DL Company Management - Case Study Example

Report on DL limited strategic Business plan For the General Manager Prepared by (Insert Your Name Here) (Insert Your Student Number Here) (Date to be inserted here) Introduction Sterling Consulting having been in the business of consulting for student’s placement for years has a good will from its long standing university clients. This paper will be making further advice to the sterling company on its establishment of the distance learning programmes to their current and prospective clients. The paper will advise the directors through a more insightful business plan for them as they have been invited by the several leading Turkish open universities and other universities to offer distance learning degree programmes to their clients. The new programmes will be conducted under DL limited and not through Sterling consultancy. Relatively, students will be based in Turkey or in their respective country of origin, following the courses through a portal so as to qualify for a dual degree award from both a UK university and their local university. Outline the ways in which strategic decisions are made. According to Grisby & Stalh, 1997:9 strategic decisions by the companies is an important activity in all the management decisions. There are various ways in which strategic decisions are made in the process of entering a new business or market. For any company to succeed, strategic decisions should be considered well. DL company management should be very keen on any available opportunity for their new program. As a company that is keen to introduce a new service through the existing service, DL limited should be in a position to compete effectively with the rest of the companies that offer the same distance learning programs. DL Limited should carefully try to match the available market conditions for their new product and consequently adjust to changes in a timely manner. DL company should be innovative. They should have relevant ideas that should be managed and evaluated in order to produce better results for the company. Always, evaluation process produces profitable results. The management as the pillar of the company should look out for the needs that are not able to be met by the current and services that are offered in their field of expertise. Consequently, they should try to improve the already existing services. In addition, they should research the market potential for a few of their unmet needs in their services provision. DL should look at this keenly. Although they have met this need by establishing the distance programmes, they should compare the market opportunities with their organization's internal capabilities to narrow the focus on the needs that they can satisfy most successfully. They should evaluate the resources that they have that enables them to fill the market needs better than competitors. DL limited should in addition get a team of people that will look out for specific ideas in the creation of new services that fit the available market opportunity. They can work out this by capturing ideas and building a list of possible solutions. They should prioritize the ideas by evaluating their risks and benefits. In addition, they should have a ready budget for the development of ideas and how to bring out those ideas to the new market. This will eventually create realistic forecasts for their profit potential. Relatively, the consultancy should make a decision based on their research and evaluation and track the results of their decision to achieve the intended results. 2. The Board of DL limited is keen to consider other potential markets for expanding their distance learning programmes. You are required to investigate in detail any two markets, other than the ones stated above, using both primary and secondary data. China and the US markets According to Xiaohui (2004), the growth of global business through computer technology throughout the world has helped a lot in enabling services world wide. In particular, the technology has helped n the facilitation of the growth of online distance education. Relatively, this has also been helped much by the ongoing evolution of the World Wide Web. Distance learning education has not been left behind in using this technology. This is a concept that uses both the new features of higher education while at the same time uses advancements in computer technology. Online education assists in extending education to the needy students who may have otherwise not been able to attend the traditional classroom set up. This has been made possible by sending learning materials through online to students. This becomes convenient for students. Most students have family or work commitments, the distance to the university might be unfavorable and that’s why they cannot attend classroom-based lessons at a fixed duration. Above are some of the key reasons that make students take online learning mode. There are many advantages that are accrued to the distance learning. Distance learning empowers learners to access various diverse needs at their own convenience. There are several markets that sterling can consider as potential markets for expanding their distance learning programmes. China is a god example where DL can find a good market. China is committed to the ICT based distance learning. As a country, it has a vision for online based education. The key component in this learning mode is the ICT. This offers sterling constancy a good opportunity as a new market. In addition, china largely uses distance learning methods in its three biggest universities. These universities have over 100,000 students for their distance learning mode of learning. China’s Ministry of Education as an important organ education in china is actively promoting distance education. According to the NCES (2002) (National Center for Education Statistics), US have 4,197. 