Analysis of ACS Cobham International School's Organization and It's Strategic Plan - Essay Example

? Strategic Report- ACS Cobham International School Strategic Report- ACS Cobham International School I. Introduction According to Waal(2007,p 24),strategic performance management is defined as “ ‘the process where steering of the organization takes place through the systematic definition of mission, strategy and objectives of the organization, making these measurable through critical success factors and key performance indicators, in order to be able to take corrective actions to keep the organization on track”. Hence based on this definition, an organization is said to have successful performance if it has achieved financial and nonfinancial targets, development of skills and competencies and the improvement of customer care process and quality. In this essay, the strategic analysis of ACS Cobham International School is done. The essay is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the organization’s key targets, objectives and products .Section 3 discusses the competitive environment of the organization .Section 4 discusses the overall environment of the organization including both external and internal environments .Section 5 concludes the essay and makes recommendations for improvement of the strategic plan of the organization. 2. Targets, Objectives and Services ACS Cobham International School, London is part of the ACS International School group which consists of four schools, three of which are in England and the other in Doha. The school offers education from early childhood children to high school International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, and an American curriculum, including Advanced Placement (AP) courses (ACS, 2011a). According to Collins and Porras (1996), the mission statement of a company gives its important ideology and visionary components. The three major components of the mission statement are generally identified as the committed core values, core purpose and the visionary goals to be followed by the firm to fulfil its mission. The goal of the school “is to encourage critical thinkers, responsible global citizens, and students who are prepared to achieve the highest standards, both in their subsequent education and throughout their careers” (ACS, 2011b).This goal is expected to achieve through excellent quality of teaching, student centered approach, high quality curriculum, creative thinking and independent learning development, multi cultured atmosphere, educating high values and morals and participative approach(ACS, 2011c). 3. Competitive Analysis According to Coulter (2005), there are both specific environment, like customers, competitors, suppliers etc which influence directly the company’s strategic decision and general environment like political, economic, social and technological sectors that indirectly affect the company’s strategic decisions. The specific environment factors affecting a company’s strategic decisions are analyzed based on the model of the five competitive forces by Porter (1980). Porter’s model is based on the insight that a corporate strategy should meet the opportunities and threats in the organization’s external environment. This model includes the analysis of determinants of the intensity of competition and profitability of the industry like bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of entry of new competitors, threat of substitutes and competitive rivalry (Pavlicek, 2008). However, the main criticisms against the Porter’s models are their focus on only profitability and survival and the assumptions of classic perfect market, simple and static market structures and competitive markets which disable to capture the dynamics of markets .Hence, it cannot consider new business cycle models (Speed, 1989 and Sharp, 1996). In spite of these criticisms, this model is still popular for external analysis. The results of Porter’s five forces for ACS are given below. 1. Threat of New Entry Entry barriers are low in the education sector in UK .There are a large number of schools in UK with different arrangements, legislations and fundings (Eurydice, 2010). Moreover, the entry criteria like turnover, equality, diversified staff all create huge new entry threats Hence threat of entry is high. 2. Threat of Substitutes Threat of substitutes for ACS is high since there are many private international schools in London that are very renowned (Eurydice, 2010) 3. Bargaining Power of Suppliers . The main issue associated with suppliers include lack of choice among suppliers. This gives more bargaining power to the existing suppliers. 4. Bargaining Power of Customers Lack of Choice among customers results in high bargaining power of customers. The above analysis shows that all the forces do not act in favour of the school’s competitive position. The next section discusses the overall environment analysis of the school. 3. Overall Environment Analysis According to Coulter (2005), there are both specific environment, like customers, competitors, suppliers etc which influence directly the company’s strategic decision and general environment like political, economic, social and technological sectors that indirectly affect the company’s strategic decisions. The political factors include stable political factors, liberalization of markets, foreign investment etc. The economic factors include economic growth, market credit, profit taxation, interest rates etc. The social factors consist of health condition of the population, endorsement of computers, internet access, lifestyle etc. The technological factors consist of technical communication possibilities, data protection, possibilities of data storage; progressive technologies etc (Pavlicek, 2008). The word SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (David, 2004).For the SWOT analysis, both the internal resources(strengths and weaknesses) and the external factors(opportunities and threats) need to be considered (Oxford University Press, 1998). The evaluation of internal factors need to be done in areas such as company culture and image, organizational structure, key staff, access to natural resources, position on the experience curve, operational efficiency and capacity, brand