Supplement for case 712480. On the evening of March 11, 2011, Mayama Fumihiro, the Managing Director of Ishinomaki Kouwan Hospital knew that it would be a long, cold night. The 103 staff members and 162 patients and families were huddled on the top two floors of the four-story hospital, where they had gone to escape three tsunami waves that had destroyed the first floor and part of the second floor.
Supplement for case 712480. CEO Niinami Takeshi (HBS '91) stared out his corner office window as the Tokyo skyscrapers swayed and the concrete trembled. He was in the midst of the largest seismic event to hit Japan in recorded history. Lawson's managers understood earthquake response. They had prior experience from the earthquakes in Kobe (1995), and Chuetsu (2007).
CEO Kikawa of Yamato Transport gave orders to his managers right after the triple disaster hit the Tohoku region of Japan to do whatever it takes to save lives and not to worry about costs. He also felt that he had to confront the government to make donations to the affected district tax-free. He also wanted to donate 10 yen per Takkyubin package the company was delivering as relief money for Tohoku but was wondering how the shareholders would react to this proposal.
Financial Accounting Foundation chairman Jack Brennan is under pressure from private-company interests to set up a new body-the Private Company Council-to determine separate GAAP for private companies. PCC advocates-including the US Chamber of Commerce-argue that traditional US GAAP has too many disclosure and fair-value requirements that impose very high compliance costs on private companies. But there are influential players-including the Big Four auditors-who oppose creating the PCC. They argue that the compliance costs of traditional GAAP are the price of high-quality accounting standards. Balancing these powerful interests, Brennan must make a decision on the PCC; at stake is US GAAP's ability to facilitate capital allocation decisions in the economy.
Marketers face new challenges in the era of crowdsourced opinions, where sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp allow consumers to share opinions that may contradict marketing messages. This article identifies ten sources of influence that can sway consumers, four of which (social networks, opinion aggregators, recommendation engines, and price comparison services) have only gained prominence recently. With the shift from traditional marketing channels to digital realms, consumers now comprehensively inform themselves, loudly inform others, and make purchase decisions at their own pace. Marketers can take four approaches in order to gain value from the crowd. 1) Endorse the crowd: Bringing the “voice of the crowd” into marketing efforts can provide the credibility and authenticity that consumers seek. 2) Venture among the crowd: Engaging with consumers directly, e.g. through social media, can highlight a company’s transparency and build trust with consumers. 3) Listen to and learn from the crowd: Monitoring online discussions of user needs, desires, and trends can provide highly valuable data. 4) Invite the crowd inside: Companies like WebMD offer users a diverse portfolio of guidance and a useful forum in which to hold their own conversations.
Though the leadership deficit in India is widely recognized, few companies have successfully addressed it. The challenge manifests itself in a quantity deficit, where few qualified candidates for managerial positions exist and leaders do not retire soon enough; an experience deficit, where young, inexperienced managers are launched into senior positions; and a talent war, where competition for talent is intense and companies realize that leaders they have cultivated could be hired by rival firms at any time. The main causes of India’s leadership challenges are a) demographics: India is a young nation lacking a large supply of experienced leaders; b) the booming economy: the pace of growth has placed great demand on the supply of talent; and c) a technology mindset: Indian business leaders have focused on developing technology rather than people. Building leaders from the bottom up involves five steps: 1) Invest in senior management effectiveness; 2) Set up feeder roles and successor pools among the next tier of leaders under the top team; 3) Manage the technical ladder; 4) Identify and promote high-potential employees; and 5) Build quality cadres at the junior level.
