Competitors Beware!

My "Company"

This week's post is going to be talking about my "company" so to say. As you may already know, I work in the Office of Residence Life at Western New England University as a Residence Manager. Western New England University is a private educational institution that serves the likes of undergraduate, graduate, pharmacy, and law students. In this post, I'm going to be looking at Western New England's vision, its competition, and the served market definition. It's all about competitive analysis this week!

Vision

The purpose of a vision for a company is so that not only will it know who it is and what they stand for, but the consumers it is reaching out to know who the company is and what its goals are too! This will also allow you to see where you stand in the market.

So what is Western New England's vision? This is directly from Western New England's website. "Western New England University is a private, independent, coeducational institution founded in 1919. Located on an attractive 215-acre suburban campus in Springfield, Massachusetts, Western New England University serves 3,700 students, including 2,550 full-time undergraduate students. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs are offered through Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Pharmacy, and School of Law." (wne.edu)

Competition

Competition is pretty plain and simple; Who is it in your market that you are up against? Being in the educational institution "market" , Western New England competes to recruit and retain students who are willing and able to learn in a higher education institution. On a large scale, Western New England competes with all colleges across the nation, but in terms of direct competition, it is mainly the colleges and universities in the Western Mass/New England area that it competes with for students. This includes Springfield College and AIC which are just right down the street from campus, community colleges such as Holyoke Community College and STCC, and then theres other nearby institutions like Batpath College, Westfeld State, and the largest competitor, UMass Amherst. There are hundreds of others, and Western New England must ensure that it is creating itself with appropriate vision, goals, strategies, and marketing tools to draw in students from around the nation, and even the world (international students).

 

Served Market Definiton

Served market definition asks what you are as a company. What do you do? There are many different definitions among the many departments and colleges in the university, so there are variations of specificities when looking at more direct areas of the University, but I will give a general market definiton for Western New England University. All-in-all, Western New England Univesity is a private educational institution that serves to educate and develope a student both personally and academically in and outside of the classroom.

 

Compete!

Competitive analysis is essential for a company looking to grow among its market. Yes, it is important for a company to know its customer and how to reach out to them, but it's just as important to know the other competitors in your market trying to do just the same thing. There's always the threat of new competition so a company has to be aware of its surroundings, its market, and its consumers at all times. If a company is efficent and successful at this, it will certainly find itself in a good position in its market.