Case Study Description of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy
The president director of Dharmala Manulife, a large, successful Canadian-Indonesian joint venture life insurance company, faced a significant disruption to operations due to social unrest in Jakarta. Moreover, the Asian financial crisis had resulted in a massive devaluation of the rupiah in terms of the U.S. dollar. Thus, premiums on U.S. dollar-denominated policies had become prohibitively expensive almost overnight. Policy surrenders, redemptions, and lapses were occurring at an alarming rate. This erosion of the company's client base also meant that sales agents (who worked solely on commissions) were not only losing clients, but were also facing a tremendous challenge in writing new policies in light of the economic, political, and social chaos. Given the external situation, the president director and his senior management team were forced to develop effective strategic marketing decisions.
Swot Analysis of "Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy" written by John S. Hulland, Donna Everatt includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Dharmala Manulife facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Product development, Sales and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy casestudy better are - – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dharmala Manulife, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dharmala Manulife operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dharmala Manulife
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dharmala Manulife
Strengths Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dharmala Manulife in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dharmala Manulife has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dharmala Manulife are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dharmala Manulife is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dharmala Manulife has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Dharmala Manulife
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Dharmala Manulife does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Dharmala Manulife is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Dharmala Manulife has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Learning organization
- Dharmala Manulife is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Dharmala Manulife is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dharmala Manulife to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dharmala Manulife to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dharmala Manulife is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Analytics focus
– Dharmala Manulife is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by John S. Hulland, Donna Everatt can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Strong track record of project management
– Dharmala Manulife is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dharmala Manulife is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Dharmala Manulife is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Dharmala Manulife needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Dharmala Manulife to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dharmala Manulife has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dharmala Manulife has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy, is just above the industry average. Dharmala Manulife needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dharmala Manulife has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy, in the dynamic environment Dharmala Manulife has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dharmala Manulife has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Dharmala Manulife needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy, it seems that the employees of Dharmala Manulife don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dharmala Manulife has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Dharmala Manulife even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dharmala Manulife has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dharmala Manulife can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Dharmala Manulife can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dharmala Manulife can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dharmala Manulife can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Dharmala Manulife to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dharmala Manulife has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Dharmala Manulife to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study. Dharmala Manulife can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Dharmala Manulife has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dharmala Manulife can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dharmala Manulife can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dharmala Manulife has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dharmala Manulife to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dharmala Manulife to increase its market reach. Dharmala Manulife will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dharmala Manulife is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dharmala Manulife can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Dharmala Manulife can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Sales & Marketing segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dharmala Manulife in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy, Dharmala Manulife may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Dharmala Manulife.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dharmala Manulife high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Dharmala Manulife will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dharmala Manulife can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dharmala Manulife demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Dharmala Manulife can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Dharmala Manulife needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dharmala Manulife has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dharmala Manulife needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Dharmala Manulife business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Dharmala Manulife needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.