Fairfield School of Business: Strategies for Addressing Key Challenges

This consulting report examines the challenges faced by Fairfield School of Business, a community-based learning provider in Croydon, focusing on its struggle to recruit talented employees amidst increasing competition and the introduction of new financial and accounting courses. The report employs Porter's Five Forces, STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning), and PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) analyses to understand the competitive landscape and external environmental factors impacting the institution. Key issues identified include the scarcity of skilled labor, the bargaining power of suppliers, economic downturns, and the increasing popularity of online courses. The report suggests strategies such as promoting a multicultural environment to attract international students and leveraging the institution's affordability to gain a competitive advantage. The analysis concludes that Fairfield Business School needs to address the rising labor scarcity and adapt to economic changes to maintain its competitive edge in the higher education industry. Desklib provides access to similar reports and solved assignments for students.

Business
Consulting
1

2

INTRODUCTION
The process of consulting involves providing expert advice to individuals or
business firms in exchange for payment on specific topics. This report looks at the issues faced
by Fairfield School of Business and provide information about the main issues of the client by
conducting competitors' analysis, external environment analysis and as stupid analysis.
MAIN BODY
Overview of the problem
Overview of Fairfield school of business: Fairfield School of Business is a community
based learning provider located in Croydon. the educational institution is a private institution
provides higher education services with the focus on maintaining wanted cultural learning
experience for every student. The organization provides vocational courses with focus on
entrepreneurship. The fees of students are paid through public purse the help of the student loan
company where students have to apply for their eligibility (What makes us Different, 2021). The
organization focuses on increasing employability of the students and providing ongoing support
along with flexibility and affordability to enhance their educational experience.
Business Problem of client
The respective educational institution focuses on introducing new courses related to
financial and accounting fields in the next decade with year and this is the problem of recruiting
talented employees in the workforce.
The client problem which is discussed in this report is the lack of suitable employees at
the Fairfield School of Business to provide students quality education.
Scarcity of highly skilled employees in the labor market who are able to provide quality
education two students along with introduction of new competitors in the UK higher education
industry has increased difficulty for Fairfield School of Business to recruit talented employees.
Competitor’s Analysis
Porter’s five Forces Analysis
The porters five forces analysis tool helps business firms understand the level of profitability
associated with industry and improve decision making related to level of competition in the
industry (De Haan, Donner and Swaan, 2018). The main forces included in this analytical tool
3

are threat potential entrants, substitute products, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power
of consumers I end rivalry among current competitors. This analytical tool looks at
five major forces which shape the competitive landscape of a specific industry.
Threat of new entrants
In this element of the tool, the focus is on potential entrants which are not currently
competing in the industry but have the potential to do so if given a choice. If new players are
able to easily enter the industry the competition for market share increases which lowers the
current costs (Ian, 2018). Barriers to entry such as economies of scale, brand loyalty, government
regulations and absolute cost advantage embrace the threat of new entrants. The threat of
new entrance in case of you can higher education sector is low. The main entry
barriers which keep this threat low our government regulations which are needed to open
hydration institution and high cost associated with developing and promoting
agitation institution.
Bargaining Power of suppliers
This element of Porter's five forces analysis looks at the ability of suppliers to impact on
the prices of the products. In case of the UK higher education industry the suppliers include the
faculty, who support supply of education services to students. The power of suppliers in case of
UK higher education industry is high. The primary reason is lack of skilled employees who can
supply high quality education to students in different fields. In this way employees in higher
education are able to affect price of services offered by demanding higher salary.
Bargaining Power of Consumers
Bargaining power of buyers focuses on the potential of buyers to bargain down the prices
charged by organizations in a specific industry to increase the firms cost in the industry or by
demanding better quality and service of products (Magalhaes and Roseira, 2020). High
bargaining powers means that Consumers are able to extract profits out of an industry by
lowering prices and increasing costs. In case of the higher education industry the bargaining
power of consumers is high. The reason for this is availability of different alternatives such as
online education and presence of public as well as private competitors.
Threat of substitute product
This competitive force looks at the ability of substitute products and alternatives to act as
a perfect replacement for specific product and negatively affect the market share. The threat of
4

