Taurus re-positions UNSW Global Assessments for sale
Taurus chosen for education sector expertise
Leader in Global Education and Training
A leader in global education and training, UNSW Global is a not-for-profit Educational Assessment business and part of the University of New South Wales Sydney (UNSW).
It specialises in large-scale assessment and measurement programs including the annual International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) which is conducted in Australia and over 20 countries globally.
The team support educators in the development of targeted and engaging learning programs to unlock student potential and take the guesswork out of teaching.
Crisis Comms project to re-instate brand reputation
Taurus was engaged for our integrated communications and marketing strategy skills, deep knowledge in crisis comms and long-standing experience in the Education sector.
Working on several aspects of the UNSW Global Assessments business, we supported the C’suite team with crisis and issues management, a new Go-to market strategy, new messaging, a whole new methodology sales training and product positioning.
ICAS assessment moves online
System Crash Crisis
For 35 years, UNSW Global Assessments have been best known for their ICAS assessment, a comprehensive skills-based educational assessment program popular amongst schools, teachers, parents and students. For the first time in 2019, ICAS went online.
Due to the upsurge in schools logging in to ICAS, the system crashed, affecting 4,000+ schools. Instant backlash from teachers and parents occurred as schools were left underprepared and without a plan B. As a result, UNSW Global received over 27,000 feedback emails.
Taurus creates corrective comms strategy
Determined to move the dial away from the incident, after such a long and successful heritage, UNSW Global engaged Taurus to work on a communications strategy to best address the incident. Taurus provided counsel, wrote copy and navigated all internal and external stakeholder communications, including for schools, parents and teachers.
Through a series of staff interviews, a review of the sales and customer service process, Taurus workshopped the themes and messaging to facilitate the rollout of crisis comms material including EDMs, external surveys and email correspondence.
The messaging created helped neutralise the situation and clear the way for key stakeholders to move past the incident and look to a positive future for the ICAS exam.
Re-setting strategy with the Taurus Bullseye™
Business Model Transformation
Following a 12-week issues and crisis campaign, Taurus and UNSW Global recognised the need to relook at the entire business model and address the limitations of a one product company – known only for the “ICAS” brand.
Taurus was re-engaged for our Taurus Bullseye™ marketing strategy expertise to deep dive into the entire UNSW Global business and plan the roadmap for 2020. Taurus facilitated a large-scale workshop with 80% of the UNSW team, conducted desk research, staff interviews across each department, reviewed sales and customer service processes and immersed ourselves in the brand and products offerings.
“Absolutely outstanding! Taurus has got the market completely wired. We’re getting a lot of press – we couldn’t have picked a better agency for PR.”
– Mike Blanchard, Managing Director, TeleWare Australia & New Zealand
Press coverage in all the right places
“In our first month we were in The Australian which was a huge win! This has culminated in the front cover of Voice & Data more recently. Taurus has achieved a steady stream of coverage in highly visible publications and clearly has the relationships and inside understanding of the media,” Mike reflects.
He observes, “You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on branding and advertising but that doesn’t necessarily educate the market about you and your value based offerings. In a B2B environment where you’re in a specialised niche as we are, targeted PR works.”
Taurus creates a new UNSW business methodology and go to market strategy
UNSW Global has four other products in the Assessments offerings – Jet, Scout, Reach and Professional Learning. Taurus identified the opportunity to move the business from a one-product offering and re-launch as a multi-solution company with a new overarching methodology – The UNSW School Assessment Suite (SAS).
Taurus conceptualised and designed an infographic with a built-in sales strategy. This presented a brand new approach with a comprehensive set of learning and assessment tools to challenge, upskill and measure student progress and assesses academic excellence on a broader scale.
Taurus CEO Sharon Williams provides sales methodology and training
To further educate and entrench the new methodology into the UNSW Global team, Taurus was invited to be part of the annual UNSW Global Assessment Sales Conference with CEO Sharon Williams presenting and demonstrating the new UNSW School Assessment Suite (SAS).
Sharon took the sales and product team on a journey and articulated the proposition and purpose of the “UNSW Global Assessments Suite” as the key to moving the business from a one product revenue stream to a multi-product solution sell.
A fresh new approach for an established brand
Acquisition Success
The various projects allowed Taurus to look at every aspect of the business and the result was a whole new methodology and positioning. This work became a valuable asset during an acquisition process that was announced in May 2020, when UNSW Global Assessments was acquired by Janison Education Group (ASX:JAN).
“The Taurus team were such a pleasure to work with. Sharon and the team helped to redefine our strategy and revise our marketing efforts to align with a new business objective. They were quick to understand the finer detail of the business which enabled them to give us the best advice and support. I hope to work with the Taurus team again in the future.”
– Susan Whyte, Marketing and communications Manager, UNSW
What Taurus did for UNSW
- Taurus Bullseye™
- Taurus Creative©
- Crisis communications
- Reputation management
- Internal communications
- Refined the sales kit
- Repositioned the business and created a methodology
- Infographic Design
- Sales training
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