This case traces the history and growth of Forbes Marshall (FM), a family-owned company in India. FM provides steam engineering and control instrumentation solutions for the process industry. The company has evolved into a leader in process efficiency and energy conservation through technology tie-ups and focused investments in manufacturing and research. Their joint ventures (JV) with the world's leading names enable them to deliver quality solutions in 14 countries. Forbes Marshall's business practices and processes have combined into a singular philosophy of being trusted partners who provide innovative solutions.
For many years, Towers Watson (TW) has conducted its own research into alternative approaches to market cap investing. Philip Tindall senior investment consultant with TW was impressed by a recent presentation by the CIO of Research Affiliates (RA) about an innovative investing concept called the "Fundamental Index methodology." He thinks it might be an important innovation in applying nonmarket cap approaches, but he has some concerns about the approach and whether or not it would be appropriate for TW clients. Clients depended on TW to keep them on the cutting edge of institutional investing, but recommending an untried investment strategy and deviating from status quo investment practice could either generate outperformance relative to their investment consulting competitors, thereby attracting new clients, or it could result in underperformance and defection of their clients to those competitors.
This note guides students or Executive Education participants through an exercise to help identify growth opportunities for their business units. The 3-Circle framework consists of 10 steps that lead to a vetted growth strategy. Readers work through the first five steps to identify three potential growth ideas. They then follow the remaining five steps to develop one specific Big Idea for growth. This exercise is a condensed guide to the process described in Grow by Focusing on What Matters: Strategy in Three Circles, by Urbany and Davis.
The process of branding a product involves building awareness of and preference for the specific name of the product that is being branded. Central to the branding process is the brand positioning statement, often simply called the positioning statement. The positioning statement is a short written document that lays out how the marketer believes others should think, feel, and relate to the brand. This note discusses the process of brand positioning and how to construct positioning statements.
Green-Tech Inc., a Canadian company founded in 2006, was dedicated to developing, manufacturing, and marketing portable and stationary systems for the production of bio-oils and bio-char from biomass residues and wastes. Green-Tech was a recent spinoff from a large university research centre with a very good reputation for providing bio-energy solutions. Although focused and well positioned, Green-Tech had to manage relationships with large companies such as Shell that controlled vast and complete supply chains of oil-related businesses, as well as small firms and clients that were unable to manage their waste effectively. Large firms could provide plenty of business opportunities for Green-Tech, but could also jeopardize the company’s autonomy. Small customers on their own might not bring in enough cash flow, but could give Green-Tech sufficient freedom to pursue its own strategic goals. Both relationships seemed to lead to a promising future for this entrepreneurial start-up company, but also created serious risks. At the time of the case in 2011, Fernando Bruteque, vice president and one of the principal engineers of Green-Tech, was seeking the appropriate growth approach for Green-Tech. Being in charge of business operations, Bruteque also had to maintain a balance between research and development (R&D), investor and client concerns, and business opportunities. What would be the appropriate growth strategies and business operation strategies for a resource-constrained firm such as Green-Tech? How should it proceed?
Dr. Mak Lap Ming, an obstetrician and gynecologist who operated two clinics in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, was contemplating retirement. Now that his own child was financially independent and thus relieved some of the pressure on Mak, he was wondering if it made financial sense to retire soon. He also wondered what the immediate consequences of retirement would be and if semi-retirement was a viable option. To that end, he could work with a partner and shift control to that partner at some point; he could work at his clinics part-time; or he might be able to close one clinic completely and practice out of the remaining one. Mak also thought of retiring completely at the end of the year. Evaluating his options brought Mak significant internal conflict: part of him longed to attain the freedom to travel, yet he experienced great emotional satisfaction when he attended a birth and saw the joy that birth gave to the parents. Mak wondered whether, in his particular case, the pros of retirement outweighed the cons.
In mid-2008, Shai Agassi, CEO of Better Place, is in the midst of planning a paradigm shift in clean transportation. In an attempt to wean the world from using gasoline-powered vehicles, his company is playing the role of innovator and integrator for new vehicles, charging spots, and battery switch stations. The effort also requires aligning various parties, from governments to auto manufacturers to consumers. The fledgling company has made good progress in both Israel and Denmark as the first two launch locations but faces a series of decisions on the best course of action going forward. Agassi must decide how best to market in these two countries given the likely adoption challenges once the infrastructure and cars are ready, as well as decide how quickly to begin pursuing other countries (and if so, which ones). A big part of the Better Place solution relies on a novel business model that needs to be evaluated for its attractiveness and feasibility.
Nothing can bedevil a high-potential startup more than its "people problems." These problems typically result from choices that founders make as they add team members to their startup team. Three characteristics of startup teams must be aligned for these teams to function well: relationships, roles, and rewards (the Three Rs). Early decisions that founders make about the Three Rs can significantly affect their startup's direction and success. This note explores some of these choices and their long-term implications.
