Sustainable Competitive Advantage For Market Leadership Amongst The Private Higher Education Institutes In Malaysia

One of Malaysia’s economic goals is to become an education hub for the region. To achieve this, the Malaysian government had liberalised government policies resulting in the proliferation of Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) including private Universities and University Colleges. As competition intensifies it becomes increasingly pertinent to ask “What sustainable competitive advantage should the Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) have to achieve market leadership in the Malaysian education industry?” For the smaller PHEIs, it is a question of survival itself. This paper aims to provide a theoretical study of some of the key strategic activities of the leading PHEIs to answer this question. The literature review covering both foreign and local sources indicates three key factors of sustainable competitive advantage, i.e. branding and image, the physical aspects of higher education including location and facilities, and the mode of delivery. The paper will seek to identify these factors amongst the market leaders to ascertain the validity of the secondary data via critical analysis of their activities. The theoretical framework employed for the analysis will be Michael Porter’s Three Generic Strategies and Five Competitive Forces. The PHEIs have largely evolved into business entities and this development makes the framework appropriate for the study