Analysis Of Organizational Challenges: A Case Study Of RMIT Business College, Singapore

Requirements for the assignment

The management of business can be stated as the proper coordination and organization of various activities of the business for the core purpose of achieving all types of defined objectives (David and David 2013). The most significant task of management eventually involves innovation and marketing. The managers and directors, who have responsibility and power for making the decisions and overseeing the enterprise. In spite of this type of business management, there are various organizational challenges that are being faced by the company that are required to be avoided under any circumstance (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014). The following report outlines a brief discussion about the subsequent comparison of RMIT Business College based in Singapore with private colleges. There are several causes of organizational challenges in any particular organization and all of these challenges are required to be avoided effectively so that the organization can complete their business operations without much complexities. The external analyses such as PESTLE and Porter 5 forces will be provided here. Regarding the internal analysis, VRIO framework would be described in this report. Moreover, SWOT analysis will also be described in the report.

A major challenge that the RMIT Business College is facing is that they are not able to increase the post university value proposition for their Singapore students. For this purpose it is required to analyse the external and internal environment of this college (Noe et al. 2017). Environmental analysis is one of the major strategic tool that is required for the core purpose of identifying each and every external as well as internal element that could highly affect the performance of the organization. This type of analysis eventually entails the subsequent assessment of the level of opportunity and threat the factors may provide. All of such evaluations are then converted into the significant process of decision making and this analysis is helpful in aligning strategies with the environment of the firm (Eden and Ackermann 2013). The external analysis of environment of an organization can be determined with PESTLE analysis. There are six distinctive factors, which highly affect the environment of a business. With a proper analysis of external environment, it becomes quite easier to deal with the issues or problems and make business operations even better in comparison to the others. The only issue with this particular analysis tool is that it does not consider the internal analysis (Rothaermel 2013). The PESTLE analysis for the entire education industry in Singapore including RMIT Business College is as follows:

Analyse the data using appropriate management tools and theories

The political factor is the first and the foremost factor in PESTLE analysis for the entire private education industry in Singapore. These political factors eventually undertake the present political situation of the country and it even reads the globalized effect of the political condition over the business and the country as well (Wheelen et al. 2017). The major political factors for private education industry in Singapore including RMIT Business College are as follows:

1. i) Changes in the subsequent skills that are required for any individual to join this industry.
2. ii) The initiatives of the government, which majorly create risks of the industry failing (Jarzabkowski et al. 2012).

iii) Changes in the curriculum, which come with the short lead times.

1. iv) Several new policies and procedures incurred by the government on this industry.
2. v) Expectations in becoming self financing.

Apart from the above mentioned political factors in PESTLE analysis, the second factor that should be considered is the legal factor (Ginter, Duncan and Swayne 2018). The legislative changes occur from one time to another. Most of these changes are affecting the business environment especially for the private high education industry. When any regulatory boy is setting up a specific regulation for the industries, the subsequent law can impact each and every college in the industry. The legal factors for private education industry in Singapore are as follows:

1. i) New legislation, which creates the non compliance with law and even creates major administrative burdens (Hill 2017).
2. ii) Safety and health legislation in the colleges.

iii) Student protection changes so that high security is maintained for every student.

1. iv) No age limit for higher education, hence providing equal rights to all students.

The economic factors include every determinant of the economy and Singapore. Such factors provide proper direction to the country’s economy. Strategies are being built up for lining up with the most relevant changes in this particular scenario (Hitt and Duane Ireland 2017). RMIT Business College is one of the most popular colleges in Singapore and even they have considered such factors. The major and the most important and significant economic factors for the private education industry in Singapore are as follows:

1. i) Cost of the resources required for both students and teachers.
2. ii) Risks of high valued staff members from moving to high performance organizations.

iii) Ability in raising funds that are require for the optional activities (Lasserre 2017).

1. iv) Material shortages over the national as well as international students.
2. v) Local and central government funding decisions could subsequently affect the generic performance of the private education industry in Singapore.
3. vi) Local industrial closure could affect the fund raising plan of this industry.

It is yet another important and significant factor in any private higher education industry in Singapore. The students should have the major ability and scope of communicating with one another and gain proper collaboration during completion of their education (Stead and Stead 2014). These sociological factors of the private education industry in Singapore are as follows:

1. i) Demographic changes could affect the nature of the requirements of students.
2. ii) Inability of students to interact or communicate amongst each other (Gleason 2018).

iii) Inability for the industry for attracting the qualified staffs in colleges.

1. iv) Selection of colleges and private education centres for completing education.

The technological factors are responsible for making the entire technology and business operations much more advanced and efficient (Meyer, Neck and Meeks 2017). The various technological factors for the private education industry in Singapore are as follows:

1. i) Upgraded computer software and hardware.
2. ii) Change to the required standards and equipment.

iii) New computer viruses, which could affect the industry operations.

