Adrian Bernard Ryans

Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Strategy

Adrian B Ryans is Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Strategy. His areas of interest include marketing strategy and strategic market planning. He has particular expertise in business-to-business marketing and in strategic responses to low-cost competition. He has a BASc in engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada and MBA and PhD degrees from Stanford University, USA.

Before joining IMD, he was on the faculty of the Richard Ivey School of Business in Canada, where he served as Dean of the Ivey Business School. He was formerly Assistant Professor and Associate Professor of Marketing at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He was also a Visiting Professor of Marketing at INSEAD in 1985-86 and at IMD in 1996.

His research interests center around how best to meet the challenge posed by low-cost competition and strategic market planning. He has published numerous articles in books and journals, and was lead author on Winning Market Leadership in Technology-Intensive Businesses (John Wiley & Sons in 2000) and Beating Low Cost Competition: How Premium Brands Can Respond to Cut-Price Rivals (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).

Ryans has designed and taught on executive programs for organizations in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, including General Electric, Nestle, Bank of Montreal, Medtronic, Borealis, Saurer, Vestas, IBM, Boeing, National Semiconductor, BioWare, ASML, Holcim, Varian, Hoechst, Keithley Instruments, Amgen, Fluke, Noranda, LSI Logic, Hutchison Port Holdings, Caterpillar, Novartis, ASML, Borealis, Ericsson, Cisco, and Qualcomm.

His consulting interests center around business-to-business marketing and strategic market planning. He has served as a consultant to a number of leading companies around the world including General Electric, Bank of Montreal, Tektronix, Hewlett-Packard, National Semiconductor, LSI Logic, Trojan Technologies, and Fluke.

Ryans received a National Post Leader in Management Education Award in 1999 for his outstanding contribution in teaching, research, and administration in Canada. He also received a Faculty of Engineering Alumni Achievement Medal in 1997 from the University of Waterloo.

Academic publications
Article
When good enough is great: The high stakes of low-cost competition
Brand ManagementPricingCompetitiveness
Low-cost competitors are on the offensive in many industries, from airlines to B2B capital equipment markets, eating away at the market share traditionally enjoyed by premium companies. Dealing wit...
1 March 2010
Case Study
ING Direct USA - Rebel with a cause
Strategy
Arkadi Kuhlmann launched ING DIRECT USA in 2000. The direct bank was very successful and by 2006 it had grown to be the largest online banking business and the 3rd largest savings-and-loan institut...
29 June 2007
Case Study
Ryanair: Defying gravity
Strategy
Ryanair was the pioneer of low cost flying in Europe. As the result of a series of marketing innovations and stringent control of costs it enjoyed a decade of rapid and profitable growth. By 2004 i...
15 December 2005
Article
Entry strategy and long-term performance: Conceptualization and empirical examination
Marketing
A product entry strategy - the timing of entry, the magnitude of investment at entry, and the area of competitive emphasis at entry-affects long-term performance in the marketplace. The authors dev...
1 October 1995
Article
Entry strategies and market performance: Causal modeling of a business simulation
Marketing
A key decision faced by marketing managers is the development of entry strategies for new markets. In addition to selecting which product market to enter, the manager must make decisions about the ...
1 March 1990
Insight for Executives
Article
Get ready for the new normal
PricingBrand ManagementCompetitiveness
Credit crunch, "downturn", "recession", "unemployment" - open a newspaper today and these are the words that leap off the page. When cash is tight, people and companies are only too happy to turn t...
1 September 2011
Article
I marchi leader non prendano sottogamba la sfida delle aziende low-cost
CompetitivenessPricing
4 August 2011
Article
Only the paranoid survive: Responding to the growing challenge of Good Enough competition
Performance MeasurementPricingCompetitiveness
For much of 2009 and 2010 Ryanair, Europe’s leading low cost carrier, had a market capitalization that exceeded Lufthansa’s, despite Lufthansa’s revenues being more than seven times higher than Rya...
15 April 2011
Article
When companies underestimate low-cost rivals: Attackers are threatening premium players in market after market - and not only at the low end
CompetitivenessStrategy
When low-cost competitors appear, one of the toughest decisions facing executives in companies with premium products and brands is whether to respond. Should the company or business unit adjust its...
1 June 2010
Article
Pulling ahead of the competition
CompetitivenessEconomics
Credit crunch, downturn, recession, layoffs  open a newspaper today and these are the words that leap off the page. When cash is tight, people and companies are only too happy to turn to cheaper a...
4 April 2009
Article
Fortifique-se ou ataque
Strategy
1 June 2007
Article
Ryanair, ou comment être low-cost et hyper rentable
StrategyLeadership
La compagnie aérienne irlandaise affiche à la fois les tarifs les plus bas d'Europe et la meilleure rentabilité du secteur. Et sa forte croissance ne fait que renforcer son modèle économique.
1 June 2006
Article
Pourquoi les ventes de BlackBerry ont décollé
GrowthStrategy
1 November 2005
Article
All berry well
Technology ManagementMarketingLeadership
The BlackBerry is proving increasingly popular with chief executives, bankers and corporate lawyers - as well as field sales and engineering managers - all of whom are hooked on receiving and respo...
1 January 2005