The rate at which data and ideas are collected, viewed, and commented on is faster than ever due to the quick pace of technology innovation. With hundreds of platforms ranging from corporate open innovation to niche platforms, the value and success of individuals coming together to solve problems is well established. This article suggests five ways to leverage the principles of crowdsourcing to create a lasting impact within organizations: 1) From optimization to innovation: Multi-discipline ideation brings diverse audiences together to identify problems and opportunities and break down current models while creating new ones. 2) From customer service to customer experience: Co-creation is the act of building a product or service with customers and end users in an iterative manner (e.g. My Starbucks Idea). 3) From managing knowledge to collective intelligence: Distributed task management is the breaking up of large, complex tasks into micro tasks scattered across global populations. 4) From old money models to new money paradigms: Crowdfunding is the collective effort of individuals to support an initiative by pooling funds together (e.g. Kickstarter). 5) From corporate responsibility to community impact: Civic community building relies on individuals within communities to raise awareness of community issues and projects to address them, with the objective of gathering support.
China, whose most active multinational companies are state-owned enterprises (SOEs), is actively investing in various sectors overseas. While the role of the Chinese government in the global expansion of Chinese multinationals is significant, government support should not be confused with firms’ own goals. In Africa, Chinese investments have been mostly in sectors such as infrastructure and energy, but investors have recently become interested in services and manufacturing. Chinese telecom firms in Africa enjoy advantages linked to China’s political economy agenda, while Chinese resource companies also have a large stake in Africa. Western commentators tend to speak of “the Chinese” as a single, resource-hungry entity and rarely mention that vast amounts of oil extracted by Chinese firms are sold on the international market. Although strong ties exist between the Chinese government and Chinese national oil companies, similar linkages have often existed in the West. This article argues that Chinese SOEs are hybrid organizations that receive exceptional assistance from the state but also function as private companies competing against global corporations and against other Chinese firms.
The largest predictor of new product success is a differentiated high-value product or service, while the best predictor of new product failure is inadequate market research and customer knowledge. With the growth of microprocessor-based products, a proliferation of usage and form factors has led to a shift between embedded devices, appliances, and platforms. Failure to navigate the generational shifts has been a major cause of failure or market share loss. Most businesses must either move from a proprietary embedded system to a more platform-oriented solution, or else package a platform-based solution in such a way as to make it more like an appliance. There are many choices on how to innovate, including product innovation, process innovation, customer innovation, and business model innovation. The digitization of content has had a profound impact on many businesses, and bundling or unbundling legal rights is the new frontier in product differentiation for content. Types of rights include level of quality, number of devices on which content can be used, and resale and inheritance rights. What constitutes a product versus a service will continue to evolve, as the migration occurs from product to service to solution to experience.
Are leaders born or made? The answer is both. Indeed, good leaders are the product of a never-ending process of skill and character development. This article reveals ten pathways for learning to lead: 1) performing: excelling in a role; 2) risking: taking chances to lead and learn; 3) stretching: going beyond one’s own comfort zone; 4) learning: reflecting on past events to discern lessons; 5) self-awareness: seeking to know one’s strengths and weaknesses; 6) trusting: relying on one’s abilities and those of others in order to build a reputation of trustworthiness; 7) adapting: acting appropriately in different situations; 8) mentoring: learning from other leaders; 9) observing: watching in order to gain a better understanding; and 10) integrating: seeing the “big picture.” <br><br>This article shows that many leaders lack an early desire to be glorified as a leader and that good leadership can be learned by anyone with basic intelligence and a strong commitment to ongoing development and collaboration. Making time for continual learning and avoiding arrogance or closed-mindedness is crucial. One tech-sector billionaire reveals how he frequently cleans the family lavatory after work, as a reminder that all contributions are valued. Ultimately, CEOs must create channels for feedback, and “command and control” should make way for sharing control over decision making.
Crowdsourcing can be defined as the application of social media to the process of open innovation. It leverages social media to enable brands, places, and entrepreneurs to engage and seek input from online communities who contribute powerful, creative ideas. Crowds should reflect a diversity of opinions, be independent, be geographically dispersed, and be able to aggregate private judgements into a collective decision. Culture can be an impediment to a firm’s adoption of crowdsourcing, if the firm is not open to receiving external input. Crowdsourcing also presents various risks, such as low participation due to a lack of awareness by an audience, controversy over intellectual property ownership, and confusion within a crowd about a task. Best practices in pursuing crowdsourcing include: 1) Ensure support: All ideas and contributions should be appreciated, and executive power for developing the contributions must exist. 2) Be clear with definitions: The company must understand how social media is being used internally. 3) Do demos and pilot: Try out different solutions and approaches and find what works best for an audience. 4) Think of what you want to ask: Explain the challenge in a way that resonates with the audience and elicits concrete contributions. 5) Give kudos: Reward the best contributors.
