Business School of London - Essay Example

?Business Plan A business plan is not only a requisite for seeking finance from the investors, but is another way of a document used for describing the aims and objectives of a company. It also enables measurement of progress towards achieving all the aims and objectives. The business plan provides the means to appraise the future and present of the business, make sure that the short term and long term objectives work out, and ensure that the objectives have been met Phase 1: Introduction-Global School of Business Management: The proposed name of the business school is the Global School of Business Management. It aims at providing management education which is at par with international standards. Over the last couple of demands for business management schools has gained a lot of momentum. GSBM will begin its operations locally in UK and will later on expand to Australian and Indian markets. The school will host its first local branch in London as this will be a London based business school. Thus, the first batch of its students will come from UK. The MBA market within UK is very competitive and is only expected to grown in the next couple of years. Macro-economic conditions within UK are extremely supportive and conducive to the growth of a new business school. Government policies and factors also favor the growth of MBA markets. Brief overview of the School and Program Design: Management skills are very critical for personal and professional development of people. They enhance the life style of people and improves their living standards. People who have managerial skills come across as charismatic; they are well managed and are able to attain their goals rather quickly. Thus management education helps students in providing them a strong platform for their career growth and success. The business requirements of the modern world want people who are sound on their management skills as it is important for organizational growth. The program design of GSBM will be built to develop management skills and core competencies of its students. The focus will be to produce students who can adapt themselves to the changing paradigm of the world and use their skills efficiency. The main objective of GSBM would be to provide management skills to its future leaders in the business world. The school will be based in London and will have operations spaced out in divisional units and campus. The school will expand from London to Australia and India. The school will aspire to offer quality educations to its student in management. The student will be given the opportunity to pick either one of the following as their majors: Finance Marketing Human Resource Management Each major choice will have its own set of electives and each student will be allowed to opt for his choice of electives. Other than the electives there will be some core management and social science related subjects which will be mandatory for every enrolled student to undertake. The primary aim of the program offered at GSBM is to equip students with the technical knowledge related to business strategy and environment ; to ensure they are well versed and aware of business activities and to equip them with sound management related knowledge. Generic Strategy: The primary objective of the school is to provide quality education to it’s students. It will not be opened with a profit-making perspective. It’s main aim is to produce well equipped management students who are able to stand out in the job market in the corporate world. For this purpose, a generic strategy will be followed. Michael Porter was of the view that a business should make a choice between two fundamental decisions when deciding it’s competitive advantage. The choice should be either to: 1. Compete on the basis of price OR 2. To compete on the basis of a differentiating point in the business. These two choices were further explained in the form of four generic competitive strategies which he argued were the main range of choices available for a successful business. They are: 1. Cost Leadership 2. Differentiation 3. Price Focus 4. Differentiation Focus Of the four aforementioned strategies, the strategy that this business would be following would be a the differentiation strategy. A differentiation strategy is for a broad cross-section of the market wherein the customers are willing to pay premium prices for superior technology and quality. As mentioned before, the education market in UK is huge. There is a great percentage of the population that is literate. Moreover UK attracts foreign nationals every year as well who are willing to pay premium prices for quality over-seas education. GSBM will be differentiated on the basis of the state-of-art technology education that it will provide to the enrolled students. All academic courses, lectures, enrollment processes, and grading information will be computerized. Moreover, there will be group based teaching. A group of 8 students will be looked after by one teacher which will give students personal attention. Their performance will be appraised every month, wherein they will be counseled on the future opportunities they have in hand, their strengths and their weaknesses. Teaching and assessment will not be restricted to book knowledge. Practical application of business concepts and activities will be the primary focus. This will produce graduates who are well aware of the practical flow of the business world. Market Segmentation: As mentioned before, GSBM will be catering to a broad market who are willing to pay premium prices for quality education. In UK, we will be targeting the age bracket of 15-44 years which makes. Within this age bracket, the program will be further divided for two types of market: 1. 15-35 :This bracket is young, simulating, curious and energetic. Moreover, they are more likely to be enrolled in colleges. They will be given a more peppy youthful ambience to work in. 2. 35-44: This age bracket would comprise of corporate who are already working somewhere or have worked somewhere. They can either enroll themselves for evening classes or get themselves enrolled for weekend classes. Each type of market segment will follow the same curriculum but with a different program schedule and ambience. In India and Australia the same market segment strategy will be pursued. Core Competencies: It has been repeatedly asserted that the core competencies of the school will lie in its quality education at premium prices. For this purpose the knowledge based resources of the school have to be up to mark and at par with the standards of a world class international university. The following will be the core competencies of our program and business school: 1. Motivating environment: The environment of the school will be such that the students will be encouraged to do their best. The school environment will be conducive to their learning. They will be able to evaluate and asses their strength and produce the best and to their potential. Eventually the school will be successful in producing all round, confident students with an optimistic perspective. 