awareness, market share, financial resources, market shares, exclusive contracts, patent and trade secrets(Bennet,1999). The evaluation of external factors need to be done related to customers, competitors, market trends, suppliers, partners, social changes ,new technology, economic environment, political and regulatory environment(Bennet,1999).The SWOT analysis summarizes these internal and external factors as a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A SWOT profile is generated after the SWOT analysis .This profile is used as the basis of strategy formulation, implementation etc. The results of SWOT analysis are given below for the ACS Cobham School. Strengths Highly-skilled teachers. History of successful Open day events School has a strong ethos of openness, sharing and commitment to increasing parental confidence Parents wanting to get involved PTA willing to participate Student Centred Approach Weaknesses Teachers not available to meet parents often enough Current open days events not increasing voluntary activity Not enough staff time to plan more events Staff not clear of their role in the parent relationship Narrow focus on open events not partnership activities Curriculum too stretched for additional activity Opportunities Active volunteer committee willing to plan and organise events Pupils active in the school’s Pupil Participation Project can be asked for their opinions and suggestions. Head Teacher is willing flex curriculum to free up teacher time Use parents to contribute to curriculum delivery Threats Confidentiality is at risk Pupil coercion to do things they do not wish to do 4. Conclusion and Recommendations According to Porter (1985) three main strategic options are permitted to the organization to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. They are cost leadership, differentiation and focus. According to the cost leadership, the low cost leader gains competitive advantage in any market due to his ability to produce many at the lower cost. The point is that low cost need not always leads to low price. The strategy of differentiated goods and services permits to satisfy the needs of customers through a sustainable competitive advantage. The companies are thereby allowed to make the prices less sensitive and concentrate on value that generates a comparatively higher price and a better margin. Since there are these benefits for differentiation, it needs producers for market segmentation in order to target goods and services at specific segments, generating a higher than average price. There is possibility of extra costs for the differentiating organization, which can be offset by the revenues generated by sales. The focus strategy also known as niche strategy is more appropriate when an organization cannot afford neither of the other two strategies in a wide manner. This strategy is thus focused on a narrow specified segment of the market. However, the problem with this approach is the possibility of disappearance of small-specialized niches in the long-term .Porter emphasizes the need to select one strategy instead of more than one strategy .Otherwise there is possibility that the companies get stuck in the middle without any competitive advantage. The grand strategies are a comprehensive approach for directing the activities of a company and obtaining its long-term objectives (David 1997). The main 15 grand strategies are the following (1)concentrated growth which concentrates on products and markets complementing current products and services(2) market development (3) product development (4) horizontal integration (5) vertical integration (6)concentric diversification (7) conglomeric diversification (8)turnaround (9) divestiture (10)liquidation (11)bankruptcy (12) joint ventures (13)operations (14)strategic alliance and (15)consortia The school is expected to strategies to satisfy them like increasing the quality of research making it more policy oriented and revised courses with high innovation. Next comes the employers whose influence can be increased by increasing the selectivity of students and pedagogic developments. This will help to get 100 percent placement for the students from the existing 70 and 90 percents for graduate and post graduate students. By increasing the focus on student satisfaction, enjoyment and completion the influence of students and parents can be improved. References ACS(2011a): “About ACS Cobham”, http://www.acs-schools.com/acs-cobham/about-acs-cobham.aspx, Accessed August 29,2011. ACS(2011b): “School Philosophy”, http://www.acs-schools.com/acs-cobham/about-acs-cobham/school-philosophy.aspx, Accessed August 29,2011. ACS(2011c): “School Philosophy”, http://www.acs-schools.com/acs-cobham/about-acs-cobham/school-philosophy.aspx, Accessed August 29,2011. Collins J C and Jerry I Porras (1996): “Building Your Company’s Vision”, Harvard Business Review, September-October. Coulter, M. (2005). “Strategic Management in Action”, 3rd Edition, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. David, R. F. (1997). “Concepts of strategic Management”, 5th Edition, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. Eurydice(2010): “Organisation of the education system in the United Kingdom –England, Wales and Northern Ireland”, EAOEA ,European Commission. Oxford University Press. (1998): “The Oxford dictionary for international business”, 2nd Edition, Great Britain: Market House Book Limited. Pavlicek J (2008): “Definition of the Company Strategy”, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering 2008, Vol III, WCE 2008, July 2 - 4, 2008, London, U.K. Porter E M (1980): “Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors”, New York: Wiley. Porter, E. M. (1985). “Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining Superior Performance”, New York: Free Press. Porter, E. M. (1998). “Competitive Strategy, Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors”, 2nd Edition, New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. Speed, R J. (1989), "Oh Mr Porter! A Re-Appraisal of Competitive Strategy," Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 7 (5/6), 8-11. Waal, A. A. de.(2007.): , “Strategic Performance Management, A Managerial and Behavioural Approach”, London :Palgrave MacMillan,.. Read More