In an era of rapidly evolving systems of health care delivery, the impact on patients, physicians, hospitals, medical device manufacturers and small business owners are often conflicting. This case highlights these conflicts and stressors from all perspectives, providing unique insights and offering potential options.
A student has just completed the first day of an Executive MBA program. He had completed his undergraduate business degree more than a decade earlier and now ponders how to best tackle the demanding program workload, while continuing to fulfill his commitments both at work and in his personal life. Even greater, though, are the challenges of effectively communicating and coordinating schoolwork assignments with his seven-person "virtual" learning team. The teaching note provides a Virtual Team Characteristics Framework to highlight the critical variables associated with effective virtual team outcomes.
As marketers love to teach students, differentiation must be the focal point of marketing strategy. But what happens when a firm's competitive set is shared by similar customers, perceived differentiation is weak among rivals, and loyalty is a thing of the past? This was the dilemma the French luxury jeweler Mauboussin faced: how to leverage its iconic brand to access new customers, domestically and abroad, and through new channels, while preserving the image of luxury goods founded on the myth of rarity and exclusivity? The case was designed and used for the latter portion of an international MBA marketing course and would work well in most international business courses.
The case is set in June 2013, and deals with a small to medium-sized Singapore-based property developer's decision on whether to launch a sustainability initiative and engage in sustainability reporting as an innovative practice to improve the long run viability of the company through improved operational efficiencies. The question arose off the back of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession with which the adoption of sustainability by large property developers in Singapore coincided, and which proved the vulnerability of the property development industry to macro-economic effects. Top management at the company had tasked Annie Tan, the company's COO, to render an initial critical evaluation of the competitors' sustainability initiatives and sustainability reporting, before making recommendations on the adoption and design of a sustainability initiative and sustainability reporting for the privately held property developer that specialised in small-scale customised property developments.
This note describes the mobile telecommunications industry in 2012, and how the various participants were positioned for the future. This was a period of rapid change, as some competitors were rapidly growing, while others were undergoing equally rapid descent. The note focuses on ecosystems that evolved around competing operating systems and microprocessors, and highlights developments in each industry layer-software, hardware, handsets, and network operations-as well as strategic issues related to intellectual property.
A student has just completed the first day of an Executive MBA program. He had completed his undergraduate business degree more than a decade earlier and now ponders how to best tackle the demanding program workload, while continuing to fulfill his commitments both at work and in his personal life. Even greater, though, are the challenges of effectively communicating and coordinating schoolwork assignments with his seven-person virtual learning team. The teaching note provides a Virtual Team Characteristics Framework to highlight the critical variables associated with effective virtual team outcomes.
Nike's labor practices were the subject of high profile public protests in the 1990s, and CEO Mark Parker said the company still had a lot of work to do in that area. The case also details how making sustainability a key part of the design process led Nike to develop more innovative and high-performing products, such as a breakthrough running shoe called the Flyknit, which was widely worn at the 2012 Olympics. Following protests in the late 1990s over unsafe working conditions, low wage rates, excessive overtime, restrictions on employee organizing, and negative environmental impacts, Nike began shifting from a reactive to a proactive mode. During the 15 years covered in this case, Nike made significant changes in its sustainability practices, including moving its Corporate Responsibility team much further upstream in the organization, where it could have a greater impact on decisions by providing input early in the process. The company also developed multiple indexes that measured its sustainability practices and those of its independent contract manufacturers. The indexes had metrics for measuring the relevant impacts of product waste, water, chemistry, labor, and energy. Nike's critics said many labor issues had not been resolved, but Nike made progress in that area through collaboration with governments, NGOs and labor unions, and through management compliance trainings. If a contract factory did not score high enough on the company's sustainability and labor ratings scales, Nike would impose sanctions on the factory or even drop it from the supply chain. These actions took Nike off the top of most activists' target lists.
Ina Food Industry Co. Ltd. ("Ina Food") is situated in the city of Ina, Nagano Prefecture, and surrounded by the soaring mountains of the Japanese Alps. Hiroshi Tsukakoshi, Ina Food's 75-year-old chairman, has led the company through an incredible 55 years of continuous revenue and profit growth. The company is a leading manufacturer of powdered agar, a traditional gelatin product derived from seaweed. In the summer of 2012, Tsukakoshi is looking through the windows of his office in Ina City. He is thinking about how he aims for his company to be a corporation that is conscious of the global environment. He feels he has done a good job so far. The business has prospered and does not present any urgent problems. However, he also feels that he should not simply sit back and savor his success. He is facing his retirement and has concerns about the long-term growth of the company. He is thinking it might be the right time to introduce some new marketing strategies for the company. There is also another reason for concern: Japan's deflationary environment, persistent for 20 years now. He is interested in increasing sales volume and profit by raising prices when most other companies are lowering theirs under deflation. In this environment, even keeping prices constant means a relative increase of price. Tsukakoshi believes that, in essence, as long as a company is confident in the competitiveness of its products, there are always methods to raise prices and increase profits. The key is raising the prices of merchandise and services in a way that the customers can accept. Raising prices in a difficult economic climate is a risky decision. Nevertheless, the company is successful in raising the price under deflation. While the Japanese economy faces serious difficulties, the company has obtained successful results thanks to marketing, producing, financing, and allocating resources.
