Amul Dairy, the market leader in the Indian milk industry, held its market position by pioneering several progressive initiatives and responding to consumer trends with continuous product development. Camel milk, a relatively new health-oriented dairy product, was being hailed as "white gold" and touted as a superfood in Australia and in some Western countries. Amul Dairy had an opportunity in 2015 to take advantage of changing consumer preferences and move ahead in the growing dairy market by launching the sale of camel milk in India. Should Amul Dairy enter the promising camel milk market? Given that Indian consumers were unaware of camel milk as a market product, how should Amul Dairy promote this unique product? How should the company leverage its substantial brand presence to overcome the challenges faced in the launch and distribution of camel milk?
In September 2015, Susie reflected on the performance of her personal investment portfolio over the past seven years. Susie had invested in two exchange traded funds (ETFs): Lyxor ChinaH and Lyxor MSIndia. She was now considering Lyxor USDJIA as a third ETF to diversify her risk. This analysis would involve the concept of portfolio diversification and the application of the capital asset pricing model. In addition, Susie would need to calculate mean returns, standard deviations, covariances, correlations, betas, and required returns in order to fully assess the merits of her decision. Although Susie had been satisfied with her portfolio performance over the past seven years, the high growth in these two emerging markets had fizzled out lately. Should Susie diversify her portfolio or remain invested in China and India only?
In early January 2016, FinSAS Financial Research Inc. needed to recruit more programmers because of its rapid growth. However, the average annual salary for financial programmers had been increasing significantly. The financial research company decided that it needed advice from a “programming strategist” from the software engineering industry. The company contacted such a strategist to build a reusable module for use by all company programmers, to avoid coding the same functionality over and over. FinSAS provided access to some of its programs and asked the strategist to prepare a proposal for the project. Would the strategist’s proposal meet the needs of FinSAS and its programmers?
In 2014, an inquiry was filed against a member of the Indian Police Service who had engaged in his duties as a police officer with the utmost integrity. As the director general of police, the highest administrative position in the police service, he had acted with independence and honesty in pursuing several high-profile cases. Consequently, the state government retaliated by filing a First Information Report (FIR) against him in a matter that was more than 10 years old. Although there were some ambiguities pertaining to the technical details of the case, the director general was proud of his reputation and trusted the judicial system. Would the High Court agree with the director general that this inquiry was unwarranted and exonerate him by quashing the FIR filed against him?
In 2009, two young entrepreneurs created Convene, a New York based company with an innovative business model that catered to an underserved segment of the local meetings industry. They were in the unique position of having no real direct competitors and a tight grip on a niche market within a US$15 billion industry. However, to achieve their growth ambitions for the company, the duo had to deftly navigate the changing competitive landscape, identifying which players could become real competitors and which could be co-opted into becoming partners and clients. They also needed to adapt their business model to capture these opportunities. Over time, their expensive expansion standards and operating costs began to present a nagging concern: With only so much capital available each year, just how quickly could Convene really grow? Would the capital intensiveness of their current model stymie the rapid growth that they so desperately wanted (and needed) to achieve in order to establish a nationally recognized brand?
Because of the deepening Greek crisis, in October 2015, National Bank of Greece (NBG) was required to sell one of its most valuable assets, Finansbank, the eight largest Turkish bank. There were three potential buyers: Garanti Bank. Turkey's second largest private bank, which was owned by the Spanish bank BBVA; Qatar National Bank, with a strong footprint in in the Middle East; and a private equity consortium led by Finansbank's previous owner and founder, Husnu Ozyegin. Each of these potential buyers had different motivations for the purchase. NBG's motivations were to obtain the highest price and to close the deal as quickly as possible. The identity of the winning bidder would be critically important to the to the future of Finansbank and its employees. Who is likely to the bidding and will the winner be best for Finansbank's future?