56% of their institutions having distance learning programs. Studies concluded that US colleges and universities that provides online education programs to students in China have 1,544 U.S. institutions in their websites. According to NCES (2002), Chinese students have an option to take natural resources courses that are offered in either US or China. This gives DL an opportunity to enter these two markets as potential markets for distance learning programmes. Discuss market entry strategy and the key decisions that they need to address before entering your selected markets. As globalization is being embraced, education is increasingly become globalised across borders. Relatively, educational systems have to respond to other profound changes. These changes vary from knowledge and information and communication technology (ICT) development . Distance higher education systems put emphasize on the need for the international co-operation as well as policies in areas of funding and the appropriate use of ICTs (Kalyanaram and Ragu 1998). This is in context to these education system changes. First market entrants have an advantage of having a sustained market-share over the others. However, companies that enter a market later when the others are already there can succeed by adopting unique positioning and marketing strategies. Additionally, in most cases, once pioneers have reached the status of incumbent they become powerful. However, they sometimes are not in a position to cater for the growing demands at the marketplace. Relatively, studies have shown that new market entrants can take advantage of gaps that are not filed by the aging pioneers. This is by finding unique and innovative ideas of marketing their new service. DL limited has been a pioneer in offering consultancy through Sterling Consulting, a small UK education consulting firm. This has been for more than last 3 year working closely with senior officials of several UK universities and 14 Turkish universities to develop double degree programmes in several disciplines for students based in Turkey. As Pioneers with presence in the market, DL should be in a position to react and probably increase the barriers to the market entry. For example as pioneers, DL limited through sterling consultants are in a strategic position to lower its current price and thus decreasing the value of the business for a new entrant. Consequently, DL limited being in a position to give best services can limit the new distance learning service providers entirely by controlling key distribution channels. In addition, my advice to DL is that they should have thorough understanding of the entry, have defensive strategies, have a good sense of market entry timing and finally have a game plan for decision-making. DL LIMITEDBASIC STRATEGIC PLANNING DL’s competitive strategies will depend on the market environment, the positioning and the product portfolio of the existing players. There are three basics in planning namely; Reducing price to penetrate an existing market. By DL limited introducing the new program at a relatively lower price than the other market players, they will attract new customers who would have otherwise gone to a different service provider. Relatively, reduced price also induces the pioneer’s current customers to switch (Levi, 2006). Improve a product or service while focusing a niche market. At this stage of introducing new programs in the market, DL limited strategy in the market entry can be competing by being innovative. Their innovation may be either radical or incremental. A god example of incremental innovation is the enhanced version of an existing product or service. The enhanced service which DL is having as the new distance learning program can be put forward to attract a smaller section of the already existing market. Relatively, DL limited improved service can as well attract new clients that are not targeted for the existing service. DL limited has an advantage of being in the market for long as it has curved a niche in the market. New geographic markets for existing products strategy. DL limited through Sterling consultancy has matured with time doing the same business and so they should look outside to more lucrative markets. Most service providers companies come up with new channels of service distribution to access new found markets. In your discussion consider how social networking services on the worldwide web could be used to promote their distance learning programmes. According to Alexander (2006), its believed that as a marketing tool, social networking covers large area of online environments (Alexander, 2006). The growing social networking trend has risen with the large commercially supported sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. There are several other social networking sites with limited social network features. These are Flikr which was introduced in 2004 and YouTube in 2005 (Alexander, 2006). There is also Twitter a social networking site which took a new twist that increased social networking. Communication tools Social networks will be very useful to DL company in their newly introduced distance education. They have a very effective communication tool that enables customized environments for blogging, discussions and file and content sharing. At the same time, messaging as well as sub-groupings within the larger network is readily available. Each user in these social networks creates a unique profile. The social network user is able to develop private content and eventually participate in shared spaces. These tools also allow the site creators to determine site access, the available tools and even customized site appearance Boyd and Ellison (2007). Getting Feedback According to Klein, 2009 a community on any social networking platform can help drive clients to your services. Updates on your site on important information will allow DL to have new clients every now and then. Along with broadcasting news about the new program and requesting reactions to it, social networking can also help introduce DL to business practices, vendors, employees, and sales prospects. For instance, connecting with other independent distance learning service providers. Also advise the Board on pricing strategy for your selected markets, providing good evidence to support your recommendations. For DL limited pricing strategy, it should start with a commitment from management, eventfully making price a growth imperative throughout the organization. DL limited pricing strategy should be strategically positioned in its financial plan. Relatively, it should be measurable on an ongoing basis throughout the year. However, the determination of a pricing strategy should be predicated on achievable price realization goals. Once DL limited has achieved its goal, there will be need to monitor its new program performance on a regular basis while at the same time making adjustments based on success or failure of their pricing strategy. Advise them on potential product development for their new program According to Crow (2001), a product development strategy is important for a growing company. The pricing strategy provides any company with the framework to measure a company's development projects and process. However, there is no right strategy for a company. Product development strategy takes into account the company's capabilities i.e. its strengths, weaknesses and core competencies, the competition's capabilities and strategy, market needs and opportunities, company goals, and its financial resources. DL should