The document provides a strategic plan for the Institute of Consulting (IC) to grow as an organization. It includes a PESTLE analysis, SWOT/TOWS analysis, and implementation plan with short and long-term actions. The plan aims to enhance IC's reputation, extend membership duration, address membership profile issues, and achieve service excellence. Key elements include refreshing the website, reviewing pricing and acquiring new resources, implementing an efficient organization structure, and developing industry specializations.

1. 1
PEST and SWOT/TOWS Analysis
MODULE: Delivering Service Excellence
Assignment task
Analyze the information in the case study and use it as the basis for designing a strategic
plan for the Institute of Consulting. Your plan should include robust strategies to enable IC
to grow as an organization, enhance its reputation, extend membership duration and
balance membership profile, as well as address its specific issues.
Your plan should include both long-term robust strategies and short-term actions that will
contribute towards the overall goals. You should identify actions that have been put in
place that will help IC on its path towards Service Excellence and a loyal member base.
You should also identify additional actions which would further embed excellence and
enable IC to continue to grow.
In preparing your plan, you should use a variety of sources, including the institute’s own
website, other institute websites, academic literature sources and course materials. You
are also expected to draw on concepts and models from other modules you have studied.

2. 2
1. Executive summary
This report have studied marketing position of the Institute of Consulting (IC) and
represents strategic plan for future growth of the firm in a consultancy market.
Strategic plan resenting actions which enables in a short and long term
perspectives enhance firm's presence in a local market and extend it by implementing
customer oriented strategy with elements of the marketing mix.
2.Company description
Institute of Consulting (IC) in a consultancy market more than 30 years and has its
current name since 2010 as a result of the development of the knowledge and orientation
to the growth in the economy. The new name offering benefits for his members in a
broader classification of consultant and adviser.
Currently, IC is a partner of Chartered Management Institute (CMI) which enables to
get extend communication and to be part of the more that 90 000 community.
3. Business Mission and Goals
Provide excellent services for the customers that meets their needs and value in a
field of the consultancy.
4. Analysis of the strategic position of the company
4.1 Industry (Europe market)
FEACO (2010) reported that European Management Consulting (MC) markets has
the average growth rate 2.9% in 2010, and Figure 1 change in the size of among some
countries.
Figure 1. Growth Rates – Breakdown by Country, 2010. Source: FEACO (2010)

3. 3
FEACO (2010) states that several countries delivered their estimations for 2011,
which can be seen on Figure 2.
According to this, Italy, France, Switzerland and Romani expects positive growth rate
change for 2011
Figure 2. Growth Rates Estimations – Breakdown by Country, 2011.
Source: FEACO (2010)
Core competence and Critical Success Factor (CSF)
One of the important elements of the service market is ratio of the Consultants to
Support Staff (Figure 3), which is show efficiency of the services provided to the customer.
Most advanced in a market is UK and that is significant advantage in a core competence
among other players and to be considered as Critical Success Factor (CSF) for Market
development Strategy.
Figure 3. Breakdown between Management Consultants and Support Staff, 2010. Source:
FEACO (2010)

4. 4
Market Development strategy
According FEACO (2010) report Germany keeps the first position overtaking the
United Kingdom since 2005 (Figure 4). Most interested for the future expansion are
Germany, France, and Switzerland where the turnover per employee rate exceeded €150
000 (in 2010)
Figure 4. Key Figures of Selected European MC Markets. Source: FEACO (2010)
4.2 Industry (United Kingdom market)
Report of the FEACO (2010) shows positive trends for the UK Management
Consulting market and where Business Consulting (74.1%) and IT Consulting (25.9%)
cover the whole market. Since 2009 number of consultants is decreased from 56 360 to
35 663 (Figure 5).

