Large language models like ChatGPT are generating excitement about their potential use cases. A pair of business strategists decided to test whether the tool can support ideation, experimentation, evaluation, and storytelling as part of the strategy creation process. In a series of experiments, they posed a realistic question of strategy to ChatGPT, followed by iterative follow-up questions. In this article, they share three lessons that emerged from their experiments with generative AI.
Sexual Harassment in Virtual Workplaces is a collection of eight vignettes set in India that describe various sexual harassment incidents perpetrated by supervisors, colleagues, and clients at virtual workplaces involving video calls, social media groups, and online chats. The harassment occurred both as one incident and as a series of incidents and consisted of behaviours such as requesting video meetings, comments about appearance, sharing pictures without permission, verbal put-downs, offensive comments, and sexual propositions, all of which led to adverse impacts on their targets.
This case explores the debate over which sustainability philosophy should drive a corporation's strategy: circular economy, green growth, or degrowth. The case uses IKEA and its enormously successful "fast furniture" business model to illustrate several potential strategies for increasing sustainability. The strategies relate to the concepts of enterprise integration of sustainability-companies "being less bad"-and market transformation-companies "doing more good." The case describes IKEA's sustainability efforts to date and areas for expansion, including its: 1) line of circular products; 2) forest stewardship roles; 3) secondary market program; 4) experiments with a furniture rental model; and 5) product servicing efforts. Also explored is IKEA's option to discourage consumerism directly and publicly, in line with a degrowth mentality. Students are asked to consider whether IKEA can decouple its resource use from growth, or alternatively, whether IKEA can remain profitable while selling less.
In 2022, Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited (Ola Electric), a motor vehicle manufacturing company based in Bengaluru, India, was embroiled in a privacy controversy pertaining to the use of customer data. Ola Electric had voluntarily published the telematics data of one of its customers on its Twitter account. This was done in response to allegations by a customer whose son was involved in a serious accident while riding a scooter manufactured by Ola Electric. The company's actions sparked Internet-wide discussions regarding data privacy, with numerous people voicing their distaste for its response. Moving forward, Ola Electric needed to take action to mitigate the effects of the controversy. Meanwhile, governments, companies, and consumers needed to understand their responsibility in relation to data privacy, given that data collection would become more prevalent in future.
In 2022, the National Football League (NFL) created the International Home Marketing Areas program with the goal of stimulating global fandom for American football. As part of the program, the league assigned individual teams exclusive commercial rights to international territories, effectively giving teams the opportunity to create “international home markets.” As a result, the Eagles, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were granted access to Ghana, making it the first NFL team to officially enter a market in Africa.<br><br\>But how should the Eagles’ marketing team go about creating a fan community in Ghana? How should it market the game of American football? What media or social channels should the team use to reach and connect with Ghanaian audiences? What activation points should it leverage? Should the team prioritize educating Ghanaians on the rules and nuances of American football or focus on building awareness and interest in the Eagles franchise specifically? And how should the Eagles evaluate whether their marketing efforts are succeeding? These were all questions Jen Kavanagh—Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Media for the Philadelphia Eagles—needed to answer before she could formalize the Eagles’ marketing strategy in Ghana.
This case make the analysis of potential markets for the internationalization of the company Saurios and, especially, to the selection and entry modes to these markets. It is developed from the reflections and analysis of Juan Manuel, owner of Saurios and Jorge, his partner. This entrepreneur has technical know-how in the production of caiman, but little knowledge and experience in international markets. For this reason, he has dedicated himself to researching and learning about international marketing and negotiation, so that, with as much information as possible, he can make the best decision to internationalize his company. For him it is clear that the way forward is to sell his products in international markets, since the Colombian market does not offer him greater opportunities. He is also aware that his company's future depends on its internationalization. Therefore, the company's survival depends on its internationalization. The case tells the story of Juan Manuel and Jorge's search for information and after months of research and analysis, they confirm that they have great opportunities for their products. The case presents the viable alternatives for the entrepreneurs to enter international markets: exporting the leather directly to Spain and the meat to Hong Kong, exporting the leather to Italy through an international agent or broker, and entering into a joint venture with a Japanese company to sell the leather in that country.
In 2022, the National Football League (NFL) created the International Home Marketing Areas program with the goal of stimulating global fandom for American football. As part of the program, the league assigned individual teams exclusive commercial rights to international territories, effectively giving teams the opportunity to create "international home markets." As a result, the Eagles, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were granted access to Ghana, making it the first NFL team to officially enter a market in Africa. But how should the Eagles' marketing team go about creating a fan community in Ghana? How should it market the game of American football? What media or social channels should the team use to reach and connect with Ghanaian audiences? What activation points should it leverage? Should the team prioritize educating Ghanaians on the rules and nuances of American football or focus on building awareness and interest in the Eagles franchise specifically? And how should the Eagles evaluate whether their marketing efforts are succeeding? These were all questions Jen Kavanagh-Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Media for the Philadelphia Eagles-needed to answer before she could formalize the Eagles' marketing strategy in Ghana.
