Week 8 Journal

1)      Make a list of competitors for Islington College.

2)       Develop a Porter’s 5 Forces Model for Islington College

3)      To which strategic group might Islington College belong? Can you map the group?

  

                                                                                      

Answers

1)      Islington College offers the Bachelor program to students interested to have an International degree in Business administration and in Information and technology. The college has been providing the degree from London metropolitan university.  The competitors of Islington College are the colleges’ offering the same program to students. Some of them are:

·         Lord Buddha Education Foundation College

·         ISMT college

·         Silver Mountain college

·         British college

·         Thames college

2)      The porters five forces of model includes:

·         Threat of new entrants to a market.

·         Bargaining power of suppliers

·         Bargaining power of customers (“buyers”)

·         Threat of substitute products

·         Degree of competitive rivalry

For Islington college porters five force model can be elaborated as:

Threats of new entrants to a market- the Islington College has been providing its education service for more than decade. Within this time period the college offering international degree program has been increased dramatically. There are more than 7 colleges established within in the capital Kathmandu offering BBA and IT international degree. These numbers are increasing day by day therefore threats of new entrants is relatively high.

Bargaining power of suppliers- The bargaining power of suppliers is moderate. Usually the suppliers in the colleges are infrastructure suppliers, example: computer, printers, photocopy machines etc. The competition that is starting to offer the own products of suppliers put significant pressure on suppliers.

Bargaining power of customer- The customer are students, national as well as international. The bargaining powers of students seem relatively low because the college is offering the international degree and students are paying more.

Threats of substitute- The substitute in this sector can be other colleges providing local degree. Threat of substitute for Islington is very high because there are more than 80 local colleges operating and attracting students.

Degrees of competitive rivalry- Though the rivalry between the colleges are increasing, Islington colleges has been attracting the new student because of the reputation and the quality of education. It seems Islington College has been successful to avoid much competitive rivalry.  

3)      Strategic Group Analysis

Education sector

Islington college Vs their competitors in education sector

                                                                 
                                                             Group Mapping

      References

·     James Cadle; Malcolm Eva; Keith Hindle; Debra Paul; Craig Rollaston; Dot Tudor; Donald Yeates (2^nd  Edition, 2010).Business Analysis . British Information Society Limited.

·       Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes (9^th Edition, 2011). Exploring Strategic Environment: Text and Cases.  Publisher, Financial Times/ Prentice Hall

· Online available at http://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy/  [Accessed in 21 January, 2013]