The final factor of PESTLE analysis is the environmental factor (Morschett, Schramm-Klein and Zentes 2015). Any type of harm to the environment should not be done and the main environmental factors for the private education industry in Singapore are as follows:

1. i) Disposal of waste materials.
2. ii) New developments, which pose threats to the students within the industry.

Re-define the management challenge as a problem that can be solved through management theory and practice

Sub Conclusion

After the PESTLE analysis, it is clear that the macro or external environment of private higher education industry in Singapore is completely favourable (Frynas and Mellahi 2015). They are following each and every factor of the strategic tool. However, there is a major gap in this particular PESTLE analysis. Since, it does not consider the internal industry analysis, VUCA theory would be a major help to the industry. As per VUCA theory or volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity theory, it is quite easy to detect the internal background of an organization and how well this company could be managed. The strategic leadership could be effectively applied in a wider range of educational colleges, especially for the education industry. Volatility refers to the nature and speed of changes in the industry. Uncertainty refers to the proper understanding of the internal issues. Complexity, on the other hand, refers to the multiplex of forces and confusion that is surrounding in the education industry and ambiguity refers to the haziness of reality and clearing cause and effect confusion. RMIT Business College, being one of the most popular colleges, has brought certain changes in their business processes and hence have made the college even better than the other colleges.

Figure 1: VUCA Framework

(Source: Morden 2016)

Porter’s five forces is the model, which identifies as well as analyses five competitive forces and shaping every industry for helping to determine the weaknesses and strengths of an industry. It is the most important and significant strategic tool that helps in understanding the overall competitiveness of the business environment and even for the identification of the strategic potential profitability (Vogel and Güttel 2013). The industry analysis on the entire private educational industry in Singapore including RMIT Business College is as follows:

The first important and significant force amongst the five forces is competitive rivalry. For most of the colleges, the intensity of the competitive rivalry would be the most vital determinant of industrial competitiveness. Some of the most important potential factors of this particular force include sustainable competitive advantages from innovation, level of the advertising expenses, competition within offline and online companies, organizational concentration ratio, powerful competitive strategies that can potentially be realized only after adhering to the work on the lower costs (Harrison and John 2013). The major substitutes or competitive rivalry of RMIT Business College in Singapore are Singapore University of Social Sciences or SUSS, Nanyang Technological University or NTU, SMU as well as National University of Singapore or NUS. RMIT Business College is facing major competition from all of these above mentioned universities.

Write a business report describing the nature of the challenge through the particular management lens

The second significant force amongst the Porter’s Five Forces is the bargaining power of suppliers. It is even described as the subsequent market of inputs. The suppliers of the services, raw materials, labours and components to the organization could be a distinctive source of power when they have several substitutes (Morden 2016). The potential factors of this particular force include degree of differentiation of inputs, strength of the distribution channels, presence of the substitute inputs, competition of the supplier and many more. Regarding RMIT Business College, they are facing some of the major and the most significant and vitalBargaining Power of Buyer

The third distinct force amongst the 5 forces of Porter is the bargaining power of buyer. The bargaining power of buyers is being described as the output market. The sensitivity of the customers is highly affected in this scenario. The power of the buyer is much high only when the buyers are having several alternatives (Engert, Rauter and Baumgartner 2016). The potential factors are buyer concentration to the organizational concentration ratio, buyer switching cost, buyer availability information, customer value analysis, pricing sensitivity of the buyer and many more.

The next subsequent force of Porter that is suitable in this case is the threat of new entrants. Since, various new colleges are entering into the educational industry of Singapore, there is an extremely high chance that the existing colleges of private education in this particular industry would be facing major issues. The profitable industries eventually yield higher returns and hence they attract new colleges in Singapore. The entry of these new colleges also reduce the overall profitability of colleges like RMIT Business College and they could face more difficulty by the incumbents as well as abnormal profitability (Hubbard, Rice and Galvin 2014). New government policies that are being introduced by the government of Singapore and thus the entry barriers are high and the exit barriers are low.

By the year of 2030, some of the practical and tangible things are required to be done by the RMIT Business College if they want to go on the top position from NTU, SMU, NUS and SUSS. As per the Porter’s Five Forces, the four forces of competitive rivalry, bargaining power of buyer, bargaining power of suppliers and threats of new entrants are suitable for the entire private education industry in Singapore (Bryce 2017). In comparison to the other colleges like NTU, SMU, NUS and SUSS, RMIT should focus on their bargaining power of suppliers and competitive rivalry.

