BM561 Business Consulting: Report on LSST's Strategic Challenges

This business consulting report focuses on the London School of Science and Technology (LSST), a privately managed college with multiple campuses. The report identifies the client as the HR officer tasked with addressing the challenge of recruiting professionals with ACCA or CIMA qualifications. A competitor analysis highlights LSST's strengths (diverse courses, experienced faculty) and weaknesses (difficulty hiring qualified finance professionals, lack of a positive working environment). Opportunities include attracting talented professionals and fostering a positive work environment. Threats include high competition and technological advancements. The report also examines LSST's target customer market, segmentation strategies, and positioning. External environmental factors, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal aspects, are considered. The top three issues faced by LSST are: hiring qualified professionals, creating a positive working environment, and recruiting/retaining specialists. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of strategic recruitment and marketing for gaining a competitive advantage.

Business Consulting

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Clarify who is client and what is the problem they are facing...............................................3
Critically analysing and presenting the areas of importance to clients such as competitors,
target customer market and influencing factors from external environment.........................4
What are the top three issues which are faced by clients.......................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business consulting is a concept of providing professional advice to organisation that helps
in enhancing the growth and profitability of business. It is one of the types of professionalism in
which professional advisors give their advice and ideas to organizations so that they can
effectively and efficiently achieve their goals and objective. Business consultants are of various
types such as business strategy consultants, financial advisory, HR, operation, IT, risk and
compliance (Sheingate, 2016). The project highlight about the business consulting in which the
problem which is faced by client is determined including the areas of importance to clients such
as competitors, target customer market and influencing factors of external environment is
explained. It also covers about top three issues which are faced by client. For accomplishing the
project, the chosen organisation is London School of Science and Technology. It is a privately
managed college which provides opportunity to students to learn and gain knowledge in order to
boost their career. The educational institution has expanded their business and builds four
campuses in, Elephant and Castle, Aston and Luton and Wembley. The vision of institution is to
support students of all abilities, backgrounds and aspiration so that they can fulfil their potential
through achievement, learning and progression. The institution is focusing on increasing its
product portfolio and also introducing next academic year professional specialist qualification
related to accounting and finance management sector.
TASK
Clarify who is client and what is the problem they are facing
The client is London School of Science and Technology but for overcoming these issues
they have hired HR Officer. For the particular project, the client is HR officer who will deal in
this particular project on behalf of company. The issue which is faced by client is to identify the
professionals who have a qualification of ACCA or CIMA. It is difficult for HR officer to
identify the candidate who has knowledge and certificates of these fields. They have to attract the
talented professionals into higher education with right skills and knowledge. HR officer also
ensure that they must provide working environment better than their competitors in order to
attract more and more candidate with ACCA and CIMA certificates.

Critically analysing and presenting the areas of importance to clients such as competitors, target
customer market and influencing factors from external environment
Competitor analysis
Strength:
The strength of institution is that it is one of the recognizable higher education
institutions which provide various types of courses to students so that they can diversify their
knowledge and learn something new. London School of Science and technology have highly and
expertise faculties who are specialized in different areas with higher degree or certificates.
Nowadays, colleges are fighting to survive in market for long run and attract more and more
students towards the campus (McKenzie, 2021). In order to remain competitive in market, LSST
is offering diversified courses that attracts student and also increases its profitability and sale.
The other strength of LSST is that they offer higher placement and also have attractive
infrastructure that provide various facilities to students.
Weakness:
The institution also has some weaknesses which creates a great impact on the
performance and productivity of business. LSST are facing issue related to hiring highly
qualified expertise who have knowledge of finance and accounting subject so that they can
handle and train the students in this field. The institution is focusing on hiring professionals with
ACCA and CIMA degrees. The other weakness which influences the growth of college is lack of
positive working environment (Biech, 2019).
Opportunities:
The opportunity which can be grabbed by LSST is that they can hire talented
professionals who have degree of ACCA and CIMA so that they can contribute in increasing the
brand image and reputation of institution. They must also focus on developing positive working
environment for professionals so that they can work efficiently and effectively (Gómez and et.
al., 2020) . It is important for institution to provide positive working environment so that
faculties can create learning environment for students and also achieve their goals while working
in campus.
Threat:
Threat can affect the productivity and growth of business, it is necessary for company to
focus on reducing the issues. LSST faces various threats in market such as high competition,

