Not to be biased, but we had one of the best (if not the best) ICP projects this year. We got to work on a very interesting industry: healthcare and digital insurance. As an added bonus, our coach was one of our favourite professors: Arturo Bris. And finally, we were working in high growth markets in North Africa and we got to travel there!
Our task
We were tasked with designing a customer centric market entry strategy into these markets. After a short while, we realised this was much more complex than we had imagined. It started with an industry analysis and understanding the key success factors in the industry. In order to understand the needs of customers we conducted ethnographic research through two channels:
- an online survey reaching 2’000 participants
- conducting interviews on the ground to understand attitudes towards health, personal finances and insurance
Understanding the culture
For most of us it was a culture shock to travel to these countries for the first time, but it was very exciting! We immersed ourselves in the culture by having lunch and dinner with locals, trying traditional meals, and having long conversations with taxi drivers while being stuck in never-ending traffic jams. In order to understand the ecosystems in these countries, and how the insurance and healthcare industries are developing and being disrupted, we met with industry experts and start-ups.
Our strategy
After gaining valuable customer insights we had to design products that will capture the identified opportunities but also serve unmet needs of customers. We performed market segmentation and sizing, plotted customer value curves against competitors and designed customer journeys. There were so many good and innovative ideas, but how should we prioritise products, markets and segments? Everything cannot be done at the same time, so our final step was to evaluate where initial efforts should be focused to enable a quick and impactful market entry.
Team learning
On a team level there were also a lot of learnings. One thing the MBA has taught us is that diversity within a team is extremely valuable. We were 6 different nationalities that bring 6 different perspectives, so many rich insights and debates. At this point in the MBA we are all aware of our strengths and development areas and could use this opportunity to further explore them, increase our self-awareness and experiment with ways to overcome or improve our weaknesses.
Last but not least, we made time for touristic attractions as well, but I will let the photos do the talking.
Carla on behalf of our team:
Himani, Caroline, Yasuhito, John, Carla