Dan Burton, Health Catalyst CEO (HBS Baker Scholar), and Tom Burton, Health Catalyst Senior Vice President of Product Development and co-founder closed on a $41 million investment round. Their firm was one of the hottest companies in the health information technology field. They provided core data warehouse technology to enable analytics from electronic health record systems. Still, they faced significant competition in this space. Could they execute against their vision?
In 2014, an inquiry was filed against a member of the Indian Police Service who had engaged in his duties as a police officer with the utmost integrity. As the director general of police, the highest administrative position in the police service, he had acted with independence and honesty in pursuing several high-profile cases. Consequently, the state government retaliated by filing a First Information Report (FIR) against him in a matter that was more than 10 years old. Although there were some ambiguities pertaining to the technical details of the case, the director general was proud of his reputation and trusted the judicial system. Would the High Court agree with the director general that this inquiry was unwarranted and exonerate him by quashing the FIR filed against him?
In 2009, two young entrepreneurs created Convene, a New York-based company with an innovative business model that catered to an underserved segment of the local meetings industry. They were in the unique position of having no real direct competitors and a tight grip on a niche market within a US$15 billion industry. However, to achieve their growth ambitions for the company, the duo had to deftly navigate the changing competitive landscape, identifying which players could become real competitors and which could be co-opted into becoming partners and clients. They also needed to adapt their business model to capture these opportunities. Over time, their expensive expansion standards and operating costs began to present a nagging concern: With only so much capital available each year, just how quickly could Convene really grow? Would the capital intensiveness of their current model stymie the rapid growth that they so desperately wanted (and needed) to achieve in order to establish a nationally recognized brand?
APLO was a reputable supplier of LED lighting systems for diverse countries from Taiwan to the United Kingdom. In 2015, APLO signed a contract to supply and install 30,000 pieces of 60-watt ecological street lights in several towns within one of Indonesia's provinces. With over 250 million inhabitants, Indonesia was in dire need of modernizing its infrastructure as it expanded economically. Having already been contracted for street lighting in several parts of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, APLO was eager for more projects across Indonesia. Would APLO be able to make this its showcase project and win many more contracts throughout Indonesia's 34 provinces?
This case traces the development of a live entertainment company, Sofar Sounds, from a conversation among three friends about their frustrations with live music events, through early success and now to a point where the CEO, Rafe Offer, has to make important decisions about its future growth. Sofar Sounds' business model is to organize small sized music gigs with unknown artists, trying to recapture the 'old days' of the intimacy and atmosphere of small venue music shows. It progressed from being a "hobby" in 2009, with occasional gigs in London and New York, to a venture-capital backed venture in 2016 with two hundred gigs a month across more than twenty countries. The case describes the challenges of rapid growth in today's digital economy, and it opens up important issues for debate about 'platform' business models, growth trajectories, balancing social and financial goals, and building the capabilities needed for long-term growth.
The case focuses on Hand in Hand Eastern Africa (HiH EA), a member organization of Hand in Hand (HiH). HiH is a global group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) cofounded by Percy Barnevik, a renowned Swedish business executive and Dr. Kalpana Sankar, a nuclear physicist. HiH consists of network partners in India, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Afghanistan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Their model focuses on enterprise development and job creation. However, they also have a strong microfinance program aimed at serving those nascent entrepreneurs at the very bottom of the pyramid who have limited funding options in the mainstream market. Through HiH EA's Enterprise Incubation Fund (EIF), nascent entrepreneurs are able to access loans up to US$233. Various organizational stakeholders (entrepreneurs/ clients, HiH EA's field officers) have begun to call for an increase in the EIF loan cap. This presents a challenge for Ms. Pauline Ngari, HiH EA's chief executive officer. Ms. Ngari questions whether raising the EIF lending cap will benefit all stakeholders as well as the organization itself given its long term strategic plan, its model, and core mission of serving those at the very bottom of the pyramid. Ms. Ngari is facing internal pressure to keep the organization financially sound, but she also faces external pressure to meet the short term needs of HiH EA's clientele and conform to current microfinance industry lending standards while at the same time avoiding mission drift. HiH EA's Board of Trustees will be meeting soon to consider the EIF loan cap decision and have asked Ms. Ngari to provide them a balanced and informed recommendation regarding whether or not they should raise the EIF loan cap.
