What steps must be taken to successfully developing and executing carbon emissions reduction in a global business school? What can other organizations learn from INSEAD's experience, which brought together academic and industry practice? The case study take a 'process view' that emphasizes the rigorous approach to planning carbon emissions reduction, and explains the challenges and enablers, particularly the need to balance different stakeholder views.
In May 2022, an interactive brand activation for Insomnia Cookies (Cookies), called CookieLab, celebrated its one-year anniversary. Insomnia enjoyed strong brand-name recognition for its late-night snack of freshly baked cookies and offered a strong unique selling point (USP), especially among college students. But there were still many questions about the company’s next steps, including whether a growth strategy through CookieLab was the most suitable strategy for Insomnia.<br><br>Specifically, should Insomnia expand CookieLab to other locations, locally, in the north east region of the United States, or across the United States? If yes, what marketing strategy and tactics should Insomnia use to grow that expansion?
Hemant Gaur, managing director of Siddhi Vinayak Agri Processing Pvt. Ltd. (SVA), had to approve the marketing mix for Carisma, a global retail potato brand. Known for its great taste and low glycemic index rating, the Carisma product was available to SVA through its joint venture partner. If the launch of Carisma was successful, SVA could significantly increase its revenue and profitability, as well as its market value. However, the launch would consume precious resources that could otherwise be used to grow current revenue sources and SVA capabilities. Thus if the launch was unsuccessful, SVA would have wasted its resources and lost the confidence of its investors. The decision was critical for SVA, and Gaur had to make it soon to allow the full financial year’s revenue to be included in the SVA valuation.
Going through a dynamic market change with increased user growth and competition, the digital fitness scale-up Freeletics GmbH (Freeletics) found itself at a crossroads in September 2020. Equipped with fresh funding of US$25 million, the chief executive officer and the business development lead discussed the path forward for the company. Its current successful offering, a digital fitness coaching app, promised continuous growth. However, changing market conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, new user behaviours, and emerging technologies offered new opportunities—and new competition. Consequently, Freeletics had to diversify its business model with new offerings to strategically renew its competitive advantages while keeping the existing successful business growing. The chief executive officer and business development lead had to find an organizational approach that would allow them to start a new entrepreneurial journey without neglecting what they had already built.
Longevity Wines was a family-owned urban winery and certified minority-owned business based in the Livermore Valley wine region of Northern California. Founders Phil and Debra Long opened Longevity Wines in 2008 when their winemaking hobby outgrew their garage. By that time, they had spent years visiting tasting rooms and had identified a need to increase inclusivity in the wine community. The wine industry had a history of exclusion in terms of race, gender, and class; how could Phil Long make the wine community more inclusive and his wine brand more accessible to BIPOC consumers?
Managers at the Chinese state-owned hydropower development company Jiuzhaigou Hydropower Development Co. (JHDC), in Sichuan Province, were considering using photovoltaic (PV) power generation in the wake of carbon-emission regulations. After JHDC was founded in 2003, it built five hydropower stations, its original and traditional power-generation mode. When China proposed its double-carbon policy, JHDC's general manager realized it was time to explore new approaches to electricity generation, and the breeze and sunshine of the Jiuzhaigou Valley led him to consider wind and PV power. Following a lengthy discussion among its board of directors and shareholders, JHDC made a strategic decision to expand its capacity by embracing new methods of electricity generation. Now the key question was, What was the best strategy for JHDC, as a traditional utility company, to adopt this new technology?
In 2021, the Vancouver-based Universal Outreach Foundation (UOF) collaborated with the Rocky Mountain Soap Company (RMS), a Canadian natural beauty products company, to launch a soap-making venture for Liberia Pure, a business established by UOF and owned by and for Liberians. RMS then contributed a one-time donation to support the distribution of soap during Global Handwashing Day. This case highlights the different forms and levels of sustainability associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. Students consider how to make CSR a strategic advantage for the firm, rather than relying on regulatory incentives or emotion to ensure continued corporate support. It further looks at the sustainability of the impact on the recipients after the firm leaves.
Workforce controversies are increasing due to automation, layoffs, changes to work arrangements, and employees’ focus on their own values and priorities. Leaders can avert conflicts by identifying goals and interests and sharing them with employees, including them in decisions, and giving them strategic roles and responsibilities.
Banca Comunitaria Banesco (BCB) was the microfinance business unit of Banesco Banco Universal (BBU), the largest private bank in Venezuela. By 2016 BCB was one of the leading microcredit institutions in Venezuela, serving more than 85,000 people in more than 8,000 low-income neighborhoods throughout the country, with 10% market share. However, there were concerns about the sustainability of BCB's inclusive business model and distribution channel. Serving BOP customers (80% of the Venezuelan population) posed several challenges. Venezuela was facing an economic and social crisis, combined with a decreasing GDP and skyrocketing inflation rates, a scarcity of essential goods, the plunging purchasing power of its population, and raising security issues, all of which had an overall negative impact on BCB customers' businesses. In this context BCB had to streamline the use of BBU's banking operative platform, build synergies and apply stricter customer risk assessment to gain financial viability. The necessity to be more cost-efficient went hand in hand with the need to evaluate new service models, that combined technological and human factors, to broaden BCB's reach and customer satisfaction and its social impact. Some questions needed to be addressed: Should BCB try to preserve the current omnichannel in place? Should BCB risk reducing its presence in the barrios and adopt a cost-efficient alternative as mobile banking technology?
