Question

The College of IST wants to increase undergraduate applications of prospective freshmen by 25% within the next three years. It wants you to provide ideas for each of Porter’s four strategies.

Answer 1

The target is to achieve a 25% increase in college application within next 3 years. In order to do this we can think of solutions using the four generic strategies using Porter’s model. The strategies and the approaches are

Cost leadership: in order achieve cost leadership, the college should reduce their college fees for all their courses. Maybe even waive off the application fees as well.

Focus strategy (differentiation): this is a difficult one as focus strategies are usually made on narrow market. However, the college can launch a new course that is uncommon (or rare) and advertise them aggressively.

Differentiation strategy: differentiation strategy requires that the college offers something that is different. For example offering group of courses that are niche (such as mining or jewelry) can achieve this.

Focus strategy (cost): in this strategy the college should reduce the fees for a popular course. This may increase the application numbers by 25%.