Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands
Supplement to case IN1415. In 2017, the Financial Times ranked INSEAD's MBA programme #1 in the world for the second year in a row. The Dean of INSEAD, Ilian Mihov, commissioned a large-scale study to understand the shool's brand equity compared to its peers. The goal is to optimize INSEAD's positioning, value proposition and communication, to attract the best MBA students. Case A asks students to develop a survey that will measure the strengths and weaknesses of the INSEAD brand compared to its key competitors. They must select the performance measures, relevant competitors and the relevant sample. Case B provides results from a survey of 4,000 GMAT-takers who rated 18 business schools. Students analyze the data to measure the strength of the INSEAD brand and its image compared with its competitors. To optimize the school's positioning, students must identify the most important attributes used when choosing an MBA programme. Please visit the dedicated case website "https://cases.insead.edu/who-is-number-one" to access supplementary material.
Swot Analysis of "Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands" written by Joerg Niessing, Pierre Chandon includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Insead Insead's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Branding, International business, Market research, Performance measurement and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Insead Insead's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Insead Insead's
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 Insead Insead's
Strengths Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Insead Insead's in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Insead Insead's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Insead Insead's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Insead Insead's is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Insead Insead's is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Insead Insead's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Insead Insead's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Insead Insead's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Insead Insead's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Insead Insead's is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Insead Insead's in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Sales & Marketing segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Insead Insead's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Insead Insead's has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Insead Insead's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Insead Insead's in the sector have low bargaining power. Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Insead Insead's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Insead Insead's 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 - Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Joerg Niessing, Pierre Chandon suggests that, Insead Insead's 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Insead Insead's is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands, is just above the industry average. Insead Insead's 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Insead Insead's 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. Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Insead Insead's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Insead Insead's 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Insead Insead's 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Insead Insead's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Insead Insead's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Insead Insead's 's lucrative customers.
Opportunities Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands | 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Insead Insead's 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.
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. Insead Insead's can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Insead Insead's can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Insead Insead's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Insead Insead's 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Insead Insead's 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.
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. Insead Insead's 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 Insead Insead's in the consumer business. Now Insead Insead's can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Insead Insead's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Insead Insead's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Insead Insead's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Insead Insead's 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Insead Insead's to increase its market reach. Insead Insead's 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Insead Insead's 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.
Threats Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Insead Insead's 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.
Increasing wage structure of Insead Insead's
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Insead Insead's.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands .
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. Insead Insead's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Insead Insead's.
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 Insead Insead's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Insead Insead's 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands, Insead Insead's 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 .
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. Insead Insead's needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Insead Insead's 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Insead Insead's with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Insead Insead's in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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 Insead Insead's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
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