The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case
The case tells the story behind "My INSEAD Story" - a unique book for children based on the INSEAD MBA experience of their parents. Sian Bentson and Ankur Grover came up with the idea as part of their final assignment for the "SPSD: Creative Thinking" course. It subsequently became the basis of a commercial product and, ultimately, a company, StoryPie (storypie.co) - which creates storybooks from the personal experiences of parents. Ankur Grover shares the behind-the-scenes journey, describing the rollercoaster ride from concept development to product launch. The case explains how innovation projects (even for simple products) are carried out - from gathering user insights to ideation, prototyping, and testing - and the sources of uncertainty that a project leader has to manage during the innovation journey. There are two versions of the case. Part 1 describes the product conceptualization as part of a 10-day course assignment. The complete version covers the journey over the two months that followed the course to develop it into a commercial product.
Swot Analysis of "The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case" written by Manuel Sosa, Ankur Grover includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Insead Grover facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Innovation and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case casestudy better are - – increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Insead Grover, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Insead Grover 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Insead Grover
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Insead Grover
Strengths The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Insead Grover in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Insead Grover is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Insead Grover in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Insead Grover
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Insead Grover does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Insead Grover has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Insead Grover to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Insead Grover is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Insead Grover in the sector have low bargaining power. The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Insead Grover to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Insead Grover has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Insead Grover 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Insead Grover is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Insead Grover has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Insead Grover 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Insead Grover 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Insead Grover 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 Manuel Sosa, Ankur Grover 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.
Weaknesses The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case are -
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case, it seems that the employees of Insead Grover 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Insead Grover has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Insead Grover 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 - The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case, is just above the industry average. Insead Grover 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Insead Grover products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Insead Grover needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case, in the dynamic environment Insead Grover has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Insead Grover has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 Grover has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Insead Grover is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Insead Grover 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Insead Grover 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Insead Grover 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 Grover 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.
Opportunities The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case | 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Insead Grover 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.
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 Grover in the consumer business. Now Insead Grover can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Insead Grover 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Insead Grover can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Insead Grover has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Insead Grover to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case case study. Insead Grover can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Insead Grover can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Insead Grover 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
– Insead Grover 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Insead Grover to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Insead Grover to increase its market reach. Insead Grover 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Insead Grover 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Insead Grover to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Insead Grover 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 Grover 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Threats The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case are -
Increasing wage structure of Insead Grover
– 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 Grover.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Insead Grover has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Insead Grover needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Insead Grover 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Insead Grover can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case, Insead Grover may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Environmental challenges
– Insead Grover 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 Grover can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
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 Grover in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Insead Grover 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.
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 Grover needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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, Insead Grover 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case .
Regulatory challenges
– Insead Grover 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 Grover in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 The Story Behind 'My INSEAD Story' - Full Case 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 Grover needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.