This case reviews the two-generation history of the Brazilian media company, RBS, and examines how the second generation family CEO manages through a crisis facing the company.
Louis Vuitton, the flagship group within Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), had contributed to the stellar growth of the group in 2010 and 2011. But, there were clouds on the horizon. Was the recent growth sustainable? What steps should Louis Vuitton take to address upcoming challenges? This case takes the student through the challenges a global company faces as it tries to grow a business that is based on one of the most valued high-end brands in the world. The case reveals the fundamental strategic tension between what a firm needs to do, given the competitive environment, what it can do, given its resources and organization, and what leaders want to do, given their fundamental motivations and beliefs, which shape the way they see the issues.
A procurement officer has got himself into some difficulties by trying to do what he thinks was the right thing in being responsive and accommodating for an internal client. In doing so, he has violated a number of unwritten ethical expectations of his role. He is wondering what he could have done differently and, specifically, how to handle an upcoming conversation with his chief executive officer about his future with the company.
In 2011, Gilberto Dimenstein, a well-known Brazilian journalist, created a new model that connected disparate resources to revitalize Sao Paulo. He wanted his model to expand across Brazil and the world. Dimenstein covered many of the social issues facing Brazil as a journalist and became determined to create solutions. Dimenstein started two social ventures, ANDI and Escola Aprendiz, before creating and developing Catraca Livre (meaning "open turnstile" in Portuguese) while he was an Advanced Leadership fellow at Harvard. Dimenstein pursued his idea of "learning neighborhoods", which meant a localized, low cost and effective way to leverage the existing available resources as educational opportunities. The resources were underutilized because of a lack of awareness. He believed that education should not be limited to the classroom and instead should be expanded to the entire city. Catraca Livre enabled Sao Paulo's residents to utilize untapped resources by aggregating all of the available resources and disseminating the information through multiple avenues including a website, subways, restaurants, workplaces, and more. This case shows how Dimenstein spearheads his solution to improve his city and offers a model for revitalizing cities around the world.
In early 2013, Norway was by many accounts the world's most developed country; it topped various indices for everything from democracy to happiness, had a comprehensive welfare state, and massive oil revenues endowed it with a substantial, and growing, Sovereign Wealth Fund. The governing coalition, anchored in the historically near-hegemonic Labour Party, had embraced peacemaking activities abroad and increasingly freer immigration policies at home, pursuing an aim of "liberal multiculturalism" that had invited both accolades and increasingly hostile criticism. More recent years had seen a change of government and falling oil prices, but Norway continued to top world development indexes. Now, in 2017, however, citizens of the country questioned both the government's decision to turn a blind eye to ethical considerations in its pursuit of exports, and to environmental concerns in drilling for ever more oil and gas in fragile arctic ecosystems. Was there such thing as enough?
Aditya Birla Financial Services Group is a large, broad-based, Indian financial services institution offering products ranging from life insurance and mutual funds to private equity. The company has witnessed a turnaround in recent years and regained lost market share. However, in recent years, concerns about investor protection has increased financial sector regulatory oversight specifically in the asset management and life insurance space and changed the rules of the game. Additionally, the central bank has invited new banks to apply for licenses to operate in the country. In the face of these changes, the company has to figure out what its strategy should be to realize its vision of becoming a leading integrated financial services player offering customers a menu of products that support their needs at different stages of their life.
The director of an interim executive search firm, Chee Lung Tham, faced a clash of culture and management styles when his mainland Chinese client threatened to fire the American interim manager that Tham had assigned. The client, Wong Lung, ran a family-owned garment manufacturing business along with his younger brother, as well as his two overseas-educated children. While Wong needed the American manager's technology expertise, his own brother and his team of middle managers were showing resistance to the new changes. Meanwhile, the American manager found himself caught in the web of family and company politics, and completing his assignment without the cooperation of the middle management was impossible. How should Tham approach the conflict and bring all sides into a productive working relationship?
This case explores the use of social media to support product design, customer support, marketing and HR activities at National Instruments (NI). Based in Austin, Texas, with over $1 billion in 2011 sales, NI designs, produces, and sells software and hardware platforms that simplify development of its customers measurement and control systems. Its customers, ranging from individuals (professors and their students) to large corporations, consist primarily of scientists and engineers-a pedigree shared by most NI employees. Since dedicating a full-time position to formalizing the use of social media tools in 2006, NI has infused social capabilities into its internal and customer-facing business processes, strengthening relationships and value delivered. NI's story deepens our understanding of how to build a social business strategy, create game changing innovation processes, and measure the value of its social technology investments-a key challenge facing the company. By touching on NI's history and culture, the case also allows students to consider what elements of this company's organization and culture have allowed it to build a robust social business model.
