SWOT & Situational Analysis For Del Montfort University To Offer Long Distance Courses To International Students

Internal and External Market Analysis

The university in order to conduct the internal and externa; analysis of the market of the new country where the University plans to launch long-distance courses will be applying SWOT analysis. SWOT Analysis framework is used by businesses as a strategic management tool to gather information on the strength and weakness of the business and also information about potential opportunities and threat present in the market (Korableva and Kalimullina 2016). As per the curriculum of the University specializes in subjects which are related to science like applied physics, chemistry, science of economics and social science. However, the university also provides choices of art subjects also. Where a university plans to launch long-distance courses in foreign countries, the first order of the business is to investigate if the market so that it can be establish if it is worthwhile to invest in the market at all. Then for the purpose of internal and external analysis the company needs to apply the SWOT Framework to identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (David, David and David 2017).

1. Strength: The strength of the university is the level of education which is provided by the university and also the variety of choices it has for students coming from different cultures and genres. The choices cover all the different combinations and major subjects as per the choice of the students.
2. Weaknesses: The major weakness of such a proposal to launch long-distance is the fact that there is always a charm of direct or regular courses which long-distances education does not provide. Therefore, students might have doubts taking the long-distance courses offered by the university.
3. Opportunity: The major opportunity which presents itself to Del Montfort University is the chance to penetrate new markets and spread the name of the university worldwide.
4. Threat: The threat which the company faces are from the competitors of the company who are either offering the same courses or even a better package which will result in market acquisition and loss of opportunity for Del Montfort University.

Figure 1: (SWOT Framework)

Source: (Author Made)

The recommendation which can be offered in order to overcome the weaknesses and threats are given below:

1. The university needs to add extra benefits to the courses so as to make the courses more attractive such as an interesting or rare subject or new method of learning.
2. In order to tackle the competitive pressure of the rivals the university needs apply innovative approach to gain a competitive edge or reduce the overall cost of courses offered to gain advantage of the cost reduction benefits(Bull et al. 2016).

The five forces model is useful to get information about the external market and also the factors which can affect the level of competition in the new market. The five factors which affect Porter’s Five Forces model are bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, rivalry, Threat of new entrants, threat of new substitutes (Dobbs 2014). The buyers represent the students who are paying the fees and can definitely affect the fees structure and revenue generated by the university by their bargaining power. If the fees are kept low than the bargain power of the students will be low as the fee will be low enough that bargaining may not be possible. The suppliers are the people who provide resources or services to the university. The bargaining power of the supplier will be high as they are the providers of important resources which are essential to the university.  Threats of substitutes refer to the universities which are providing regular courses in host country or long-distance courses offered by rival universities and this threat will be high dur to the many substitute that are present in the market. The new entrants are the new universities which are entering the market and thus affecting the competition. However this will be comparatively low as it is not easy for every university to enter a new market, The rivalry among the present universities will always be a factor in the market and this will always be high in case of education industry.

Key Performance Indicators are those factors which are the major indicators that the business is performing well (Chambers 2013). Critical Success Factors are those which are essential for the business to thrive and survive. The Key performance indicators of the business is the number of student enrolling for courses in foreign countries, the overall revenue generated by the university from foreign countries and similar other factors (Parmenter 2015). The main objective of the business should be to provide quality level of education at a fair cost and also the right amount of resources which can amplify the quality of education. 

The following recommendations can be given to Del Montfort University as given below:

1. In order to promote culture and trust the university must involve a local language of the country where it is offering the long-distance courses to give proof that the university cares about the local culture. Moreover, in each country the subject preferences and combinations which the students want are different, therefore the university needs to have attractive subjects combinations and also a variety of rare language subjects which can give the university an edge over the domestic industries. Rare language subjects which can be added to the curriculum can be French, German, Sanskrit, Pali and local language of the country as well. this will improve the subject’s combination and attract more potential students.
2. In order to gain recognition, the university can use social media to promote itself and the courses which are on offer. The university can offer a brief curriculum and also advertise faculty members and their qualification to make the curriculum and the faculty of the university more attractive. The university can also upload a demo class of some subjects which can be view from the university portal as a reference of the quality of education provided by the university.
3. The university needs to provide a certifiable degree to its students which can be recognized worldwide. The importance of the degree is immense as a majority of the students don’t take distance courses because they are of the view that the degree will not hold much relevance in their country or any other country. The university needs to enter a memorandum of understanding with the countries where they are providing courses which can recognize the degree provided by the university and thereby encouraging students to take up long distance sources with the university.
4. The university can make more improvements in the study material which are provided to international students by providing them with recorded videos of explanations, Power-point presentation. Lecture notes and Special class video must be made available for such long-distance students from the portal of the university. The university can also provide weekly test kits and Multi choice questions exams kits which can measure the effectiveness of the courses for such long-distance students 

References

Bull, J.W., Jobstvogt, N., Böhnke-Henrichs, A., Mascarenhas, A., Sitas, N., Baulcomb, C., Lambini, C.K., Rawlins, M., Baral, H., Zähringer, J. and Carter-Silk, E., 2016. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework. Ecosystem services, 17, pp.99-111.

Chambers, D.W., 2013. Key performance indicators. The Journal of the American Dental Association, 144(3), p.244.

David, M.E., David, F.R. and David, F.R., 2017. The quantitative strategic planning matrix: a new marketing tool. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 25(4), pp.342-352.

1. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter’s five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.

Korableva, O.N. and Kalimullina, O.V., 2016, September. Strategic approach to the optimization of organization based on BSC-SWOT matrix. In Knowledge Engineering and Applications (ICKEA), IEEE International Conference on (pp. 212-215). IEEE.

Parmenter, D., 2015. Key performance indicators: developing, implementing, and using winning KPIs. John Wiley & Sons.

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