week 8

Make a list of competitors for Islington College

Islington College, Formerly known as Informatics College, is an autonomous private education institution in Nepal recognized for providing quality international education, academic excellence and outstanding graduates in the area of Business and IT. Having grown from strength to strength over 14 years, the college is the first and only college in Nepal to directly partner with recognized UK University named London Metropolitan University.

Islington College is only one institution in Nepal providing undergraduate’s degree in Business and IT in affiliation with London Metropolitan University. Programmes are Bachelors in: Business, Networking and IT Security and Multimedia Technologies, Computing, etc

Competitors of Islington College.

There is different strategy of the colleges in Nepal to attract Nepalese Students. Some becomes partners with international Degrees from USA and UK, Some offer free laptop with every student enrolment, some reduce total tuition cost to be competitive. Here are the lists of colleges who are the Main and Secondary competitors.

Main Competitors.

•           Kings College
•      NOVA College
•         International School of Management and Technology
•        The British College
•          Softwarica College.
•         Silver Mountain College.
•        Presidential College.
• .      Lord Buddha
• .      Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).
• .      Padmashree College.

Secondary Competitors

• .           Littles Angles school of management.
• .           Kantipur City College.
• .           Campion College.
• .           V. S Niketan College.
• .           White House College
• .          Don Bosco College.
• .           Apex College
• .           DAV College
• .         Global College of Management.
•             Everest College.
•             Nava Jyoti College.
•           Capital College and Research Centre.
•   .       Milestone International College.
•           Kathmandu University School of Management (KUSUM).
•           Nepal College of Information Technology (NCIT).

Develop a Porter’s 5 Forces Model for Islington College

 

Porters Five Forces Model of an Islington College.

Threat of New Entrants.

As we know that to open a college in affiliation with international university is not a easy deal. It requires high investment for licensing and needs to follow strict rules and regulation of the governments, needs dedicated research and understanding. Economies of Scale are a factor which Colleges needs to do before running international degree which takes long time. Due to this new firms find complex to survive. So threat to the college is relatively High.

Bargaining Power of suppliers

London Metropolitan University is the suppliers of Islington College. As everyone knows it is very difficult to switch to another international university for the colleges. This tends high bargaining power of suppliers automatically. Because of legal procedure, requires lots of research, licensing, etc there will be high switching cost. As we know few supplies tends to high bargaining power of suppliers and vice versa.

Bargaining Power of Buyers

There are many colleges offering same courses and degrees but student of one college find difficult to transfer their courses to another because courses are difficult to match. So there is low bargaining power from students. Switching cost of students tends to be high, so there are no threats to college from buyers. In addition, students have less chance to create threats to college entering as competitors. So, college will take advantage of low bargaining power.

Threat of Substitutes Products or services

Numerous Colleges offers online and distance learning degrees with lower cost which perhaps be the substitute products to Islington College.

Nepal is developing country, I believe concept of distance and online learning in Nepal are not known to citizens, people think online degree certificates or off campus study are not accredited and recognized well. Due to this there is a probability of threat from to the Islington College. So, a threat to substitute’s products and services is relatively high.

Competitive Rivalry

There is an extreme competitive rivalry among colleges because of more than 30 colleges at present provides international degree in Kathmandu, provides low fee structure than Islington. In precedent Islington used to have monopoly because of only college providing international degree. Nowadays Nepalese university also provides quality education at low cost along with highly qualified lecturers and newly integrated infrastructure and technology. So there are more threats to the college.

To which strategic group might Islington College belong?

Strategic Grouping of Colleges.

Can You Map the Group

Islington college is only one college who provides international degree, formerly known as informatics have newly integrated infrastructure, building architecture and Technology, so it cost is high as well.




References:

1. DeWit B, Meyer R. (1988). Strategy: Process,Content, Context. International Thomson:London.

2.Johnson G, Scholes K. (1989). Exploring CorporateStrategy. Prentice Hall: Hemel Hempstead.

3. Porter, M. E. (1980) Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. 1 Edition. New York: The Free Press.

4. Porter, M. E. (1985) Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. 1 Edition. New York: The Free Press.

5. Porter, M.E. (1998)  Michael Porter on Competition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.