According to "bottom of the pyramid" theory, poor consumers pay much higher prices for most things than middle-class consumers do, meaning there's real opportunity for large multinationals to capture market share by offering high-quality goods at lower prices. But research on the ground in India shows that today, the poverty premium is often illusory. Companies need to be aware of how hard it is to compete solely on price.
When a company brings out a new product, it often raises the prices of its existing products--which means that you can follow suit without risking customer defections over price. Companies that understand this can avoid reflexive, and expensive, defensive measures.
Are the experts who successfully predict unusual events geniuses, or did they just get lucky? A new study indicates that their correct guesses were most likely flukes. It looked at the track records of forecasters who had one or two big wins and found that in the long run they were wrong more often than not.
When leaders behave capriciously, they signal their power and, often, the authority they need to drive valuable change. But this behavior can also take a toll on employees and potentially undermine organizational performance.
If countries hope to boost their GDPs, they ought to promote the economic advancement of women. See how more than 100 countries measure up on policy support for female workers, the level of economic success their female citizens have achieved, and GDP per capita--and how the three are interrelated.
This case provides an overview of the nonprofit organization PATH and its Safe Water Project-a five-year effort launched in late 2006 with $17 million in funding from the global development unit of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to evaluate to what extent market-based approaches could help accelerate the widespread adoption and sustained use of household water treatment and safe storage products by low-income populations. Through a portfolio of field-based pilots, PATH intended to experiment with different sales and distribution strategies to improve consumer access to safe water solutions, such as water filters and chlorine-based water purification tablets. It also planned to test different pricing and consumer financing models to address the affordability of these products. However, extensive market research revealed another problem-few products in the space were both effective and designed specifically to meet the unique needs and preferences of these consumers. Accordingly, PATH applied for and was awarded $7 million in additional grant funding from the Gates Foundation to design a water filter product that would meet high standards of efficacy, be desirable-or aspirational-to low income consumers, and work effectively within the rural conditions where the majority of the poor resided. The PATH team would accomplish this through a process that the organization called user-centered design.
This case provides an overview of the nonprofit organization PATH and its Safe Water Project-a five-year effort launched in late 2006 with $17 million in funding from the global development unit of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to evaluate to what extent market-based approaches could help accelerate the widespread adoption and sustained use of household water treatment and safe storage products by low-income populations. One of the team's primary objectives was to investigate sales and distribution challenges in this space. By conducting a portfolio of field-based pilots, the team hoped to test different models for improving customer access to these safe water products in an effort to identify scalable, sustainable, and replicable solutions. Although specific results varied across the pilots, which spanned India, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Kenya, they collectively gave rise to series of important sales and distribution insights.
This case provides an overview of the nonprofit organization PATH and its Safe Water Project-a five-year effort launched in late 2006 with $17 million in funding from the global development unit of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the grant was to evaluate to what extent market-based approaches could help accelerate the widespread adoption and sustained use of household water treatment and safe storage products by low-income populations. One of the key objectives of this effort was to explore how the private sector could help make HWTS products more affordable. By conducting a portfolio of field-based pilots in collaboration with commercial partners, the PATH team sought to better understand the effect of different pricing, consumer financing, and subsidy models on demand within low-income population in developing countries. Over several years, the Safe Water Project team experimented with different affordability models, including microfinance loans for water filters and a layaway program. Although specific results varied across the pilots, which spanned India, Cambodia, and Kenya, they collectively gave rise to series of important insights about the affordability of HWTS products.
When the Chinese government outlawed direct selling, Amway's signature marketing model, the company's executives had to decide whether to pull up stakes or find a new way to sell. They chose to stay put and cooperate. To comply with regulatory changes, the company established conventional retail stores and manufactured products in China instead of importing them from the United States. It changed its entire distributor compensation system. It could no longer rely on word-of-mouth marketing, so it turned to brand advertising. Throughout the process, Amway worked to demonstrate that it would be an honorable corporate citizen in China. Eventually legislation was passed allowing it to return to a direct sales business model. It received a new license in 2006, and today China is its largest market, with more than $4 billion in annual sales.