Case Study Description of Visa Sponsorship Marketing
Visa was the world's leading payment brand and its vision was to be "The World's Best Way to Pay." Visa attributed an important part of its success to high-profile sponsorships such as its Olympic Games sponsorship. Visa also sponsored numerous events such as the Rugby World Cup, Best of Broadway, the Toronto Film Festival, NASCAR, the NFL, the Visa Triple Crown, and the Paralympics, and has an international alliance with The Walt Disney Co. In the fall of 2002, Visa announced its decision to extend its Olympic Games sponsorship through 2012. Thomas Shepard, Visa's executive vice president of international marketing, partnerships, and sponsorship, played a key role in convincing Visa's six regional boards and its international board to allow Visa to extend its Olympics and Paralympics sponsorship. In the summer of 2003, Shepard and his team gathered at Visa's international headquarters located in San Mateo, California, to reflect on the impact and lessons of its past sponsorship activities. Specifically, they discussed the current corporate strategy and refinement of the existing sponsorship strategy. They looked at greater involvement in the field of entertainment and, as an outgrowth of the strategy, selecting and working with new partners such as The Walt Disney Co. (2002); how to evaluate the effectiveness of Visa's existing sponsorships; and how to apply lessons from its existing and past sponsorships to current and future ones.
Swot Analysis of "Visa Sponsorship Marketing" written by George Foster, Victoria Chang includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Visa Sponsorship facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Visa Sponsorship Marketing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Visa Sponsorship Marketing casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing energy prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Visa Sponsorship Marketing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Visa Sponsorship Marketing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Visa Sponsorship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Visa Sponsorship 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Visa Sponsorship Marketing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Visa Sponsorship
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Visa Sponsorship
Strengths Visa Sponsorship Marketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Visa Sponsorship in Visa Sponsorship Marketing Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Visa Sponsorship has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Visa Sponsorship 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 Visa Sponsorship in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Visa Sponsorship in the sector have low bargaining power. Visa Sponsorship Marketing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Visa Sponsorship to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Visa Sponsorship has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Visa Sponsorship has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management
– Visa Sponsorship is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Visa Sponsorship is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Visa Sponsorship Marketing are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Visa Sponsorship 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 Visa Sponsorship is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Visa Sponsorship Marketing Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Visa Sponsorship has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Visa Sponsorship to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Visa Sponsorship is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Visa Sponsorship 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.
Training and development
– Visa Sponsorship has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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.
Weaknesses Visa Sponsorship Marketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Visa Sponsorship Marketing are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Visa Sponsorship is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Visa Sponsorship Marketing HBR case study mentions - Visa Sponsorship takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing, it seems that the employees of Visa Sponsorship 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, George Foster, Victoria Chang suggests that, Visa Sponsorship is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Visa Sponsorship is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Visa Sponsorship needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Visa Sponsorship to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Visa Sponsorship 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Visa Sponsorship supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Visa Sponsorship Marketing, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Visa Sponsorship vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Visa Sponsorship 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Visa Sponsorship is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Opportunities Visa Sponsorship Marketing | 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing are -
Buying journey improvements
– Visa Sponsorship can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Visa Sponsorship Marketing suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Visa Sponsorship can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Visa Sponsorship can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Visa Sponsorship has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Visa Sponsorship to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Visa Sponsorship Marketing case study. Visa Sponsorship can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Visa Sponsorship in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Visa Sponsorship can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution 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.
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. Visa Sponsorship can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Visa Sponsorship can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Visa Sponsorship 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Visa Sponsorship 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. Visa Sponsorship 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Visa Sponsorship 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Visa Sponsorship can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Visa Sponsorship operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Visa Sponsorship 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 Visa Sponsorship to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Visa Sponsorship Marketing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Visa Sponsorship in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Visa Sponsorship is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Visa Sponsorship 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.
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 Visa Sponsorship business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Visa Sponsorship with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Visa Sponsorship Marketing, Visa Sponsorship may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Visa Sponsorship 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.
Environmental challenges
– Visa Sponsorship 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. Visa Sponsorship can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Visa Sponsorship 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Visa Sponsorship 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.
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.
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. Visa Sponsorship needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Visa Sponsorship 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship Marketing 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 Visa Sponsorship needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.