The Carzaty case starts at a pivotal point in the start-up's story. It is 2021 and co-founders Hassan Jaffar and Marwan Chaar are preparing to scale up their online used car business they started in Oman. With the backing of investors, they are confident that threefold growth will be realised within a year. At this juncture, an exit offer from a Mexican unicorn company is added to the mix. The friends are torn between their own expansion plans versus the opportunity to exit. The students are invited to put themselves in the founders' shoes to decide which path to take-should they accept the offer or stay on course and maximise the potential of their business themselves?
This case looks at the ELYSIS joint venture and the commercialization of its technology for eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the electrolysis process in aluminum production. Although Alcoa developed the ELYSIS process, its commercialization is the result of a partnership between aluminum producers Alcoa and Rio Tinto Aluminium (RTA). This partnership was made possible by Apple, which acted as an intermediary, and is supported by the governments of Quebec and Canada. The use of ELYSIS technology has the potential to significantly reduce GHG emissions from aluminum production and to help companies affected by new GHG emission regulations. The success of the technology, however, depends on its widespread adoption, which involves replacing a production method that is over 130 years old.
This article presents principles and practical guidelines for how managers can succeed in growing the intelligence of their organizations by harnessing the complementary strengths of humans and artificial intelligence (AI). Organizational intelligence is the ability of collectives of intelligent human and digital actors to solve problems and adapt. Six principles for human-AI collaboration in organizations are explored-addition, relevance, substitution, diversity, collaboration, and explanation-and how they play out in leading organizations is discussed. Finally, practical guidelines are outlined for how leaders can enable their organizations to successfully make the change.
Set in June 2023, the C case explores Plug Power's recovery from its financial restatements, how it benefited from government subsidies, and new strategic alliances.
Tropical rain forest covers about 80% of the West African nation of Gabon, part of the Congo Basin and the "lungs of the world." Gabon is one of the first nations to earn revenue from carbon sequestration...as long as the rain forest remains intact. There are economic pressures for logging (and also the shared global threat of illegal logging). The federal government, along with private investors, is striving to both preserve the rain forest and also to create more jobs and capture more export value from the forest products industry as the nation transitions away from extractive industries including oil. The venture needs to bring almost all of the supply chain from logging camps to bark processing to plywood manufacture to international wholesaling in this series of public private partnerships. What are the conditions precedent for this to be feasible? What are the capital, policy, and operational decisions and inputs needed to execute this strategy successfully? What risks need to be borne by whom to get the supply chain in place and attract other capital sources? This is more than just a special economic zone with some tax and energy benefits. Among other tools, Gabon has adopted sophisticated techniques to geo-tag lumber from stump to ship, and to track the chain of custody for certified forest products. What other decisions need to be made and resources committed? Can this model grow to scale and be replicated with other agricultural or renewable value chains, in other nations? When?
Afzal Imram, co-founder of State Property, a fine jewellery retailer rooted in Singapore, had achieved a lot. Numerous celebrities, including Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, Nicole Kidman, and Emilia Clarke, had worn State Property's products. A second brick-and-mortar store had been opened in Singapore, and the company was successful in overseas sales using Net-a-Porter. Despite these successes, State Property's website traffic remained relatively low. Afzal felt that sales would greatly benefit from an increase in the company's reach online. If consumers encountered his company's website earlier in their journey, they could be directed to an online sales platform or a physical store. How could he improve the company's organic ranking in search engine results?
This case illustrates how ATRenew used digital technology to create a transaction and service platform for second-hand 3C products. ATRenew was established to " Give a second life to all idle goods. It focused initially on consumer electronics recycling (evidenced by its launch of the Aihuishou C2B platform in 2011) before venturing into the B2B business in 2017 via PJT Marketplace (a platform that aims to connect second-hand buyers and sellers) and the B2C business in 2019 by merging with Paipai, JD.com's re-commerce arm. When combining the C2B, B2B, and B2C business into one integrated platform, the company developed standard quality inspection processes, a rating system for recycled products (including mobile phones and other 3C products), as well as a C2B and B2B pricing models that considered ratings, and built operations centers and a supply chain to best serve its entire business ecosystem. These efforts also empowered its partners to get the most out of second-hand items. However, as the company grew, leading one-stop re-commerce platforms, typically highly trafficked, broke into the second-hand 3C business to divide up the pie. In May 2022, the company's management revisited the trade-off between the advantages of competing within existing market space and the advantages of developing new business for the company to achieve lasting success.