After five years of working at the Mountainview Country Club, Sandi Lane must decide which of several courses of action to take in response to financial improprieties committed by her supervisor and some co-workers. The Club's general partner has refused to act on Lane's concerns. Her supervisor's wife who also worked at the Club has just threatened Lane: "I'll see to it that you don't work here anymore!" As Controller of the Club, Lane was responsible for all aspects of the accounting functions -- but, with no staff. She handled payroll and tax preparation, human resources, budget and financial statement preparation, membership tracking, and cash flow forecasting. She spent much of her time at the Club trying to implement basic accounting procedures. Cash flows were precarious with one of the partners in the Club making expenditures of $20,000 and more without regard to budgets or cash availability. The food/beverage area had losses of $60,000 annually and inventory shrinkage in the Pro Shop was more than $100,000 each year.
In November 2004, as presidential hopeful John Kerry conceded the presidential race to George W. Bush, husband and wife team and Democratic supporters Tom Steyer (MBA '83) and Kat Taylor (JD/MBA '86) found themselves at an impasse in their political endeavors. The lost presidential bid was not only disappointing but left the couple seeking out new avenues to benefit from their time, passion, and energy. For Taylor, the idea of a beneficial bank was not new; in fact, the notion of starting a bank to help underserved communities had been suggested to her almost 20 years earlier when Taylor sought career advice from then-economic advisor to Governor Jerry Brown of California, Michael Kieschnick. At the time, the idea seemed implausible but now, with their newly unleashed resources, the idea of community banking as a leverage point in both communities and the overall financial system seemed almost compulsory. Specifically, they wanted to create a triple bottom-line bank that produced social justice and environmental well-being while also being economically sustainable not just in the community but across the financial system. Still, determining how best to structure the organization in order to ensure the fulfillment of its intended benefits presented a significant challenge to the couple. This case describes the founding vision and organizational structure for a triple bottom-line bank. It covers governance issues, regulatory considerations including Dodd-Frank, a discussion of the bank's business model including competitive strategy and the importance of human capital, and measures of impact.
In the fall of 2015, Beneficial State Bank was set to mark its third successive year of normalized profitability while continuing to fulfill its mission to promote social justice and environmental sustainability. At the same time, husband and wife creators of the bank, Tom Steyer (MBA '83) and Kat Taylor (JD/MBA '86), found themselves at a crossroads. As the sole providers of capital to the bank during formation and, as a result of the bank's unique organizational structure, the couple remained the only investors in the bank almost a decade since its founding. With assets of $420 million, the team envisioned scaling the business for both economic viability and impact to over ten times the current size in the coming years. In order to achieve this goal, however, the founders would have to consider the introduction of additional investors. This case describes the motivating factors for changing the bank's existing capital structure, and potential investment options to fulfill these goals. It includes a discussion of prospective investors, existing capitalization and growth prospects, and the role of mergers and acquisitions.
China's digital market is on the rise at an exceptional pace, and giant digital players, such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, have already surpassed some of the U.S. industry's most successful names in terms of market capitalisation. When competing in China's digital market, local Chinese digital players have an advantage over foreign newcomers as access to this market is restricted, and some international digital and social platforms are banned in China due to Internet censorship. However, while the hurdles created by censorship might have opened the gates for local companies to imitate Western innovations without international rivals - the internal competition within China is never easy. Chinese digital companies have to face tough local competition to win users and maintain a high retention rate. This requires them to constantly innovate and improve their products and services to stay ahead of the competition, which vigorously accelerates the development of China's digital markets. The question to ask is: Are Chinese digital companies merely imitating their Western counterparts, or are they also innovating?