The Organization’s Vision Statement
The organization wants to see itself "offering degree programs in two years time".
This objective looks quite achievable because they have already begun on measures to guide them to this point. This will help then greatly in terms of competitive advantage.
The Structure of the organization
The prominent structure that the organization has is a Simple Structure but does have a little of the Divisional and Matrix structure.
The Westlands Campus is the main branch and it has Top-Level management that consists of three family members and they poses an entrepreneurship quality. They make all the decisions for the organization. Many of their functions are carried out by themselves like the Finance and Human Resource. Though there is no actual department, there are business level activities whereby they have employed people for the R&D and Marketing functions. But the Marketing Personnel are mainly there to market one particular course and their attention is not only on the marketing of that course but also on the correspondence and set-up of the course as it is an outside course offered by another organization in Europe - BTEC. This hence gives an abstraction of the matrix structure though there are only two people involved in this project. They work together and report to the Top-Level management. Apart from this, the campus in Moi Avenue carries out only business and functional level activities. In this campus they offer mainly secretarial courses. This is what gives them the Divisional kind of structure. Though, at a glance it is a still is a simple structure.
There are a total of 10 people in the business level of which two are allocated to the BTEC course.
In the functional level the organization has 10 full-time and 20 part-time teachers teaching a total of 800 students. There are also 10 subordinate staff who control the in-house activities such as:-
- Workshop - Carpenter and Welder
- Restaurant and Recreation Centre
- Cyber Cafe
- Computer Technician and Messengers who carry out various activities.
The organization offers about 20 courses and is still looking for new courses. All the Subordinate staff and teachers report directly to the Top-Level Management. An advantage of this structure is that students can also interact directly with the Top-Level management. It creates a more personal relation between the organization and their students. Much thought has not been put into the structure because this is a family business and they do change the structure here and there when needed and if there is space for it.
Medium and Long Term Objectives
The organization's medium term objectives are to run the place 'effectively and efficiently' whereas the long-term objective is to 'reduce work and routine'. These issues are important because currently there is a lot of room for streamlining the activities in the organizations.
The Corporate, Business and Functional Strategies.
The organization engages in checking out the overall direction of the firm, which is the corporate level. It also engages in coming up with a plan to improve the services. In the corporate level the organization wants to increase the technology, improve the quality and reduce the costs of teaching.
In the business level the organization wants to increase the number of students in their new course (BTEC) and buy new high tech computer and equipment.
There is no strategy at the functional level as the teachers just follow and complete a fixed syllabus.
They also want to increase the number of courses to increase competitiveness and the number of highly qualified teachers and staff.
Long Term Planning
This organization does not take long term planning very important but it is relatively important. It is prepared every year for internal and external control purposes.
The long term planning is carried out in relation to the student market. These plans are formal and are stated in the horizon of one to two years.
Long-term formal objectives are set. These are:-
- Student growth.
- Profitability.
- Systems efficiency.
- Efficient control.
- Reduced costs, routine and time.
Long-term strategies are also developed in terms of student market and these are formal. Some of these long-term strategies are quality and affordability.
In the last planning activity, the processes that were to be covered were
- Upgrading of teachers and systems.
- Stability in terms of circulation of employees.
The stages that were followed to achieve the above are
- Outsourcing of more staff.
- Increase the salaries of the existing staff.
- Pay the salaries in time.
The role of the Top-Level management is to make all the required decisions. This is because management has to confront strategic decisions, as they cannot be left to the junior officers.
All the three Top-Level management have the key responsibility for planning in the organization.
Studying the external environment
In order to study the external and industrial environment, the organization uses mechanisms like newspapers, advertisements, media and information acquired from their students.
The key factors for success are
- Giving satisfaction to students.
- Giving added value.
- Retaining staff.
- Learning from experience.
The organization does not carry out the SWOT analysis as such but does so in an informal manner.
Challenges the organization faces
The most serious challenge that the industry faces is competition and consumer acquisition so far.
The organization responded to these challenges by adapting new methods through new services.
Strategies companies have used to increase competitiveness.
The strategies that companies in this industry have used to increase the competitiveness are:
- Hiring better teachers.
- Better marketing.
- Better products.
- “By copying this organization”.
