Blog #2 - The Quiet Threat of Substitute Competition

Working in the alumni relations field, it is often said one of the perks of working with alumni, is that you’re not competing with rival institutions for their engagement. They have already graduated from our institution and now likely have a lifelong affiliation with our school.  As a result, we can instead work with our “competitors” in the higher education industry. For top-30 business schools, we even have a collaborative organization, the Association of Business School Alumni Professionals (ABSAP), which meets yearly in person and throughout the year virtually, to share best practices for alumni engagement.  

While I was reflecting on some of our benchmarking and discussions within this professional group, the film vs. digital camera example from the “Competitor Analysis” article stuck out to me as a surprising analogy (HBSP 2006).  We as a group spend an understandably large amount of our time discussion engagement strategies within the alumni relations realm, knowing that we don’t have competitors, in each other, within this sphere.  However, reflecting on the article’s descriptions of a competitor, as “any company that aims to satisfy the same customer needs that you do. This means that you must consider companies that offer substitutes for your products or services.” (HBSP 2006).  Until reading this article, I never considered the substitutes of the products and services we offer, but now recognize that any organization that offers our alumni a sense of community and belonging, networking and continuing education opportunities, and a chance to be recognized for the work they do is indeed our competitor for their time, their talents, and their philanthropic interests.

In the era of COVID-19, our very “people person” industry is working hard to quickly adapt to a virtual-only environment.  Personally, in our office, we’re finding that the greatest threat to the success of our virtual events is the sheer volume of very similar offerings our alumni are receiving from every corner of their lives; other schools, their workplace, community groups, religious organizations, and more.  As Porter noted in his article on the “Five Competitive Forces”, “Strategists should be particularly alert to changes in other industries that may make them attractive substitutes when there were not before.” (Porter 2008).  Six months ago, we would have considered it highly improbable that someone would forgo our in-person social or educational event in lieu of an equivalently produced online lecture or panel.  Now those organizations who have been refining their online products and offerings for years have the competitive edge as attractive substitutes over those of us who are just now learning how to create captivating online content in rapid succession.

Alumni Industry dynamics have shifted greatly in the past three months and those primed for success are the ones willing to admit that their strategic plan needs an equally dramatic shift in order to remain in competition for the time and interests of the alumni we serve

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Association of Business School Alumni Professionals - https://absap.org/

“Competitor Analysis: Understand Your Opponents”. Marketers Toolkit: the 10 Strategies You Need to Succeed. Harvard Business School Press, 2006.  

Porter, Michael E. “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review, January 2008