2. Well versed faculty with sound functional and technical skills: The best faculty will be hired to deliver the courses to the students. They will be sound on their function and technical knowledge and will be able to do their job with high level of accomplishment. 3. Integrity and Trust: We offer complete integrity and trust to the parents of our prospect students. We will keep them in the loop with all appropriate information. 4. Diversity: There will be no discrimination in school on the basis of race, class, religion or sex. Everyone will be dealt equally. We will encourage students the pros of living in diversity and ensure that all ideas are shared and well integrated. 5. Sound Interpersonal skills: The learning environment within GSBM will produce students who are sound on their interpersonal skills. They are confident and non hesitant in their day to day dealings and conversation with their peers. There will be focus on a lot of class room presentations that will help students build on their confidence and interpersonal skills. 6. The drive to do better: The students produced will have a strong drive to do better and excel in their life. They will be a very a motivated bunch of students with an exceptional urge to grow big in their life. 7. Sound Management skills: This will be one of the biggest competencies of the school. It will produce leaders with sound management schools. These leaders will be able to take over the business world with an inherent wave and will make it big from there. 8. Decision making quality: the students produced will have sound decision making skills. This will be developed by exposing them to real world situations in which they would be compelled to make choice and decision in a very short time-frame. 9. Critical Problem solving skills. The students will be well equipped with strong problem solving skills. They will not shy away from problem solving and will be able to take tough challenges that confront them The school will stand on its own and will find its roots from the grass level. It will not be associated with any subsidiary at the moment. Everything that it will do and produce would be on it’s own. Thus, that option has been ruled out. Excelling at Value adding activities: Given the competitive nature of MBA market, the vision of the school and growing business requirements of the business world, it will be very important for every one associated with the school to be on their edge at all times. The core-competencies of the school have been defined in the aforementioned school. The deal is to now chalk out a map through which these core-competencies will be looked after and achieved. The bench mark has been set and chalked out. It is now important to work on how that bench mark will be sought for. First and foremost, the school will hire world class faculty. A thorough and exhaustive recruitment campaign will be undertaken to recruit the creme da creme of the world. Interviews, group discussions and presentations will be taken of prospect teachers from world over, and a panel will be set up to recruit the best of the lot. Once evaluation is complete the best teachers from the lot will be selected. Secondly, the program curriculum will be designed so that the students are trained and their skills developed at the creative level. There will be a lot of emphasis on practical application of the knowledge acquired by the students rather than book knowledge. In this bid, most assignments allocated to the students will involve external stake holders, a lot of brain storming and real world critical thinking. Thirdly, students will be given the flexibility to choose subjects of their own choice where their electives are concerned. This means, they will be at a liberty to choose the subject of their choice. This will work to help students own the subject that they have opted for. An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the firm: Our strength lies in our access to a very sound research and development team. We have a highly skilled and capable program design time. The communication within the organization is very effective. And moreover our urge for quality education will be the biggest driving force for our program. The biggest risk that we face, is the risk from competitors and changing paradigms of the business world. Our business strategy will have to be revised every time according to the changing business environment Strategic Options Available: The business school will find its roots in London. It will gradually grow and develop campuses all round UK. The first 3 year aim would be to establish and find credibility within the UK market. It will be to develop parent and student confidence in our system, in what we strive to offer and in what we intend to achieve in the long run. The program will be kept updated according to the changing paradigms of the business world during the course of these 3 years. Once the school would have laid its roots strongly in the UK market, it will move towards international expansion. It has been repeatedly asserted throughout the report, that the school aims to expand in Indian and Australian market. First, we’d go for the Indian market. The Indian market has a budding youth growth. It is home to more than 60% of the population that is under the age of 21and does not have many business schools there. Not only will the labor cost of setting up the business be cheap in India, but it will attract a major chunk of their elite and literate population immediately. The school will first be built in New Delhi, then Bombay and other big states like Chennai, Chandigarh, Kerala and Calcutta depending on the response given by the masses. The biggest advantage in India, would be the low cost of running the business. The unwillingness of the population to pay heavy fees could be a major weakness for this business school in India. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lew G. Brown. (Summer 1989). THE STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF CONVENIENCE IN CONSUMER PRODUCT MARKETING. CONSUMER MARKETING. Vol. 6 (No. 3), 7. Karen Maru File Ben B. Judd Russ Alan Prince. (1992). the Influence of Participation on Positive Word-of-Mouth and Referrals. INTERACTIVE MARKETING. 6 (4), 10. Isabelle Szmigin. (1998). Consumer equity in relationship marketing. JOURNAL OF CONSUMER MARKETING 1998. 15 (6), 14. Lyndon Simkin. (2000). Marketing is marketing- may be. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. 18 (3), Anthony R. Bennett. (1997). the five Vs - a buyer’s perspective of the marketing mix. 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