Internationalization Plan - How can UniPlaces improve its customer acquisition strategy in the London market?

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

UniPlaces is a Portuguese start-up in the online reservation business covering the student housing market, which entered the London market in August 2013. After discussing with UniPlaces, it was possible to verify that their main issue in London is their customer acquisition strategy. Hence, the purpose of this Work Project will be to study and explore how UniPlaces can improve its customer’s acquisition strategy in the London market. An analysis of the market was performed in which it was analyzed what are the external factors that can influence customer acquisition such as the attractiveness of the student accommodation market. Moreover, an internal analysis of the firm was conducted in order to understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses as well as its capabilities. These analyses allowed the formulation of hypotheses that led to conclusions and recommendations that will help UniPlaces improve its customer acquisition strategy. With the aim to optimize the business model, strategies and tactics were defined about how to increase brand awareness, how to improve attractiveness of the website as well as the firm and how to improve performance both on the customer side (quality of service) and on the company side (efficacy and efficiency of internal resources). And afterwards an implementation plan was developed for the next three years.