On October 11, 2006, Istithmar, a subsidiary of Dubai World, the flagship investment company of the government of Dubai, purchased the 270-room W Hotel in Union Square from Related Companies for $285 million. LEM Capital, a mid-sized private equity firm, subsequently became a junior player in the stack of funders for the property. When Istithmar defaulted on its loan to its primary lender in 2009, LEM's $20 million investment was at risk. This case asks students to review the actual loan and intercreditor agreements to determine what strategy might help LEM to preserve its investment.
On October 11, 2006, Istithmar, a subsidiary of Dubai World, the flagship investment company of the government of Dubai, purchased the 270-room W Hotel in Union Square from Related Companies for $285 million. LEM Capital, a mid-sized private equity firm, subsequently became a junior player in the stack of funders for the property. When Istithmar defaulted on its loan to its primary lender in 2009, LEM's $20 million investment was at risk. This case asks students to review the actual loan and intercreditor agreements to determine what strategy might help LEM to preserve its investment.
On October 11, 2006, Istithmar, a subsidiary of Dubai World, the flagship investment company of the government of Dubai, purchased the 270-room W Hotel in Union Square from Related Companies for $285 million. LEM Capital, a mid-sized private equity firm, subsequently became a junior player in the stack of funders for the property. When Istithmar defaulted on its loan to its primary lender in 2009, LEM's $20 million investment was at risk. This case asks students to review the actual loan and intercreditor agreements to determine what strategy might help LEM to preserve its investment.
On October 11, 2006, Istithmar, a subsidiary of Dubai World, the flagship investment company of the government of Dubai, purchased the 270-room W Hotel in Union Square from Related Companies for $285 million. LEM Capital, a mid-sized private equity firm, subsequently became a junior player in the stack of funders for the property. When Istithmar defaulted on its loan to its primary lender in 2009, LEM's $20 million investment was at risk. This case asks students to review the actual loan and intercreditor agreements to determine what strategy might help LEM to preserve its investment.
Gokaldas Exports was a family-owned business founded in 1979 that had grown into India's largest apparel exporter by the mid 2000s. Its founder, Jhamandas H. Hinduja, had bequeathed control of the company to three sons, each of whom brought in his own son. By the end of 2004, Gokaldas had 43 factories with 258 production lines scattered in and around the southern India city of Bangalore. It had more than 35,000 workers, which was nearly double the number it employed in 1999- 2000, and its total sales had increased at an annual compounded growth rate of 19.67 percent over this period. The company was valued at approximately $215 million and exported nearly 90 percent of its production. However, to maintain its already slim margins in an increasingly competitive environment, Gokaldas needed to become more efficient. Company leaders hoped to improve profits by 10-15 percent without adding resources and Gaurav Hinduja, COO of the sportswear division and a third generation family member, became convinced that Lean would be the best means to make this happen.
In August 2007, the United States-based private equity firm the Blackstone Group acquired a 50.1 percent stake in Gokaldas Exports for $116 million. The investment was a two-part deal that included an "open offer" to Gokaldas shareholders for another 20 percent of outstanding shares valued at approximately $45 million. This gave Blackstone a total share of just over 68 percent while the Hinduja family retained 20 percent and other shareholders the remainder.
Garry Halper Menswear Limited (GHM) is a medium-sized manufacturer of superior-quality men’s suits and jackets that up to now have largely been distributed in Canada. The firm has landed a very large order for men’s suits with Sutton’s in the United States. To meet the order, the firm has decided to import partly completed suits from China. The treasurer of GHM must assess the financing needs and related risks that result from this large increase in sales. At the same time, he believes that the company’s present bank is timid in its response to the firm’s needs, and he would like to consider another banking relationship.