Jon Pastor and Lawrence Zhou were inspired by the same problem: the Internet was surprisingly unhelpful in the hunt for an apartment. The online apartment rental market was fragmented, opaque, and wrought with misinformation. The leader in this space was the website Craigslist, which was the most highly trafficked classifieds site in the world and the tenth most visited site in the United States despite introducing almost no innovations in its 15 years of existence. Having suffered as consumers, Jon and Lawrence saw this chaotic space as fertile ground for entrepreneurship. But the routes these entrepreneurs chose to take were different. "Killing Craigslist" explores the business Jon and Lawrence built to improve the online rental experience, and examines strategies to attract users and monetize their sites, all in shadow of a deeply entrenched incumbent.
In 2011, Equity International made a $75 million equity investment in Bogota-based real estate company, Terranum Development and became the first institutional real estate investor in Colombia.
A new faculty member is engaged in a decision-making process surrounding the development of a points-based system designed to allocate merit pay at a business school. The process is forcing her to evaluate how she is structuring the allocation of her work, which is directly affecting her motivation toward coaching a student case competition team. Edwards has historically used a judgment-based approach to the allocation of merit. The case outlines the rationale used in the design of the new points-based system, discusses the potential advantages and disadvantages, and highlights the perspectives of different stakeholders throughout the process, including the union, the faculty, and senior administration. The union is opposed to merit, so has outlined fairly stringent criteria for the awarding of merit in the new collective agreement. Faculty opinion is mixed surrounding merit more generally, and the implementation of a points-based system versus a judgment-based system in particular. Senior university administration is committed to the continuation of the merit system at the university as a tool to reward outstanding performance and to retain star faculty. The individual departments at Edwards are in the midst of finalizing the standards and procedures for allocation of merit-based pay. The protagonist is uncertain about how her department will proceed in the design and allocation of points, and how it will result in her re-allocating her work tasks.
In 2007, Takeda was a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company with sales primarily in Japan and the U.S. Although Takeda ranked around 15th in global sales, the pharmaceutical market had been shifting due to major industry consolidation. Yasuchika Hasegawa, the president of Takeda, was concerned about the future of the company. To counter the shrinking Japanese pharmaceutical market, Takeda had expanded its business to overseas markets. But Takeda's attempts to become a global company had been criticized as slow and not sufficiently aggressive. One reason for this was Takeda's risk-averse corporate culture. Worse, Takeda's R&D pipeline was shrinking, and patents on several of its major products were about to expire-which would inevitably lead to a decline in profits as generics entered the market. This case explores Hasegawa's plan to transform Takeda into a global pharmaceutical company in a rapidly changing market. It covers Takeda's history, industry trends, and Hasegawa's acquisition strategies.
DD Traders was the Asian branch of DEMDACO, a privately held company that wholesaled unique gift products that were marketed and distributed to the specialty retail channel in the United States and some international markets. Carolyn Glasow recognized an opportunity to leverage a quantitative approach to sourcing future allocations across vendors that would also improve the short-term demand transparency that was provided to the company’s key business partners, which could in turn lead to increased bargaining power for price negotiations and production lead times. This was a recurring issue for Glasow and her sourcing team: how should she allocate product purchases among the various manufacturers that bid for the opportunity to supply products to DD Traders?
DD Traders was the Asian branch of DEMDACO, a privately held company that wholesaled unique gift products, which were marketed and distributed to the specialty retail channel in the United States (as well as some international markets). Carolyn Glasow recognized an opportunity to leverage a quantitative approach to sourcing future allocations across vendors that would also improve the short-term demand transparency that was provided to the company's key business partners, which could lead to increased bargaining power for price negotiations and production lead-times. This was a recurring issue for Glasow and her sourcing team: how should she allocate product purchases among the various manufacturers that bid for the opportunity to supply products to DD Traders?
GameStop has effectively utilized a business model based on retailing new and used electronic games. The case allows the instructor to develop the strategies that GameStop used to consolidate its game retail business in the country. The case provides the instructor with the opportunity to explore the peculiar target market segments in the electronic gaming industry. Finally, the instructor can explore competition and future expansion into different markets, where the environments are not similar. Management responses to the following questions regarding company growth are further explored: 1) Can you continue your aggressive store growth? 2) What about digital downloading? 3) Will the used business continue to grow?
Britney Spears is one of the most successful female recording artists in contemporary music, world-wide. Herein, we analyze how Britney Spears and her team of employees rely on social media applications to communicate around this pop icon, and create and maintain her celebrity brand image. Specifically, we look at the use of social media during the launch of her single 'Hold It Against Me' and the associated album Femme Fatale in early 2011. The interplay of postings on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook-combined with comments on her webpage, BritneySpears.com-can be seen as a prime example of social media usage to support new product introductions.
In order to provide the highest quality services at lower costs, global firms have shifted their customer service functions offshore. Despite the apparent advantages of offshoring services, customers tend to object to the practice based on concerns about private/personal information being sent overseas. Additionally, executing service exchanges with overseas providers can be challenging because of perceived communication difficulties and cultural differences. The purpose of this article is to offer managers of firms that offshore services a clearer understanding of consumer concerns and provide guidance for alleviating these concerns. Specifically, suggestions are proffered regarding how to (1) minimize communication and cultural misunderstandings between customers and service providers, (2) assure customers that personal/private information is secure, and (3) restructure service activities to alleviate customer dissatisfaction. Unless such customer concerns are successfully identified and addressed, companies may not benefit from pursuing a services offshoring strategy.