Issues faced by the organization in terms of MICRO and MACRO environment.
MACRO ENVIRONMENT
Political - Security is the main issue when it comes to politics and due to instability of the political arena; the organization has employed security measures such as alarm systems, parking, insurance etc. Also, there have been les students enrolling because of the political instability.
Economic - The taxes are very high and take about 35% of the income of the organization and this, just like for other companies in the industry, reduces the ability for growth.
Technological - As time changes, the demands of the students have changed and this has really reduced the demand for some of the courses available. An example would be the Secretarial services whereby everything is becoming computerized and the practices of secretaries especially in the 70's and 80's have been swept away also sweeping the course with it. Another major technological drawback is the need for continuous upgrades or replacement of computer due to their great depreciation. This increases costs of maintaining technological standards in the organization. Together with this comes in the costs of maintaining the networks and security of data.
Socio-Cultural - There haven’t been any issues faced by the organization in terms of social or cultural aspect. It has a good mix of all cultures mainly east African and some Chinese and Japanese.
Geographical - The only problem here is their location. People have to take an extra matatu to get to the Westlands campus in Westlands but it has been noticed that there are matatus who drop off students at the gate.
Competition - This has been the biggest issue the organization has been facing. All the organizations in this industry have started offering the courses they offer and this reduces competitive advantage in terms of differentiation.
Consumers - The Organization has been getting the desired market and this is of middle and lower class students who can get good quality education at affordable prices. Though recently the Top-Level management has been debating over whether or not to increase prices so that permanent students can remain but this is an important decision to make because it could mean loss of number of students.
Suppliers - The Organization has very little consumerables such as stationery and text. But even when ordering these items it makes sure that it pays in time so that a good reputation is kept. Also, even though it may be slightly more expensive, the organization buys books from places like TBC and Book point so that the hassle of having someone in charge of the purchasing is not there. Keeping someone would just increase costs. It even gets goods on credit.
MICRO ENVIRONMENT
When it comes to issues to do with the resources, it was noticed that the time resource was not utilized fully because of poor delegation skill. This is because there have been a lot of changes in the administration and hence time is wasted in training new staff.
Problems Faced By the Organization
The first major problem the organization ever came across was about sensitive data concerning the students’ information of the past and present. Twice the Electronic system of the organization failed resulting in the organization loosing information, both financial and statistical data from 1997 and again in 1999 backwards. Though they had all the information on manual registers, the analysis and report was not very easy to deal with hence the decision making and problem solving of the organization became much slower giving them a disadvantage in terms of growth. In other words, all the advantages of technology were not experienced.
In the year 2000 the organization finally installed reliable Management information system software and all the historical data was restored and now they are beginning to make reports to for the business level and hence the current picture of the organization is much clearer then before.
Unlike before when the student needs were predictable, these days there needs to be a good relation between students and the organization so that they can find out what today’s students need. The Administrator said that students may want a course but unless there is a good turn up for that course, there is no point of having it. Also, the needs of the student dynamic and hence it's not predictable. This is especially in the case when dealing directly with people. Unlike wheat where you can predict the harvest and plan accordingly, the student needs keep changing and there are many factors that affect the enrollment of a student.
The organization tries the differentiation strategy but it was not very successful due to immediate imitation of the course offerings. This happened in the case of BTEC. Now two other educational services have started offering this course. Hence the organization is focusing on marketing to get the greater share of the market.
Other problems faced in the organization at the business and functional levels are that there was no clear definition of authority. The organization is run by three family members, each having their own specific needs in terms of how and what must be done within the organization. This is known to create problems. This also affects the flow of communication in the organization. The Top-Level management have therefore engaged in several meeting to agree on certain routines and processes in the organization.
Financial Report
No financial information was disclosed due to the sensitivity of the data.
Other Information
A disadvantage of having a business of this nature is that since there are too many courses, there hasn't been a focus on a particular course, hence even if there was a capability of expanding a course if has not been undertaken. The only time when a course got attention is when there was a problem concerning it.
More like the economies of scale where the more you produce the less the costs, the organization tries to get more than 20 students per class so that they can profit. 20 students is the break-even point. If a course has a low attendance, they just scrap it for that season.
The organization doesn’t really have a focus in the market but does target groups of people of the lower and middle class.