5. 5
Figure 5. Main Trends in Management Consulting in 2010/2011. Source: FEACO (2010)
Particularly for the IC it is a good sign to review the membership policy and attract
new members who was struggling with an unemployment. Moreover this is unique
opportunity for the IC to reinforce the presence in the market for the target customers by
implementing selection of the membership by differentiated pricing policy.
Also this has to be done in a short term until they did not find another opportunities
from the competitors or changed the specialization.
4.3 Industry (Competition)
According Vault (2012) Europe Top 10 Consulting firms presented in a Figure 6.
Figure 6. Europe Top 10 Consulting firms. Source: Vault (2012)
Detailed review of that TOP 10 firms shows, that one of the promising for the IC
strategies would be ECO-branding policy and advertising, because that is quite valuable

6. 6
part of every industrial project and this approach will help to IC develop core distinction
criteria among competitors to attract customers.
5. IC Company Analysis.
Company is present on a UK market (mostly members from London an South
East)., membership among 5523 consultants by gender is following: Male (72%) and
Female (28%).
Membership by Status has opportunities to grow due to general trends in the market
(associated with GDP grow trends). For the future is required to develop services to attract
more members among Students segment and develop policy for retention of the current. In
this context policy to be oriented on a segments with age in a range 40-60 years. (Figures
7-10)
Figure 7. Figure 8.
Figure 9. Figure 10.

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5.1. Current IC offering for the customers.
Analyses of the IC (2012) website shows following:
Strengths:
 Easy navigation and friendly website interface, which enables for the newcomers to
get access to the most of the services.
 Membership in recognized association.
 Database of the training documents, toolboxes and best practices.
 Database with a free access to the practice firms.
 Job opportunities services.
Weaknesses:
1. Link to the page with a Mission of IC is difficult to distinguish among other features.
That page did not prioritized by design or the color among other link buttons.
2. Code of Conduct is not in a top links on a webpage. This is one of the Values which
are interested by consumers in order to be confident6 in the quality of the
membership and service.
3. No any "Moto" or "Slogan" present on a IC website. This feature will enable to the
newcomers to get quick insight of the IC priorities.
4. Practice firms presented by alphabetical order and no any indication of the location
and industry specialization. Most of the consumers do not interested in names but
in a access to the appropriate service near of their living or work location.
5. Language selection is not present on site, which is obviously limits the customer's
base and strategy for Market development.
6. No any features for diversity by gender (links to the special pages developed on a
basis of the most interesting areas for the consumers: Males (Automotive, Hunting,
Fishing, Football events and Tickets booking in Games) and for the Females
(Beauty, Health, Fitness, Dresses, Perfume, Caring for the family and children)
7. No Photo of the IC Director and his personal message to the customers
8. Membership policy:
8.1. Membership of the IC for just £25 for qualified member is diminishing the Value
of the other members Affiliate (£85), Associate (£145), Member(£160), Fellow
(£210)
8.2. Practice fees are do not reflect current workforce availability in the market. For
example last two levels for 200-500 and 500+ obviously do not brings any profit,
because in a UK market currently around 40 000 consultants and most of them
are in a smaller firms.
(Figure 11). Practice Fees, Adapted from IC (2012)

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5.2. PEST and SWOT/TOWS Analysis.
External environment is a combination of the factors on the macro level that are beyond the
direct company's control. The degree of such influence could be identified via “SWOT” or “PEST”
analyses (Figures 11-13):
PESTLE- (P -political, legal, E -economic, S -social, cultural, T -technological, L-legal and E-
economical factors)
Macro environment
Variants of development
Comments
Pessimistic Realistic Optimistic
1. Political:
-political and government stability
-trade union power -
+
- - Not applicable
2. Economic:
- improvement of the economic situation
in the region;
- emergence of new competitors;
- increased activity of competitors;
- currency exchange rates;
- sales seasonality
- inflation rates increase
- unemployment (increase)
- GDP trends (increase)
+
+
-
+
-
+
+
+
-
+
In case of expansion to
the new markets
Not applicable
3. Social:
- people’s income growth;
- changes in laws which are affecting
social factors;
- demographic situation improvement in
the region;
- changing of the consumer preferences
- completion in corporate social
responsibility initiatives
+
+
+
+
+
4. Technology:
- emergence of scientific and
technological achievements;
- competitive technologies development;
- levels and focuses of government and
industrial R&D expenditure
- speed of technology transfer
- Product Life Cycles
+
+
+
+
+
+
5.Legal
- legislative changes and tightening of
state policy in the field of certification;
+
6.Ecological
- Eco-efficiency and Eco-branding
- beyond compliance leadership
+
+
Brings positive
value and
distinction among
competitors
Figure 11. PESTLE Analysis. Source: Adapted from Durham Business School (2011)
PESTLE findings shows, that the most of the important areas lays in the field of
Economic, Social and Technology areas for the "High Tech" Gronroos (2007, p.57)
services provided to B2B and B2C by IC.

