E-commerce Strategy & SWOT Analysis for De Montfort University

This report provides an analysis of De Montfort University's e-commerce strategy for expanding its international student base through online education. It includes a SWOT analysis identifying the university's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, along with recommendations for improving its response to the evolving higher education landscape and generating new revenue streams. The report also outlines objectives for achieving a competitive advantage, such as raising B2B customer awareness and building strong brand relationships through integrated marketing efforts. Furthermore, it assesses the university's website and suggests improvements to its design, content quality, accessibility, and marketing strategies to effectively reach the target audience. The analysis considers competition from other universities offering online education and emphasizes the importance of focusing on targeted markets and leveraging alumni for brand awareness. Desklib offers a platform to access this and similar solved assignments for students.

Running Head: ECOMMERCE 1
ECOMMERCE
AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

ECOMMERCE 2
Strength
The campus offers a positive climate which addresses the employee high morale, cooperation
between the faculty and the senior leadership and the staff, which result in a feeling of safety and
wellbeing on campus. The university is well known for its academic programs quality and
services offered to the students. The university pride itself in the strong administrative support of
the student services and the academic programs which leads to its quality contribution. The
organization support international programs for students. This program has contributed to the
emerging interest of students studying abroad opportunities (Uis.edu, 2011). This program has
been made possible through the online education platform that has been of success. There is high
interaction level between the students and the faculty.
Weakness
Lack of the resources on financial matters. There is the necessity to update the services and
programs and rising the fixed cost which contributes to the lack of the available financial
resources. Poor response to the higher education ever-changing dynamics (Uis.edu, 2011). The
current assessment of the environment is essential to keep the university at the forefront of the
changing dynamics within the higher education.
Opportunities
The expansion of the global partnership provides an opportunity for fresh programs and
partnership. The replacement of the ancient residence halls with the modern facilities places a
focus on the freshmen who reside on campus and the freshmen campus experience. International
and off-campus study exchange programs provide an opportunity to attract more student’s
enrollment.
Threats
Competition from other university offering online education in the state who are recruiting
students from the same student pool. State funding reduction that is continuously reducing and
the need to generate new revenue streams form nontraditional sources which keep the attendance
cost affordable. Blue collar jobs focus to bring the perception that college education is becoming
of less significance when compared to the availability of the careers in the blue-collar field.

ECOMMERCE 3
Strength
Positive climate.
Academic programs quality.
Strong administrative support.
High interaction level between students and
teachers.
Weakness
Lack of resources on financial matters.
Poor response to the higher education
changing environment.
Opportunities
Global partnership expansion.
Replacement of ancient residence hall with
modern facilities.
International and off campus study program.
Threats
Competition from other university.
Funds from state reduction.
Blue collar jobs perception.
Recommendation
Based on the swot analysis conducted on the university, the organization can take the following
action to overcome its weakness and threats. The organization has to improve its response to the
ever-changing higher education environment. Secondly, the organization can come up with
activities that will help in revenue generation so that it can improve on its financial resources.
Lastly, the organization should focus on creating programs that will give students the skills to be
applied in a real world that will help the organization stay ahead of the competition.
Part 2
To attain the competitive advantage in the market, the following objectives are to be
attained .first, groundwork laying in the raising of B2B customers mindset with the need to
invest on the equipment that is modern in ensuring the success of online learning. Secondly,
increase the online context brand awareness, reaching out to customers globally through the use
of the digital channels. Lastly, build a strong relationship with the brand through the integration
of the other marketing efforts.
To attain this set of objectives, a marketing strategy should be put in place, the online marketing,
and offline marketing tools should be used to create brand awareness. There is stiff competition
from another university such university of Illinois urban champagne which offer online classes
globally at an affordable fee, the university offers financial aid to the students from the humbled
background. The organization has to changes its marketing strategy and narrow down its focus
on the targeted market on the programs it provides. The alumnae of the university who are
prominent can also be sued in the creation of the organization brand awareness.

ECOMMERCE 4
Part 3
De Monteforte university website plays a critical role in the digital marketing of the
organization. With the digital era, there is so much rapid evolvement, the organization website
possess a lot of information about the university profile, its product, and services. The university
website makes the company information widely accessible regardless of location and time.
Recommendation on the university websites is as follows. The university website should be
designed in an effective way such that the purpose is clearly defined. The website should be able
to convert traffic into prospects or clients, so when designing the website everything should be
guided towards achieving the goals, either through adherence yielding, product information calls
to action thus building the clients trust (Dmu.ac.uk, 2012). With the aim of conversion goal, the
function of the website can be attained in various ways such as service-oriented relationship
building, social networking, and portal to other websites.
Secondly, some success factors of the websites which comprise of the usability, accessibility and
content quality should be improved. In the marketing of the university, the quality of the content
is a key factor in visitor’s attraction to the university website and retaining them as well. The
information provided relevance and merit will aid in the ranking of the website on the search
engines. The website has to be improved to enable effective user accessibility and usability
(Galetto, 2011). The university website has to be redesigned with colors that are eye attractive.
Lastly, there should be enough marketing strategy in place so that it can in creating awareness of
the university products and services reach the target audience. Marketing can be achieved
through both online and offline marketing tools.

ECOMMERCE 5
References
Dmu.ac.uk. (2012). Frequently Asked Questions. [online] Available at:
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/dmu-students/international-student-support/heathrow-coach-pick-up-
service/frequently-asked-questions.aspx [Accessed 7 Apr. 2018].
Galetto, M. (2011). 101 Big Data Marketing Tips from the Experts – NGDATA. [online]
NGDATA. Available at: https://www.ngdata.com/101-big-data-marketing-tips/ [Accessed 7 Apr.
2018].
Uis.edu. (2011). Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis - UIS
Strategic Plan - UIS. [online] Available at:
https://www.uis.edu/strategicplan/plan/sectiontwo/strengths/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2018].
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