Business Report: BM561 Analysis of LSST and FairField School Issues

This report, prepared for a Business Consulting assignment (BM561), analyzes the operational challenges of two educational institutions: London School of Science and Technology (LSST) and FairField School of Business. The report begins with an introduction, followed by an analysis of each institution, including client information, a summary of their problems, and areas of importance such as competitors, target customers, and market environments. For LSST, key issues identified include ineffective communication, the need to incorporate digital technologies, and the impact of COVID-19. For FairField School, the report highlights challenges related to competition, health and safety during the pandemic, and external factors affecting digital operations. The report concludes with a summary of findings and references. The report aims to demonstrate the student's understanding of the client project through secondary research, as required by the assignment brief.

Business Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
London School of Science and Technology....................................................................................3
Client Information and Summary of Their Problem....................................................................3
Analysing Areas of Importance...................................................................................................3
Three Major Issues.......................................................................................................................4
FairField School of Business...........................................................................................................5
Client Information and Summary of Their Problem....................................................................5
Analysing Areas of Importance...................................................................................................5
Three Major Issues.......................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Public and business organisations through their functions within their operational
industries can face various issues and challenges that can have a negative impact on their
performance, efficiency, productivity, profitability, customer base and market share. This report
analyses the issues and challenges that are faced by two educational institutions- London School
of Science and Technology and FairField School of Business.
MAIN BODY
London School of Science and Technology
Client Information and Summary of Their Problem
London School of Science and Technology (LSST) is an academic institution that
operates within the educational sectors of UK and specialises in providing students with
business, management and computing courses. It was founded in 2003 and currently operates
from through its four different campuses located at Wembley, Aston, Elephant & Castle and
Luton. The main issues that LSST faces through its operations relates to switching their physical
campus operations to incorporate increased use digital mediums and platforms due to the
changing industry trends and the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Analysing Areas of Importance
Competitors:
LSST operates within a highly competitive industry, as within the UK, there are present
various other educational institutes that also specialise in providing students with higher
education in business, computing, management etc. LSST also does not possess the competitive
advantage that many of its competitors such as the Imperial College London or the London
Business School possess in relation to high rankings within international and domestic
universities (Guo and et.al., 2017). These factors make it hard for LSST to outcompete their
competitors within the educational industries of UK and have a negatively impact on LSST's
performance, productivity, profitability and customer base within UK.
Target Customer:
As LSST specialises in providing aspiring students with higher education in business,
management and computing streams, their target customers are individuals whose career
aspirations are to enter into business, management and computing industries as undergraduates,

graduates or post graduates. The target market of LSST is further segmented into individuals
who possess the required scores in their past educational endeavours and are able to clear the
eligibility criteria that is implemented at LSST with the intention to ensure that most of their
students are on a similar academic level in relation to each other.
Market and External Environment:
LSST is amongst one of the 250 different universities that operate within the educational
sectors of UK, thus facing intense competition for its operations. With the UK being quite a
popular destination for international students pursing education due to higher quality of
education, LSST is a desired destination for many international students which can significantly
increase its overall profitability. Contrastingly with the UK government reducing the financial
relief it provides to UK universities can have a negative impact on its overall profitability (Shi,
Sun and Zhang, 2018). Brexit can also have a negative impact on LSST through implementing
stricter exit and entry barriers for potential international students of LSST. Coronavirus
(COVID-19) has also negatively impacted LSST reducing its customer base and productivity.
Three Major Issues
Based on the prior analyses, LSST suffers from three major issues and challenges. The
following three are the most significant issues for LSST as if unaddressed, these can have the
most damaging impact on the performance, efficiency, productivity and profitability of LSST in
the future and may even jeopardise their entire future operations.
 A major issue that plagues the operations of LSST relates to the possessing poor
knowledge about the needs and requirements of their target customers and of their
competitors. This issue is further exacerbated by the ineffective use of communicate tools
by LSST which further hinder their organisational wide communication operations,
which are of immense importance for LSST to operate successfully within UK for a
sustained period of time.
 Another major challenge that LSST faces relates to the changing social trends of UK and
the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Both these external trends are forcing LSST to facilitate
increased incorporation of digital technologies, mediums and platforms as part of their
operations (Jin, Ji and Gu, 2016). For LSST choosing of the appropriate digital tool in
order to make effective use of digital technology for their educational purposes is a major