Desi Shack is a "fast casual" restaurant, started by two HBS alumni, that serves Indian and Pakistani cuisine in midtown Manhattan. The founders are looking to expand into a second location and also plan to hire a COO, and there is very little room for error in the decision-making process if Desi Shack is to continue operating. This case discusses questions of location choice and hiring decisions, and provides an example of a framework entrepreneurs might use to think about the many factors that must go in to making these choices.
In June 2012, an area sales manager at NutriPack India, a multinational company dealing with fast-moving consumer goods, had to find a way to match the success of his predecessor in increasing retail outlet coverage in central Maharashtra. He studied the territory data and identified the Jalgaon region as having the potential for high growth. However, the single distributor for Jalgaon was upset because he had already increased his operations the previous year and was unconvinced that this had been profitable. The area sales manager needed to convince this distributor of the benefits of his past investments, and also convince him to make further investments (e.g., hire more salespersons). This case illustrates the challenges that young area sales managers face when they have to deal with experienced distributors in the Indian retail trade, especially in smaller towns where relationships can greatly affect business. Students will gain an understanding of the key performance indicators required to focus on developmental issues in a territory. They will appreciate financial considerations as a major tool in dealing with intermediaries, such as distributors, and will gain practical knowledge in how to convince a distributor of his past investments and profitability, and pave the way for further investment for retail expansion.
The head of Data Marketing Analytics and Mobile for Intel Asia-Pacific was reviewing the proposed media plan for the Catch & Win 2.0 campaign. The media purchase needed to be finalized quickly in order to be included in the current quarter's budget, but he could not help feeling that the proposed spend across the markets and advertising types could be used more effectively. He thought that the key was to use the company's own experience and data regarding social media engagement within their markets rather than to rely on the generalized industry metrics provided by the contracted media agency, and now he must improve the proposed media plan.
This note describes in detail the components of a marketing plan and the process by which data are collected and the plan is developed. Its objective is to develop a sense of purpose and discipline in how one goes about the marketing plan development process and to assist in the gathering of data that will become part of the written plan.
In mid-2008, the senior vice-president of Global Supply Chain at Elizabeth Arden in New York City was troubled with the challenges that lay before him. He had been hired to make sweeping changes to the company’s management of its supply chain, and he had already made a significant impact in forecasting, inventory control and service performance. His next move would require a radical consolidation of suppliers, make dramatic changes to inventory management, have a far-reaching impact on product development and require major lead time reductions. Given such a disruptive move, would current suppliers be able to meet expectations? Could the company’s current employees keep up with the pace of change expected? How many would have to be let go, and what would this do the morale of the workforce? Were significant results to shareholders really achievable? How much money would be saved, where would the savings come from and when would they be realized? The senior vice-president was determined to execute the re-engineering in a manner that would best address all these concerns.
On September 26, 2013, the chief executive officer of the world-leading pasta manufacturer, the Barilla Group, was challenged with a precarious situation. A day earlier, during an interview on an Italian radio show, the company chairman made a series of anti-gay remarks when asked why the company did not feature advertisements with gay families. Social media exploded with negative comments and numerous equality themed pictures creatively featuring pasta. U.S. late night television shows mocked the company, and various equality rights organizations around the world called for a boycott of its products. Competitors also issued statements and ads extolling their respect for diversity. Everyone — customers, news media, competitors and organizations supporting diversity — were looking for an explanation. The company desperately needed to devise a strategy to publicly respond and avoid the negative long-term consequences of a damaged brand name, decreased market share and ultimately lost revenues.
The president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A is a devout Christian who publicly operates his restaurants according to Biblical principles. A recent controversy has surrounded his public opposition to gay marriage. As a result, the company is being accused of discrimination and prejudice. Are the company’s deeply rooted Christian values hindering the business?
The chairman of Stag International faced a number of challenges. As the number one table tennis brand in India and one of the top five companies globally, Stag could go after market share, diversify into domestic distribution, do both or just sit tight. The chairman also needed to set the business up for the fourth generation to step in and drive the family-owned business forward. The dilemmas he faced were defining the strategic intent, strategic choices and resourcing for the business as it entered its 90th year of existence as a leading manufacturer and exporter of sports goods in India.
The purpose of this case is to introduce data visualization, advanced regression techniques, and supervised learning. Students are asked to visualize data geographically and in scatterplots. They will use stepwise regression and regression trees to select a predictive model for forecasting data in a holdout sample. In a forecasting competition, they will submit their models to be tested for accuracy. Supervised learning techniques-such as training, validation, and testing-are introduced. Regression trees serve as both predictive and graphical tools for communicating insights from data analysis to a decision maker.