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SWOT/TOWS - analysis has been prepared on the basis of the findings of
PESTLE-analysis .
Figure 12. SWOT/TOWS. Adapted from Russian Business Consulting.
Figure 13. SWOT/TOWS Field of the problems. Adapted from Russian Business
Consulting, <http://research.rbc.ru>

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6. Implementation plan
6.1. Strategies on consumer and market analysis
Customers segmentation to be performed on a most traditional criteria: Age,
Gender, Location, Membership status and Join date.
Customer acquisition strategy based on a featured web site which has definite
message to be customer, free trail membership, industry and location specialization,
design and features stimulate development diversity by gender
Customer retention strategy oriented to keep members by offering them unique
opportunity of the benefits to get gifts or special booklets with refined content matching
member's business specialization.
Opportunity to publish articles and best practices reports on a top pages of the IC
website. Opportunity to issue polling pages in a website on some specific areas of the
consultancy activity
Customer extension strategy developed by arranging sessions in the target
markets (in UK and abroad) to share experience and core competency (i.e. ratio
Consultant/Service staff)
Conduct surveys and statistics analysis of the webpage visited and documents
reviewed in a data base. This action will enable to assess Product Life Cycle (PLC) and
customer life cycle (CLC)
Market penetration strategy, would be possible to implement on a basis of the
customer analysis. This strategy is viable for the Short-term planning (1-2 years)
Market development strategy is most promising for the future business growth of
IC based on geocentric approach. Also in UK mature consultancy market, therefore in a
new markets is possible to use standardization offering of the services.
Critical success factors (CSFs) of the strategy implementation
1. Website is an efficient tool to support community and exchanger of the professional
information and only the gate to acquire and keep customers
2. Brand of the IC and Membership in CMI
3. Significant data base of the best practice
4. Monitoring of the webpage visits and implementation corrective actions in a Web site
design and Services
5. Forecasting in order to meet with technological changes in the industry and customers
needs

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6.2. Action plan
# Action
Short term
plan
Long-term
plan
1 2 3 4
1
Refresh/Update Website according findings of the
PESTLE and SWOT/TOWS analysis
+
2 Set up efficient organization structure (see below) +
3 Develop or Specify Industry Specialization +
4
Purchase new books and Article, R&D publications to
refresh Data base
+
5 Add additional features to the Website +
6 Review pricing strategy of the membership +
7 Diversity of the members by gender +
8 Eco-Branding +
6.3. Proposed organization structure for IC company
Set up lean and efficient organization structure (functional type) to reinforce empowerment
and feedback front side personnel. (duration- 1 month, action by Managing Director)
Managing Director
Marketing Manager
(1-position-full time)
PR Manager
(1 position-fulltime)
Statistics and
Analytics
(1 position- full
time)
WEB Designer
(1 position- part
time, 4 hours/day)
Editor and Spelling
corrector
(1 position -
fulltime)
IT specialist
( 4 positions -full
time, to cover 24
hours/day)
Finance and Accounting Specialists
(2 positions-full time)
General services Specialist
(2 positions -full time)

12. 12
7. References
Consulting Firms Rankings 2013: Vault Consulting 25 Europe (2012), Available at
http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/rankings/individual?rankingId1=261&rankingId2=-
1&rankings=1&regionId=1000&rankingYear=2013 (accessed 2 December 2012)
Durham Business School (2011), Strategic Marketing, 318M, Version 10.1,p.12, Durham.
European Federation of Management Consultancies Associations (2010), Available at
http://www.webserverone.net/projects/feaco/FCKeditor_project/Feaco%20Survey%202010
-2011.pdf (accessed 25 November 2012)
Grönroos, C. (2007), Service Management and Marketing, Wiley.
Institute of Consulting (2012), Available at http://www.iconsulting.org.uk (accessed 3
December 2012)
Russian Business Consulting(2012), Available at http://research.rbc.ru (accessed 10
November 2012)