challenge, as choosing wrong digital tool can have immensely negative consequences for
LSST.
 The current global pandemic relating to the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)
globally has also had an immensely negative impact on LSST's operations. Safeguarding
and protecting the LSST administration, teachers and students from Coronavirus
(COVID-19) during these troubling times from being infected within the campus
premises poses as a major challenge for the operations of LSST.
FairField School of Business
Client Information and Summary of Their Problem
FairField School of Business (FSB) is a community based college that is currently
located in Croydon, London. The school is a private and independent educational institution that
prides itself for servicing a diverse and multicultural group of students. The college specialises in
providing aspiring students with education in business, management and finance streams. Their
main operational issues relate to the high competition within UK in addition to the Coronavirus
(COVID-19).
Analysing Areas of Importance
Competitors:
FSB operates in a highly competitive educational industry as there exist around 250
different universities in the entire UK. The operations of all these educational institutions puts
immense pressure on the operations of FSB and significantly impacts its performance, efficiency,
productivity, customer base and profitability within UK. There are many competitors of FSB
both within the UK and in London as well, with London Business School, London School of
Science and Technology and a host of other universities of UK acting as a direct competitors to
the operations of FSB (Caber, Albayrak and İsmayıllı, 2017). FSB also does not possess a
sustained competitive advantage against these universities as many of its competitors are ranked
higher in competitive rankings when compared to the ranking of FSB, making it quite hard for
the educational institution to increase its customer base, market share, productivity and
profitability.
Target Customer:
As FSB specialises in providing aspiring students with an education in business,
management and finance streams, their target customers are individuals who wish to enter into

the global business, management or finance industries as aspiring bachelor's, graduates or post
graduates. Additionally, being a private university, the target customer of FSB are further
segmented to only include individuals belonging to the middle and upper economic classes of
UK population, as these possess disposable personal income that is required to pay for the
education of FSB.
Market and External Environment:
The educational markets in which FSB operates in are immensely competitive, owing to
the large number of educational institutions that operate in UK and the similarity between the
operations of FSB to their competitors. The external environment also plays huge impact on the
operations of FSB. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has also had an immensely negative impact on
the customer base, productivity and profitability of FSB within UK (Griffiths, Fenton and
Fletcher, 2019). Immigration laws getting strict as a result of Brexit can also have negative
impact on the profitability of FSB as lesser number of international students would be able to
study at FSB.
Three Major Issues
FSB faces three major challenges and issues to its sustained successful operations within
the UK. The following three problems are chosen from amongst all the challenges and issues
because if these remain unaddressed by the leadership and management of FSB, then the college
can surely expect their performance, efficiency, customer base, productivity and profitability to
significantly decrease, in addition to hampering the FSB's efforts to operate successfully within
the educational industries of UK near impossible in the future.
 A major challenge for the operations of FSB relates to the intensely high competition
they face from numerous other educational institutions that operate within the UK,
providing students with services that are remarkably similar to those offered by FSB. As
FSB does not possess any kind of sustainable competitive advantage, the intense
competition is a major issue for FSB.
 Another major challenge for FSB relates to safeguarding the health and safety of their
employees and students during the current pandemic relating to the outbreak of the
Coronavirus (COVID-19) (Fenton, Gallagher and Heinze, 2019). FSB finds it immensely
challenging to continue with their daily operations while also taking all the precautions
that are necessary to curb the spread of the Coronavirus.

 FSB also faces various external challenges in relation to political, economic, social and
technological factors that hamper FSB's ability to effectively provide education to their
students through digital means. These factors significantly hamper the digital operations
of FSB and pose as a major issue.
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the report, it can effectively be concluded that both London
School of Science and Technology as well as FairField School of Business face some major
issues and challenges which have a negative impact on their overall performance, efficiency,
productivity, profitability and customer share in UK. This report provides a description of the
two institutions and summarises the issues for both. Then the report analyses both the
institution's competitors, markets, external environmental factors, target customers. Finally based
on the analysis the report identifies the three major issues and challenges these two institutions
face.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Caber, M., Albayrak, T. and İsmayıllı, T., 2017, April. Analysis of congress destinations'
competitiveness using importance performance competitor analysis. In Journal of
Convention & Event Tourism (Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 100-117). Routledge.
Fenton, A., Gallagher, K. and Heinze, A., 2019. 9.1 Rethinking competitor analysis. Strategic
Digital Transformation: A Results-Driven Approach.
Griffiths, M., Fenton, A. and Fletcher, G., 2019. 4.1 Competitor analysis. Strategic Digital
Transformation: A Results-Driven Approach.
Guo, L. and et.al., 2017. Automated competitor analysis using big data analytics. Business
process management journal.
Jin, J., Ji, P. and Gu, R., 2016. Identifying comparative customer requirements from product
online reviews for competitor analysis. Engineering Applications of Artificial
Intelligence. 49. pp.61-73.
Shi, G., Sun, J. and Zhang, L., 2018. Product market competition and earnings management: A
firm‐level analysis. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 45(5-6), pp.604-624.
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