substitute product in case of higher education in UK is low. This is because the only substitute
available for higher education is online education which is not perfect substitute for learning
experience gained in education institution.
Rivalry among competitors
The level of competition in the higher education industry in UK is high. This is because
many different private and public educational institution compete for securing leadership.
STP Analysis
This model includes 3 steps which are segmentation targeting and positioning. It supports
effective marketing as different techniques can be sued to interact with different segments wiith
similar traits (Rengifurwarin, Akib and Salam, 2018).
Segmentation
The primary consumer segment for Fairfield business code is of international students
working to enroll in vocational classes in the UK. This consumer segment is identified on the
basis of geographic segmentation as it divides consumers on the basis of their location. The
second consumer base for Fairfield Business School consists of students who want to seek online
education and enroll in distance learning courses. This is another example of geographic
segmentation as it awaits consumer on the basis of their location for seeking services of a
company.
Target Audience
This part of the STP model focuses on understanding which consumer segment is the
most profitable segment for the company (Yang, Kher and Lyons, 2018). The most profitable
consumer segment Fairfield Business School is international students. This is because priority
for this consumer segment is to gain education from a UK based institution. The company has
experience in providing multicultural environment for international students. This would attract
international students and the presence of highly skilled staff and vocational courses will also
influence them in choosing respective company over other educational institutions. Fairfield
business schools will be able to increase fidelity and competitive advantage so this consumer
segment.
5

Positioning
This is the final element of the model which revolves around determining and effective
positioning of the company which supports attracting the most suitable target audience (Zhao
and et. al., 2020). The positioning which needs to be adopted by Favorite Business School
involves promoting the educational institution as a hub of multicultural education. The firm
needs to promote inclusive environment in different languages and recruit diverse working staff
to enhance multicultural image of the company. This will help the company connect with the
target consumer base of international students and enhance profitability.
PEST Analysis
 Political Factors :The main political factor affecting higher education institutions in
UK is Brexit. This is because, implementation of Brexit has introduced new guidelines
related to recruitment of EU employees in UK based enterprises.
Positive Impact: Positive impact is that the labor scarcity of Labor in UK and Fairfield Business
School will be able to gain competitive advantage from existing talented staff.
Negative Impact: The negative impact of this external factor is that it will create difficulties in
recruitment of staff.
 Economical Factors: The decline in UK economy because of pandemic the main
political factor which affects profitability of higher education institutions.
Positive Impact: Fairfield Business School is known for affordability and this will provide the
company competitive advantage in declining as more consumers will prefer using educational
services from Fairfield Business School.
Negative Impact: Lower number of students will look in gaining masters education because of
declining economy.
 Social Factors: Main social factor which efforts hydration institution in UK is increasing
demand for vocational courses my students.
Positive Impact: The positive impact in case of Fairfield Business School is that the institution
is focusing on introducing locational policies and has flexible environment which will help the
company in competitive advantage.
Negative Impact: The main negative impact of this social factor for Fairfield Business School is
that vocational courses do not provide higher profitability to higher education institutions which
6

means that the company will not be able to in medieval foods in comparison to other public or
private institutions who offer mainstream educational courses.
 Technological Factors: The primary technological factor which affects Fairfield school
of business is increasing popularity of online courses.
Positive Impact: The positive impact of this technological factor is that the Fairfield school of
business offers flexible online learning which is beneficial for the company.
Negative Impact: The negative impact of this force is that it introduces cyber-security concerns.
Main Issues of the client
 Fairfield Business School faces the issue of decreasing availability of high skilled labor in
the current labor market to offer vocational courses related to financial accounting fields.
 The current labor scarcity uses that finding power of suppliers which is advantages for
Fairfield Business School. The company needs to take good action to handle this rising labor
scarcity and ensure employment of skilled faculty in every vocational course.
 In addition to this the company also faces the problem of economic downturn affecting
profitability of the company. It is important that the Fairfield Business School introduces
new vocational courses financial and accounting field so that the company can gain
comparative advantage in the educational industry.
7

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that consulting involves examining the competitive
and external environment to provide correct advice. This also supports identification of the
problem of the client. STP analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis and PEST analysis can be used
to completely understand the problem of the client.
8

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
De Haan, E., Donner, C. and Swaan, N., 2018. The consulting process as drama: learning from
King Lear. Routledge.
Ian, S., 2018. The Ultimate Route to Market: How Technology Professionals Can Work
Successfully with Global Systems Integrators, Outsourcers and Consulting Firms.
Routledge.
Magalhaes, G. and Roseira, C., 2020. Open government data and the private sector: An empirical
view on business models and value creation. Government Information Quarterly. 37(3).
p.101248.
Rengifurwarin, Z. A., Akib, H. and Salam, R., 2018. Snapshot of public service quality in the
center for integrated business service (CIBS), cooperative micro small and medium
enterprises (CMSME), Maluku Province, Indonesia. Journal of Entrepreneurship
Education. 21(3). pp.1-12.
Yang, S., Kher, R. and Lyons, T. S., 2018. Where do accelerators fit in the venture creation
pipeline? Different values brought by different types of accelerators. Entrepreneurship
Research Journal. 8(4).
Zhao and et. al., 2020, December. A method of abstracting short text for consulting clients.
In 2020 5th International Conference on Mechanical, Control and Computer
Engineering (ICMCCE) (pp. 896-899). IEEE.
Online
What makes us Different, 2021. [Online] Available through https://fsb.ac.uk/what-makes-us-
different
9