External and internal factors affecting RMIT Business College

The strategic capability can be stated as the core ability of a business for successfully employing the competitive strategies, which enable it in surviving as well as increasing the value over time. When the strategic capability does undertake the strategies any business is using, it majorly focuses on the subsequent organizational assets, marketing position and resources (Simon, Fischbach and Schoder 2014). It projects how well it would be able in employing within the future. The strategic capability of the organization is the most significant component for growing much stronger in presence of its competitors within the free market. The strategic capabilities of RMIT Business College are as follows:

The first strategic capability of RMIT Business College Singapore is that they have focused on the physical resources of the college. The most significant physical resources of this particular organization are machines, buildings, products, computer systems, raw materials, data bases and many more (Bettis et al. 2014). With this specific strategic capability, RMIT is able to achieve the plant utilization, marketing, productivity, flexibility, efficiency and others. This strategic capability would be helpful in achieving the gaps faced due to higher competition.

The second distinct strategic capability of RMIT Business College Singapore is that they have focused on the financial resources of the college. The supply of funds from fees of the students, balance sheet, cash flow and many more (Alkhafaji and Nelson 2013). The core ability of raising funds as well as managing the cash flows is being obtained by them and thus any issue related to the financial sector is being solved in RMIT.

VRIO is the business analysis framework, which forms parts of the strategic scheme of an organization. The most significant strategic process, which any firm is going through within the vision statement and is continuing through the objectives, external and internal and strategic choices or even the strategic implementation. VRIO helps in internal industrial analysis and it stands for Value, Rarity, Imitability and Organization (Hahn 2013). It falls under the internal analysis step of the processes and is being utilized as the major framework for evaluation of every resource and capability of the organization, irrespective of the fact, in which strategic model it is falling under.

Resource or Capability	Value	Rarity	Imitability	Organization
Wi-Fi Internet Access	Yes	No	No	No
Ability to raise capital	Yes	No	No	No
Human Resource Management	Yes	Yes	No	No
Buying Power	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Innovation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Corporate Leadership and Vision	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table 1: VRIO Framework of RMIT Business College

As per the VRIO Framework, the strategic capability of RMIT Business College is the human resource management. The significant resources are students, teachers, suppliers, administrators and even non teaching staff (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2016). They ensure that the competencies of students gaining and utilizing experience, skills, relationships and knowledge are being maintained properly and effectively.

PESTLE analysis for the entire private education industry in Singapore including RMIT Business College

The second strategic capability of RMIT Business College is the buyer power. After following VRIO framework, this particular strategic capability involves value, rarity and imitability (Greco, Cricelli and Grimaldi 2013). Buyer power is not organized and hence such issue is being raised. RMIT Business College can remove the gaps and hence gain better opportunities by involving this particular strategic capability.

The proper practice of modern management comprises of lower efficiency as well as failure of the certain enterprises (Langston and Lauge-Kristensen 2013). This business management even comprises of the inter locking functionalities of creation of corporate policy as well as organization, planning, control and even direction of the main resources of that particular organization for the purpose of achieving the core objectives of the policy. Quality and the experience of the respective managers are also considered for this scenario (Williamson et al. 2013). The value chain analysis can be stated the procedure to divide several business activities within the primary and support activities by properly analysing them. The inputs that are being consumed by the activity as well as the outputs generated help in decreasing the costs and increasing the differentiation. It is the most significant tool for RMIT Business College to identify their activities in and around the firm and then relating all of such activities to the proper assessment of competitive strengths (Karadag 2015).

Figure 1: Value Chain Analysis of RMIT Business College

(Source: Baumgartner and Rauter 2017)

With the help of this particular strategic tool, RMIT Business College is able to resolve the issues related to their competitive advantages and reducing the gaps and weaknesses in their operations.

Management is the proper administration of any company or organization or even a government body. It majorly involves each and every activity to set the organizational strategies and then coordination of the efforts of the employees of that particular organization (Elliott et al. 2015). This is helpful for the purpose of accomplishing the core objectives and goals by the successful application of the resources like technological, natural, human resources and financial. The social organization as well as organizational leadership is also considered in the management.

The SWOT analysis on RMIT Business College is as follows (See Appendix A):

Strengths	Weaknesses
i) High Skilled teacher. ii) Better commitment to the teaching activity. iii) Willing to participate in events.	i) Teachers not available in meeting parents of the students. ii) Dependency on digital world.
Threats	Opportunities
i) Safety and security of students. ii) Confidentiality of data is at risk since antivirus is not being used.	i) Student participation could be asked for better suggestions (Fisher III and Oberholzer-Gee 2013). ii) Contribution of all students and teachers in curriculum delivery.

