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 - – wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, 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 -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dharmala Manulife in the sector have low bargaining power. Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dharmala Manulife to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Dharmala Manulife is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Dharmala Manulife in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Dharmala Manulife, firm in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dharmala Manulife 's lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Dharmala Manulife has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Dharmala Manulife has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dharmala Manulife is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
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 -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Dharmala Manulife can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dharmala Manulife can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Sales & Marketing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dharmala Manulife can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dharmala Manulife in the consumer business. Now Dharmala Manulife can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dharmala Manulife to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Dharmala Manulife to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dharmala Manulife to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dharmala Manulife in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Dharmala Manulife with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dharmala Manulife is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Dharmala Manulife needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Sales & Marketing industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dharmala Manulife can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Dharmala Manulife: A Marketing Strategy .
Environmental challenges
– Dharmala Manulife needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Dharmala Manulife can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Dharmala Manulife in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
