The twenty-first century digital world enabled mobile, empowered, content-hungry individuals to capture the value of enabling technologies and applications to manage, create, share, and influence content across the creation and delivery spectrum. Users were online in record numbers, spending a greater percentage of their time, and conducting more and more activities including communications, learning, entertainment, and social interaction. Digital technologies and broadband radically revolutionized the value equation for many industries, giving more influence and power to the individual.
When David Wang took over as the CEO of SMIC, he knew that if he was to capitalize on the company's strategic location in the China market, he would have to transform the company mindset and its operating structure from its roots in the manufacturing of DRAMs to the service orientation that was necessary to support the customer promise of being a foundry. This meant transforming from a high volume continuous flow manufacturer of commodities chips to a job shop structure that focused on custom manufacturing services. This entailed more than rearranging the manufacturing lines, it meant a dramatic shift in the company culture. Wang also had to ensure the firm's ability to offer the most advanced process technologies. Having fallen behind in previous generations, his predecessor had chosen to license process technology from IBM. Now he faced the question of whether his rapidly changing and maturing organization had the ability to go it alone on future process technology development, or whether it still had to depend on IBM, at least for the time being.
India’s largest domestic retail group, the Future Group, is pursuing a novel private-label strategy. In a country dominated by small-scale retailers, it is using its scale to launch private-label brands in several product categories. It is planning to delink these new offerings from the store brand and make them available through other retailers. Future Group hopes to derive most of its growth over the next few years from this initiative.<br><br><br><br>The case enables students to take on the role of the group’s brand advisor, and deal with some important questions: Will private-label brands erode customer loyalty or build it? Will they increase traffic to stores or cannibalize it? Will they add to the complexity of retailing or simplify it? More fundamentally, is the private-label brand strategy sustainable in the long run in the highly competitive Indian retail market?
This case depicts how executives who are holding power in an organization can create chaos due to interpersonal conflict. Rao and Naik, two senior executives at TKC Consulting in India, scapegoated an innocent subordinate during the course of their rivalry. Their actions, not befitting the positions they held, created confusion and misunderstanding in the organization. The chairman of the company understood that their selfish, power-hungry actions could not be explicitly pointed out, as this would merely result in a cycle of blame. Yet he also knew that if the conflict was not addressed immediately, it would cause more discord within the organization.
The note provides background on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, brief background on lobbying, and aspects of the lobbying effort by the financial industry and JP Morgan Chase with regard to Dodd-Frank. It is intended as a companion to "The Tip of the Iceberg: JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns (A)," HBS No. 309-001, to facilitate class discussion, and as such provides only an overview of specific aspects of the issues discussed.
The latest in a long string of directors of New York City's toughest juvenile detention facility confronts a staff which is both demoralized and resentful of authority. As the jail's first black director, she must cope with a predominantly black staff long accustomed to "getting over"-giving less than full effort and rationalizing its attitude in terms of the perceived indifference of a "downtown" white power structure. Battles over child abuse, insubordination and union power ensue. HKS Case Number 875.0
This case describes the innovative business model of Better Place Inc., an electric vehicle company. The key challenges in operating the business model are explained and data is provided to help compute the costs, benefits, net profitability and economies of scale that it offers.
The (A) case describes how GE Healthcare developed an ECG device optimized for low-income mass markets in India. It also discusses the organizational changes GE made to better serve the Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) markets.
The (A) case describes how GE Healthcare developed an ECG device optimized for low-income mass markets in India. It also discusses the organizational changes GE made to better serve the Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) markets.
As the largest food and drink company in the world, Nestlé S.A. prided itself on a solid reputation built over the past 150 years. On March 17, 2010, the chairman of the board of directors was surprised by a YouTube video created by the environmental activist group Greenpeace. The graphic and provocative video criticized Nestlé for its use of palm oil in Nestlé products. It helped Greenpeace make a bold statement: Nestlé products were leading to deforestation and the extinction of orangutans. Within 24 hours, the video had more than 100,000 views and anti-Nestlé campaigns quickly emerged on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks around the world. At the same time, Greenpeace activists dressed up as orangutans and protested at Nestlé’s headquarters and factories in Europe. Activists urged the company to stop sourcing palm oil from companies that destroy forests in the process. Considering the popularity and force of social media, how should Nestlé react to the YouTube video?
February 2011: O.P. Bhatt reflected contentedly on his five-year term as Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest commercial bank. He had led SBI on a journey of transformation from an old, hierarchical, transaction oriented, government bank to a modern, customer focused, and technologically advanced universal bank. In 2006, when Bhatt assumed leadership, SBI had been losing market share for over two decades to private and foreign banks. Analysts and industry observers had predicted that at the prevailing growth rates ICICI Bank, a private bank launched in 1994, would overtake SBI in terms of deposits in four years. However, by 2010, SBI had more than doubled its profits, deposits and advances; regained market share and won the Asian Banker Achievement award for the strongest bank in the Asia Pacific region.
Describes the Dutch Flower cluster, or the group of interconnected growers, suppliers, service providers, and flower-related institutions located in The Netherlands. Examines the role of the FloraHolland auction in the value chain. Also describes the flower clusters in China, Colombia, Ecuador, and Kenya, the four other major international competitors.
The branch manager of the YMCA Goderich-Huron considers a change in operations for the Rotary Cover Beach property, which has been unprofitable for years. She needs to assess how a number of factors including financial considerations, might change operations for the coming year. Her assessment and recommendations would have to fit with the branch's overall financial strategy while considering the various stakeholders involved, including Goderich's town council.
The case examines AT&T's wireless business with focus on its text messaging services. The industry features a high proportion of fixed costs in relation to acquiring spectrum and building a network. Variable costs are relatively low and, in the case of SMS text messages, are very low. Pricing and margins in text messaging have attracted regulatory scrutiny in the Unites States, Canada and elsewhere. The case requires the use of key concepts in cost behaviour, cost volume profit analysis and product costing to understand the nature of the business and the profit margins involve. Many service or high tech businesses exhibit similar cost behaviours and so the case allows students insight into the management of such enterprises.