The case describes how Coffee Commune, a China-based social enterprise founded by a German entrepreneur named Eric Baden, had been trying to reach a balance between social impact and sustainable business. This teaching note is designed for a 45-to-60-minute teaching plan, where students could play the main protagonist, Eric Baden, and follow his journey with Coffee Commune since 2016. As a German citizen who had lived in China for more than two decades, Baden was passionate about helping the poor coffee farmers in mountainous Yunnan by improving and promoting their beans in China and abroad. Baden and his team, in this case, could lead the students through the decision-making processes in various challenging scenarios, such as why and how Coffee Commune needed its own unique value chain called "crop-to-cup", how to fit the value propositions into a sustainable business model, whether and how to attract outside investment for Coffee Commune's organic growth, and most essentially, how to maintain positive social impact while delivering viable financial goals to sustain this purpose.
In October 2022, Quigley-Simpson & Heppelwhite CEO Carl Fremont considers how the advertising agency will integrate artificial intelligence tools into the business.
This case describes the decarbonization strategy of Arcos Dorados-McDonald's largest independent franchisee, operating in 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean-and how the company measured its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including those generated directly by the company and by all of its suppliers. Set in May 2022, the case also describes the challenges faced by the company to understand the composition of its carbon footprint, as well as the actions it has taken to reduce it. Under CEO Marcelo Rabach, Arcos Dorados was focusing on reducing its carbon intensity. While the company had made progress in reducing carbon emissions from its operations, it now needed to develop a plan to address emissions in its supply chain, which directly impacted the composition of its menu. Options to reduce the carbon impact of menu items included replacing (or mixing) the beef used in sandwiches with less carbon-intensive ingredients; shifting sales toward chicken-based meals; adding plant-based menu options; and increasing the share of sales driven by coffee and ice cream. The plan should align with the company's double-digit growth strategy while also controlling costs to maintain profit margins. Confronting these challenges, what was the best product mix and prioritization for these alternatives? Which products should get more resources to develop and market? How should the company forecast demand for these products? And how could they ensure that their efforts to reduce their carbon intensity would avoid hampering the company's growth, especially given its context of fierce competition and macroeconomic and social disruptions?
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the automotive industry was facing the most profound transformation in its history. Two primary factors were propelling a case for radical change: seamless connectivity due to rapid software development and the desperate need for environmentally friendly energy solutions. Covid-19, along with the energy crisis experienced in different parts of the world in 2021, simply accelerated this transformation. To future-proof itself and remain on the frontier of these profound changes, Toyota - one of the world's largest automotive companies - had committed to transforming itself from an automotive company into a mobility company. To do so, it created "Woven by Toyota" to establish a strong lead in industry transformation and innovate new technologies and software development. Daisuke Toyoda, son of Toyota's president, Akio Toyoda, had been named senior vice-president of this subsidiary, and his role included executing the Woven City project, a test course for accelerating Toyota's mobility product development. Daisuke was given the task of developing and implementing the Woven City project strategy and was determined, along with his team, to make this high-stakes living laboratory successful. By the end of 2022, Daisuke knew many important steps had already been taken in the creation of Woven City, yet as the project gained visibility and progressed beyond its conceptualization phase, important challenges had to be addressed and key choices made to bring this radically innovative project to life.
Little is known about how design leaders foster design excellence "at scale" within large organizations. To bridge this gap, this article reports on interviews with 59 senior design leaders. Using a paradox perspective to frame the findings uncovers major challenges when leading design teams inside large organizations. It also identifies five pairs of opposing leadership behaviors that address these tensions and balance the overarching paradox of integrating design into the fabric of an organization while maintaining its distinctive character: being transformative yet affirmative; being directive yet accommodating; being proactive yet responsive; being intuitive yet systematic; and being holistic yet specific.
Zipline delivers medical products via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). With its expansion to Ghana in 2019, Zipline became world's largest medical drone-delivery service, reaching over 25 million people. Founded in 2014 by Keller Rinaudo (CEO) and Keenan Wyrobek (CTO) in Half Moon Bay, California, Zipline is different from its Silicon Valley peers and has big ambitions: to serve 700 million people in need of medical supplies by 2024. The case study sheds light on the company, its drone technology and its new approach to the delivery of medical supplies. It also illustrates the difficulties ahead as it expands operations.
Deep tech involves applying emerging technologies to address big challenges such as using mRNA technology to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. But taking advantage of deep tech can be a challenge for incumbent companies. The authors share a three-step framework to help leaders identify and execute their deep-tech engagement strategies. Using the European steel industry as an example, they describe the factors companies should consider when choosing an approach to deep tech in their own industries.