Flatpebble is an innovative start-up e-business that acts as an online marketplace where customers can connect with professional wedding photographers. Flatpebble has reached a stage wherein it already has a good revenue stream and a recognized brand name across India. It is poised for rapid expansion, and the management team must evaluate the various strategic alternatives available. The Flatpebble team must design a comprehensive, consistent and coherent business strategy that will allow the company to scale up quickly, beat its competitors and stay relevant in the dynamic and rapidly evolving e-business industry.
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) had always focused on new and innovative ways to connect with rural customers in India. However, like many players in the market, the company found it challenging to reach certain areas. Popular media channels like television and radio were limited in rural India, and power cuts further reduced the reach of electronic media. Yet mobile penetration was relatively high and growing. Inspired by the success of its mobile "missed call" marketing campaign for Wheel detergent, HUL was considering extending the campaign to all of its brands. Should it introduce a dedicated mobile marketing channel, whereby customers could receive both entertainment and advertising by making missed calls? Were customers likely to choose a mobile phone-based entertainment channel? Would it be a sustainable media for creating long-term brand awareness among target customers?
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) had always focused on new and innovative ways to connect with rural customers in India. However, like many players in the market, the company found it challenging to reach certain areas. Popular media channels like television and radio were limited in rural India, and power cuts further reduced the reach of electronic media. Yet mobile penetration was relatively high and growing. Inspired by the success of its mobile "missed call" marketing campaign for Wheel detergent, HUL was considering extending the campaign to all of its brands. Should it introduce a dedicated mobile marketing channel, whereby customers could receive both entertainment and advertising by making missed calls? Were customers likely to choose a mobile phone-based entertainment channel? Would it be a sustainable media for creating long-term brand awareness among target customers?
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) had always focused on new and innovative ways to connect with rural customers in India. However, like many players in the market, the company found it challenging to reach certain areas. Popular media channels like television and radio were limited in rural India, and power cuts further reduced the reach of electronic media. Yet mobile penetration was relatively high and growing. Inspired by the success of its mobile “missed call” marketing campaign for Wheel detergent, HUL was considering extending the campaign to all of its brands. Should it introduce a dedicated mobile marketing channel, whereby customers could receive both entertainment and advertising by making missed calls? Were customers likely to choose a mobile phone-based entertainment channel? Would it be a sustainable media for creating long-term brand awareness among target customers?
Flatpebble is an innovative start-up e-business that acts as an online marketplace where customers can connect with professional wedding photographers. Flatpebble has reached a stage wherein it already has a good revenue stream and a recognized brand name across India. It is poised for rapid expansion, and the management team must evaluate the various strategic alternatives available. The Flatpebble team must design a comprehensive, consistent and coherent business strategy that will allow the company to scale up quickly, beat its competitors and stay relevant in the dynamic and rapidly evolving e-business industry.
In April 2014, the accounts receivable exceeding 90 days were causing a cash-flow problem for Wolf Distributing, which distributes the Berserker Rage energy drink in the Chicagoland area. Christine Taylor, the company's chief operating officer, had tried a number of traditional methods to monitor and address this problem, but she had made little progress. She decided to use three basic statistical analysis tools-Pareto diagrams, scatter plots, and run charts-to help her better grasp the problem.