determine its primary strategic orientation so as to develop the distance learning program development strategy. DL limited should have; Time to Market This will involve DL limited’s orientation to getting their new program to the market faster. This is very important when the company is making rapid change of services or enhancing the existing ones. This strategy will typically will lead to optimizing product performance, cost and reliability. Quality and Reliability Quality and reliability focuses on assuring high levels of program quality, reliability and robustness. When introducing the new program , DL limited will require enough time and cost for the new program planning and regulatory approvals (Wheelwright & .Clark, 1994) Service, Responsiveness & Flexibility The service that will be provided by DL Limited will focus on being very responsive to customer requirements. This is part of DL’S development and maintaining flexibility to respond to new customers. This will eventually win DL Limited new markets and new opportunities. However this orientation will require additional resources together with their related costs in providing the service and responsiveness. Discuss the resources required to implement their strategy In every new venture in service provision, certain resources need to be ensured for its success. Some of these resources are ; Business Plan The already made Business plan by the DL board serves as DLs guide. It will provide DL limited with benchmarks so that the board can check their progress throughout the year. However, it will be good to reference the business plan every month or quarter so that the board of directors can make adjustments as needed. Legal Structure Legal structure is very essential for DL. As a sole proprietor, partnership or a corporation Dl should investigate their options with professional resources. This can be by informing their attorney and the company’s accounting department. The reason to do is that all the financing decisions of the company will be affected by the type of structure that DL limited will chose in running their business. Local licenses, tax identification number and any other relevant legal requirements are very important. Once the business structure is finalized with all the required documents, Dl limited will be able to open business in new markets easily. Capital Dl limited will require sufficient capital to pay expenses until the new program becomes profitable. Customers Every successful business venture requires customers in its operation. Customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Customers determine DL’s ability to meet financial projections. For the starting program, DL limited will have to know the new clients who will be targeted by their distance learning program, where to find clients and how to reach them. Market research will enable DL to analyze the demographics to attract the appropriate marketing and advertising tactics. Open Your Doors DL’S confidence comes from being prepared as they have conducted regular programs through sterling consultancy. They should open their doors for the new services with confidence. However, it’s very important for them to realize that having the resources to start a new service provides an opportunity for financial rewards for an expanding and growing company. Outline the potential pitfalls that the company might face. Highlight other relevant issues that the Board should consider. Roberts, 2011 argues that, for the new programs to take effects, those approving the business be aware of the new initiative challenges. In addition, they should know if the estimate has some rigor for they need to be sure what they are agreeing on. DL should consider whether someone has tried this venture somewhere else i.e. in the new market. This is good so that the company can know what is involved in setting up such a program. They need to ask themselves if there are any proxy measures that are needed to use. E.g. is there information that can be used from when a different but similar innovation was introduced? In the company, this can be done at a small level such as a team or at a large scale such as across Departments. According to Roberts (2011), an example of unexpected issues can be if the innovative idea is successful. This can increase demand on the company’s services. Consequently, if the new idea introduced in the market is improved and it is relatively well received in the market, there may be increased demand for it from the public. This new scenario can create greater expense that were not initially in the budgeted for. As a way of introducing a new service, going for new markets is not the only available solution for DL limited. The reason for this is that studies have shown that sometimes the risk and the investment required to enter new international markets may not be worth the return in investment. Relatively, focusing on existing markets, where Sterling consultancy has a good understanding of the environment can at times prove less risky for DL limited and consequently offer them success in their new venture. However these risks can be halved y repositioning the service through marketing, advertising and offering better services. List of references Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), 32–44. Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Retrieved from [accessed 8 June 2011] Crow, 2001 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC ORIENTATION, Retrieved from, [accessed 7 June 2011] Grigsby and Stahl, (1997) Strategic management: total quality and global competition Kalyanaram and Ragu, (1998) Market Entry Strategies: Pioneers Versus Late Arrivals Retrieved from, http://www.wright.edu/~tdung/entry.pdf Accessed 10 June 2011 Klein, 2009, How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Business, Available from ,< http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2009/sb2009087_245691.htm> accessed 7 June 2011] Levi , 2006 Market Entry Strategies of Foreign Telecom Companies in India, Dissertation Universitat Fribourg, India NCES ( 2002) N A T I O N A L C E N T E R F O R E D U C A T I O N S T A T I S T I C S, the condition of education 2002 U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement Retrieved from, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002025.pdf > [accessed 7 June 2011] Roberts (2011) Building a business case – identifying the resources Required available from [accessed 7 June 2011] Wheelwright and clark, (1994) The product development challenge: Harvard : USA, Xiaohui, 2004 NATURAL RESOURCES DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA Retrieved from, http://nr.ncr.vt.edu/major_papers/Xiaohui_He.pdf Acessed 9 June 2011 Read More