Changing rooms

My work takes me a lot to two sorts of places – universities and budget hotels. There’s a lot the latter can learn from the former.

We had guests last weekend (bear with me – I’ll show relevance, as Perry Mason used to say) which meant a fair amount of quilt-cover changing. Or quilt wrestling – it isn’t a quick and easy job. But I saw something in one of the UK’s premier budget hotel company’s rooms which gave me pause for thought. Their quilt covers have two design features unlike those we use at home.

One end is simply open – no press-studs, no buttons, no toggles. It’s just a big bag for the quilt. And at the other end (and this is sheer genius, I think), the seam is left open for about six inches, just where it meets the top, and just where your hands can go to make changing the quilt cover a really easy job.

More useful knowledge about quilts

What’s happening here is that the hotel has thought about what you need in a quilt. Clearly, as the guest, I wanted clean and warm. Call me picky, but they’re non-negotiables when it comes to quilts as far as I’m concerned. You also want, perhaps, a quilt that goes with the rest of the room décor –it makes the place seem more stylish. Not an essential, but a nice to have. So that’s some big ticks as far as the guest experience goes: warm, clean, stylish.

From the hotel management’s point of view, they also want rooms to be cleaned quickly: fewer staff keeps the costs down, and it’s a very competitive market. So, they’ve clearly looked at what takes time in servicing a room, and worked out how to make it a bit quicker. It doesn’t detract from the guest experience (it’s a budget hotel: I’ve already done some trade-offs in my head, and know that I’m not staying in a four-star place). It helps them deliver the value which their guests want. And it makes the cleaner’s job easier, which is also good.

Taking a step backwards, what the hotel have done is think very clearly and carefully about what their value proposition is – why people stay in the hotels. And that’s something like a decent room at a good price. So they know that they need to meet (and exceed) basic expectations; but they also know that they need to keep the cost down: frills are undesirable.

And then they’ve clearly involved their staff in thinking about how to make it better – I’ll bet you that the ideas for the quilt changing improvements didn’t come from management sitting round a table, but from the people who clean the rooms taking part in a lean process review.

So how does this affect universities?

Well, all universities are engaged to some extent in price competition, some more clearly than others. What value is delivered to the student for their fees? Of course, the main value comes in the learning and the recognition of success through a degree award; but there’s also a value in the experience (or why would universities be building better halls of residence, and 4G sports pitches and the like?). By identifying what the value proposition is; by understanding what the student expects as a minimum and what the delighters are; and by thinking about how to deliver this as efficiently as possible, universities put themselves in the best position to attract students and have the capacity to invest in academic activity.

It isn’t comfortable language for a university, but if done properly it can help universities be better for their students without losing their soul. We might need a new language (marketing jargon goes down very badly in an academic environment) but the practice will remain valuable.

This sporting life

I noticed that a couple of 'my' teams are sponsored by universities.  Ospreys by Swansea University (and also by Neath Post Talbot College); the Cardiff Devils by Cardiff Metropolitan University. And a client I'm currently working with sponsors Ealing Trailfinders RFC. Some universities evidently see a benefit in a connection with sport.

Student sport also matters. I confess that this only became clear to me some way into my career in universities - as a student the closest we got to sport was avoiding the Three Tuns when the Athletics Union were there. It just made for an easier life. But some universities make sport a big part of their student offer, and gain considerable kudos (witness Loughborough's continued pleasure at their students' performance in commonwealth games. They'd be almost as good as Yorkshire if they were both allowed to enter independently.)

(Sponsored by Swansea University. Disturbingly!)

So what's going on? We clearly aren't heading for US-like community engagement with university sport. Excepting the Oxbridge boat race, which is an institution, student sport only rarely gets coverage outside of the universities concerned. You don't get 30,000 people turning out to see the university side take on another university.  

I see it as basically about marketing, but there are some benefits for the students too.

Some universities sponsor sports teams to reinforce a local brand. I remember hearing one VC talk about his university's sponsorship of the local League Two football club. Objectively, this wasn't as strong a sporting side as the town's rugby or cricket clubs (supporters of the club in question may think I'm talking cobblers...). So the sponsorship wasn't about association with a successful brand. But the football club had a much stronger appeal amongst the local community, so sponsorship helped cement the idea that the university, like the football club, was a local institution for local people. Great for breaking down barriers to participation. 

For some universities sponsorship works to help make relationships. A box at a sports ground gives somewhere to entertain guests of the university, and like it or not, entertaining is a necessary activity for a university. Engendering goodwill matters. And here the quality of the entertainment is clearly a factor: the better, or more recognised, the team, the better a box at the ground will be. This is one of the ways that a premiership club can be a real asset for the town or city in which it is based.

There's also an element which is about the facilities provided to students. If studying at the university can be associated with great facilities for sport (and the opportunity to try new sports) then it might just be the factor which sways an applicant's decision. And the benefit is no doubt real to the students who take part, forging friendships and helping them to find a part of their character which perhaps they didn't know about. That's what university is meant to be about, isn't it?

These identifies can run deep. When Imperial left the University of London, a significant issue to address was whether its medics could continue to play in the London medics leagues. People can give a lifelong loyalty to a particular university sports club, and attempts to change anything can run into resistance: witness the campaign to maintain Cardiff Medics teams within the BUCS structures, which featured national petitions and press coverage.

So sport can't be ignored. But it also highlights a problem for universities: sport speaks to a particular group of students - 'traditional' full-time undergraduates. It's been a long time since this was the only type of student. How do you find something that can appeal to all?

Until this question is answered, expect to see more university logos on shirts, on hoardings and in programmes at sports grounds. The one thing that sports and universities have in common are league tables, and they're not going away any time soon.