From 2010 through 2013, the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division conducted its first health impact assessment (HIA), a process in which a public health organization draws on an array of analytical techniques to gauge the likely health effects of a policy or proposal in another sector (in this instance, the HIA examined the potential effects of wind farms - which constituted a large and growing element of the state's alternative energy strategy - on residents' health). After situating the HIA in the context of the state's "health in all policies" approach (which calls for public health to deepen its connection to other sectors), the case captures the genesis of the HIA, the implementation process, and the response following its publication. The case focuses on how the public health division's relatively small staff managed the HIA's surprisingly large workload and how the public health team worked to incorporate the perspectives of a diverse-and sometimes opposed-set of stakeholders, most notably grassroots opposition groups and representatives of the renewable energy sector. Case number 2038.0
Bernard Madoff perpetrated a $60 billion fraud that lasted for more than a decade. The fallout ruined the lives of many of his investors and significantly damaged the reputation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). How did the federal agency entrusted to protect investors fail to discover the Ponzi scheme? The question is more salient because a financial expert alerted the SEC to the likely fraud and was ignored, not just once, but many times over a multiyear period. The case provides the context to explore questions such as: What was the SEC's investigation process? Why did it fail to uncover the fraud? What was the role of organizational structure and culture in the debacle? How could the SEC reengineer its processes to prevent such schemes? Case number 1950
In July 2012, three freshly-minted Harvard Kennedy School graduates bought one-way tickets to Medellin, Colombia, to launch a nonprofit startup they called Instiglio. Their idea: to bring Social Impact Bonds, still experimental even in affluent nations, to Colombia and other low to middle income countries. This statistics case-one of two nearly identical HKS cases about Instiglio-provides background about the SIB model (a financing mechanism for experimental social programs, with private investors shouldering the financial risk of failure) and tracks the early experience of the HKS graduates in Colombia. The case includes a summary of the issues the group faced in designing a first draft SIB agreement, including several questions about evaluation design and tricky issues in structuring a payment system. The other HKS Instiglio case, HKS case number 2026.0, "Betting Private Capital on Fixing Public Ills: Instiglio Brings Social Impact Bonds to Colombia," intended for a policy analysis course, emphasizes the process of selecting a project, given limited information and political complexities. Case number 2043.0
The Wikimedia Foundation is responsible for supporting Wikipedia and various other projects through administration, technical and financial support. Since its founding, Wikipedia has changed the way people around the world research information by allowing individuals to document and write history in a collaborative and decentralized fashion. The case follows Lila Tretikov as she takes on her new role as the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, and how she and the organization have to balance fundraising, technology development and managing an organization through influence and strategy.
Arun Kumar, founder and group chief executive officer of Strides Arcolab Limited — a first generation, Indian pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bengaluru — is preparing for a crucial meeting of the Board of Directors. The meeting was called to discuss the proposed dividend payout to the company’s shareholders following the completion of a US$1.725 billion sale of its specialty division — Agila Specialties — to the U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Mylan Inc. Kumar proposed that Strides distribute all the free cash available from the sale — after the retirement of debt and internal payouts — in the form of dividends to its shareholders. Strides had already communicated its decision to retire debts and reduce its leverage.
Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater mission of providing multilateral development financing as well as non-financial technical support and expertise for the Latin American and Caribbean region. At the time the case takes place, the Latin American and Caribbean region had seen changes such as expansion of the middle class, emergence of a new business class, and integration with foreign trade. Additionally, the region had faced challenges such as poverty, education, productivity, and infrastructure in both small and medium enterprises. Finally, new actors had entered the region such as governments, corporations, foundations, academic institutions, and NGO's to take a supporting role. In response, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) had created the Office of Outreach and Partnerships (ORP) as a dedicated team to lead strategic collaboration and interactions with a long-term vision for partnerships and innovation. The case portrays key questions concerning how the partnership process was formalized through the development of ORP, and what innovations these new partnerships would bring to the bank. Three example partnerships are detailed including The Coca-Cola Company, The Salud Mesoamerica 2015 Initiative, and PepsiCo. The case concludes by positing questions the ORP would face moving forward such as incentives, metrics, restructuring to serve the private sector, and mechanisms for working with a new set of partners.
On January 9, 2015, Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management launched a proxy fight for four out of the twelve seats on the DuPont board. The fund had previously published a public letter addressed to shareholders outlining its proposal to break the company into three areas: agriculture and nutrition, industrial materials, and performance chemicals and criticizing the company for its poor performance. CEO and Chairman Ellen Kullman and her board were left with the difficult decision. Should they allow four of Trian's nominees onto their board, knowing that it would mean replacing four highly experienced and valuable directors or should they go face to face with Peltz in a very public proxy fight?