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, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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 -
Training and development
– Insead Insead's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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.
Analytics focus
– Insead Insead's 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 Joerg Niessing, Pierre Chandon 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
– 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Insead Insead's 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Insead Insead's 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Insead Insead's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands HBR case study mentions - Insead Insead's 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.
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.
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Insead Insead's 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands, it seems that the employees of Insead Insead's 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, 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.
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 Insead Insead's supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Insead Insead's vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Insead Insead's is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Insead Insead's needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Insead Insead's to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 -
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Insead Insead's 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.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Insead Insead's 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 Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Insead Insead's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Insead Insead's 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 Insead Insead's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Insead Insead's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Insead Insead's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Who's #1: INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, LBS? (B): Leveraging Research to Market Business School Brands case study. Insead Insead's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Insead Insead's 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.
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.
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. Insead Insead's 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. Insead Insead's 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.
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 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 .
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Insead Insead's 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.
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.
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.
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. Insead Insead's 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Insead Insead's is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Insead Insead's 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. Insead Insead's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
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.
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.
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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