Table 2: SWOT Analysis on RMIT Business College

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are several important and significant approaches of management for detecting the strengths as well as limitations of an organization and also for making well informed determinations about when is the best time to utilize such approaches within the separate organizational situations and contexts. The organizational management comprises of three distinctive levels, which are top level management, middle level management and low level management. The most basic and significant challenges that any organization faces are awareness, better communication, proper development, special influences, interpersonal skills, organizational cultural diversity, integrity and many more. The above report has clearly outlined the detailed description about the popular and significant Singapore based organization called RMIT Business College. A significant comparison is being done with the private higher education with this RMIT Business College in Singapore. Porter’s 5 forces analysis is being done in this report for conducting the industry analysis properly. Four factors are being taken from the 5 forces and the entire industry of education is being explained in this particular report. Moreover, subsequent external and internal environmental analysis is also done for RMIT Business College.

VRIO framework description

References

Alkhafaji, A. and Nelson, R.A., 2013. Strategic management: formulation, implementation, and control in a dynamic environment. Routledge.

Baumgartner, R.J. and Rauter, R., 2017. Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.81-92.

Bettis, R., Gambardella, A., Helfat, C. and Mitchell, W., 2014. Quantitative empirical analysis in strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 35(7), pp.949-953.

Bryce, H.J., 2017. Financial and strategic management for nonprofit organizations. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

David, F.R. and David, F.R., 2013. Strategic management: Concepts and cases: A competitive advantage approach. Pearson.

Eden, C. and Ackermann, F., 2013. Making strategy: The journey of strategic management. Sage.

Elliott, R.H., Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L. and Pervan, S., 2015. Strategic brand management. Oxford University Press, USA.

Engert, S., Rauter, R. and Baumgartner, R.J., 2016. Exploring the integration of corporate sustainability into strategic management: a literature review. Journal of cleaner production, 112, pp.2833-2850.

Fisher III, W.W. and Oberholzer-Gee, F., 2013. Strategic management of intellectual property: an integrated approach. California management review, 55(4), pp.157-183.

Frynas, J.G. and Mellahi, K., 2015. Global strategic management. Oxford University Press, USA.

Ginter, P.M., Duncan, W.J. and Swayne, L.E., 2018. The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Gleason N.W. 2018. Singapore’s Higher Education Systems in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Preparing Lifelong Learners (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. In: Gleason N. (eds) Higher Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

Greco, M., Cricelli, L. and Grimaldi, M., 2013. A strategic management framework of tangible and intangible assets. European Management Journal, 31(1), pp.55-66.

Hahn, R., 2013. ISO 26000 and the standardization of strategic management processes for sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Business Strategy and the Environment, 22(7), pp.442-455.

Harrison, J.S. and John, C.H.S., 2013. Foundations in strategic management. Cengage Learning.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: Theory & cases: An integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Hill, T., 2017. Manufacturing strategy: the strategic management of the manufacturing function. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Hitt, M. and Duane Ireland, R., 2017. The intersection of entrepreneurship and strategic management research. The Blackwell handbook of entrepreneurship, pp.45-63.

Hitt, M.A., Ireland, R.D. and Hoskisson, R.E., 2016. Strategic management: Concepts and cases: Competitiveness and globalization. Cengage Learning.

Hubbard, G., Rice, J. and Galvin, P., 2014. Strategic management. Pearson Australia.

Jarzabkowski, P. A., Giulietti, M., Oliveira, B., and Amoo, N. 2012. “We don’t need no education” – or do we? Management education and alumni adoption of strategy tools. Journal of Management Inquiry, 22(1), 4–24.  

Karadag, H., 2015. Financial management challenges in small and medium-sized enterprises: A strategic management approach. EMAJ: Emerging Markets Journal, 5(1), pp.26-40.

Langston, C. and Lauge-Kristensen, R., 2013. Strategic management of built facilities. Routledge.

Lasserre, P., 2017. Global strategic management. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Meyer, G.D., Neck, H.M. and Meeks, M.D., 2017. The entrepreneurship?strategic management interface. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.17-44.

Morden, T., 2016. Principles of strategic management. Routledge.

Morschett, D., Schramm-Klein, H. and Zentes, J., 2015. Strategic international management (pp. 978-3658078836). Springer.

Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2013. Strategic management: concepts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Simon, D., Fischbach, K. and Schoder, D., 2014. Enterprise architecture management and its role in corporate strategic management. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 12(1), pp.5-42.

Stead, J.G. and Stead, W.E., 2014. Sustainable strategic management. Routledge.

Vogel, R. and Güttel, W.H., 2013. The dynamic capability view in strategic management: A bibliometric review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(4), pp.426-446.

Wheelen, T.L., Hunger, J.D., Hoffman, A.N. and Bamford, C.E., 2017. Strategic management and business policy (p. 55). Boston: pearson.

Williamson, D., Cooke, P., Jenkins, W. and Moreton, K.M., 2013. Strategic management and business analysis. Routledge.