INSEAD wins in the 2022 EFMD Case Writing Competition

INSEAD, the business school for the world, today announced that Professors Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, the #1 global bestselling authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, have received a new award in the 2022 EFMD Case Writing Competition.

Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Professors of Strategy at INSEAD and Co-Directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute, have won the best case award in the category “Bringing Technology to Market”, alongside with Oh Young Koo, Institute Executive Fellow at the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute, for their case “Innovate Storytelling: How WEBTOON Entertainment Transformed Comics”.

Organised since 1988, the Competition recognises innovative and impactful case writing and teaching in 13 categories representing critical management areas. The “Bringing Technology to Market” category award is presented to the best case featuring current and future challenges of companies in global markets and their strategies to remain competitive. 

Chan Kim, Renée Mauborgne and Oh Young Koo’s case explores the key milestones of WEBTOON Entertainment and how the company transformed the comic book industry to become the world’s largest storytelling platform. WEBTOON Entertainment connects creators and users of digital comic content in a vertical layout format, optimised for PC and mobile browsing. It is not only a hub for digital comics for 82 million monthly active users and 800,000 creators, but also a rich pool of original stories that are being adapted into other media like films, TV shows, and novels.

More specifically, this case describes how the company unlocked new creative talents and built an ecosystem for webtoon business based on a platform economy, monetised the once-free content into a multi-billion-dollar business, and rolled it out globally despite cultural and language barriers. Finally, it depicts the challenges ahead that WEBTOON Entertainment faces in the lucrative yet competitive digital comics industry. 

The authors comment: “We are honoured to receive this recognition. Our case shows how to innovate a platform-based new market. Not only does the case offer insights into how to build a new business model, but it also introduces a creative approach to case writing format by incorporating technology into the case. We hope it will serve as a resource for current and future business leaders in today’s fast-changing world.”

EFMD is recognised around the world as a high-quality accreditation body with 890 institutional members from academia, business, public service and consultancy across 88 countries. An international judging panel, who reviews more than 400 cases every year, selects the winning cases based on the evaluation criteria:

• Content: The ability to create a strong and interesting learning experience
• Form: A good balance between a well-told story and sufficient data 
• The teaching notes: Accompanying each submission to enhance the learner’s experience
• Innovation: Ideas should improve teaching and student engagement

The complete list of the 2022 EFMD Case Writing Competition’s winners can be found here.