policy must be shared and driven from the inside. I firmly believe that. When I become Dean of ECP, I wanted to define the strengths of our alumni, the general nature of our curriculum, and the promotion of our values. In-house communication is also of capital importance, since it must also reflect the values communicated to the public. A common criticism of higher learning in France is that it is not open enough to the business world... HB : Businesses are crucial to ECP. They are both our customers, in a manner of speaking, and a major source of financing. In fact, 42% of our resources come from private stakeholders. We also enjoy high levels of communication with the business world. However, reinforcing our partnership with business is an on-going priority. The School must sell itself better. To this end, we recently created the Premium partnerships, which associate businesses even more closely with ECP (e.g. through forums and round tables) and with our communication strategy. Eight large groups – Areva, Lehman Brothers, PSA, Safran, Société Générale, Arcelor Mittal, BNP Paribas and McKinsey – have joined us. Our external communication also consists of direct, daily contact at the ground level, with business owners and HR teams. With these contacts, we are able to discuss higher learning issues which are often poorly understood by companies. Companies increasingly organise activities with schools to attract the best job candidates. What is your view of actions and campaigns directly carried out at your School, especially for your future graduates? HB : I am happy to notice that more and more businesses are realising how important it is to position themselves and "present" themselves early to students, who only have about three or four years to get a feel for their future career through formal and informal meetings or internships and work placements. While I am proud of this, we could quickly forget that it has not been a long time since businesses starting constructing genuine communication strategies specifically for recent graduates. On the other hand, it should be noted that only those carrying out long-term actions and genuinely investing themselves, both in financial and human terms, will continue to attract the best students in the future. |
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