disagreed students, lack of investment in new technologies and many others. These are threats
which must be overcome by institution in order to run the business in smooth and effective
manner (Neighbour, 2018).
Target customer market
Segmentation:
Segmentation generally means dividing the group of people on the basis of common
needs and characteristics. It mainly includes factors such as demographics, geographic,
psychographic and behavioral.
Demographic- In demographic the group of people is divided on the basis of age, gender,
sexuality, ethnicity, education or occupation. LSST targets all age and gender of students.
Geographic- Geographic factors mainly include country, cities, region or neighborhood. LSST
mainly focus on UK and also look to expand their business in other country.
Psychographic: In this the group is segmented on the basis of values, lifestyle or personality.
They mainly focus on segmenting the students based on values and lifestyle. They focus on
enrolling student have enough knowledge of the course which they choose for further study
(Steiner-Khamsi, 2016).
Behavioral: In this behaviour of student is determined while enrolling in campus and studying
the course.
Targeting:
Targeting refers to dividing the large number of students into small groups and also
focusing on specific group of people rather than focusing on all. LSST mainly targets the student
of 18-27 age. They also focus on targeting the students who already do their part time jobs and
want to study privately without going to campus.
Positioning:
The position of LSST is strong as they have create an attractive brand image in market by
offering various courses and also targeting people who can do their job as well as also study. Due
to the strong positioning market, company can attract more and more students towards the
campus and increase its profitability (Knight and De Wit, 2018). In order to attract student,
institution focuses on promoting its product portfolio through advertising, magazines and
endorsing celebrities.
External environment

Political factors:
Political factor influence the performance and profitability of business as it have direct
intervention of government. There are certain rules and regulation which are framed by
government, it is necessary for institution to follow the rules in order to stay away from any
issues in country. LSST must focus on analyzing the political stability of the country in which
they are operating business as it can influence the profitability and growth of business.
Economic factors:
Economic factors mainly include inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, labor, tax rate and
many others. It is necessary for LSST to analyze the economy of country while operating
business. They must focus on the inflation rate of country as it can influence the decision of
student to enroll in campus (Woodside, 2018).
Social factors:
Social factor also create a great impact on the performance of business, it is essential for
LSST to provide positive cultural environment in workplace that encourage student of different
religion and culture.
Technological factor:
It mainly includes the factors which influence the performance of business such as
advanced technology, online courses and digital platforms (Germain, 2019). In order to remain
competitive, it is necessary for company to focus on implementing advanced technology and also
offer online course opportunity to students.
Environmental factors:
LSST is focusing on reducing the negative impact from environment by focusing on
eliminating use of plastic in campus.
Legal factors:
Legal factors mainly include the certain laws and legislation which must be followed by
LSST in order to remain away from any legal disputes and conflicts (Hernandez-Nanclares and
Jimenez-Munoz, 2017).
What are the top three issues which are faced by clients
 Issues related to hiring qualified professionals who have knowledge and skills to make
students learn about the accounting and finance subject matters. LSST is looking for
ACCA or CIMA degree professionals.

 The other problem which is faced by LSST is to create positive working environment for
employees so that they can worm dedicatedly and passionately. Positive working
environment helps in increasing the morale and efficiency of employees die to which
they give productive outcomes in achieving the goals and objective of business.
 Another issue which is faced by LSST is to recruit and retain professionals so that they
can deliver specialist courses. For retaining and attracting employees, it is necessary for
LSST to Pay attractive incentive and also fulfil their need and demand.
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is being concluded that business consultants are generally
involved in framing strategies and plan, implement the set plan and educate it to business. There
are various services which are provided by business consultants such as identifying issue,
initiating change, teaching and training employees, providing expertise in specific market,
supplement existing staff, provide objectivity and also revive an organisation. Organization can
gain competitive advantage in market by framing right recruitment and marketing strategies.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Biech, E., 2019. The new business of consulting: the basics and beyond. John Wiley & Sons.
Germain, M. L., 2019. Distance education. In Integrating Service-Learning and Consulting in
Distance Education. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Gómez, W. P. V and et. al., 2020. Business Consulting: ALS LS (Doctoral dissertation, Pontificia
Universidad Catolica del Peru-CENTRUM Catolica (Peru)).
Hernandez-Nanclares, N. and Jimenez-Munoz, A., 2017. English as a medium of instruction:
Evidence for language and content targets in bilingual education in
economics. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 20(7),
pp.883-896.
Knight, J. and De Wit, H., 2018. Internationalization of higher education: Past and
future. International Higher Education, (95), pp.2-4.
McKenzie, D., 2021. Small business training to improve management practices in developing
countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’. Oxford Review of
Economic Policy, 37(2), pp.276-301.
Neighbour, R., 2018. The inner consultation: how to develop an effective and intuitive consulting
style. CRC press.
Sheingate, A. D., 2016. Building a business of politics: The rise of political consulting and the
transformation of American democracy. Oxford University Press.
Steiner-Khamsi, G., 2016. Standards are good (for) business: standardised comparison and the
private sector in education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 14(2), pp.161-182.
Woodside, J. M., 2018. Real-world rigour: An integrative learning approach for industry and
higher education. Industry and Higher Education, 32(5), pp.285-289.