Although the term 'Generative AI' (GenAI) is widely recognized, its practical application in daily workflows has yet to be understood. This exercise introduces students to GenAI tools, demonstrating how they can be seamlessly integrated into professional work practices to co-invent, analyze data, generate images, summarize text, etc. The exercise guides students through developing a fictional snack company, showcasing the versatility of GenAI in tasks such as market analysis, brand development, and the formulation of marketing strategies. The exercise culminates with students creating a comprehensive design document and presentation that can be used to pitch to investors. Key takeaways include understanding how GenAI works, incorporating AI into developing and launching a new product, and offering valuable lessons on AI's potential and limitations in the modern workplace.
This note is about tokenization and tokenized assets. Tokenization refers to the process of creating a representation of a particular asset on a blockchain via digital tokens. Tokenized assets typically derive their value from the value of the underlying asset. This note explores the benefits and risks of tokenization, as well as use cases. Moreover, it explores Security Token Offerings, considerations for tokenized asset issuers, and the Howey Test. It concludes with a consideration of how possible future trends may affect tokenization.
The 2023 release of live-action film Barbie, and its accompanying marketing blitz, incited a worldwide Barbie craze. Suddenly Barbie was everywhere, a celebrated icon reinstated at the forefront of cultural conversation. This goodwill stood in contrast to decades of criticism of the Barbie brand. Although proponents celebrated Barbie for her promise to "inspire the limitless potential in every girl," detractors felt that the doll promoted a narrow beauty standard and perpetuated gender stereotypes. Past efforts to diversify the Barbie doll had met mixed reactions. Did the movie's superlative success mean that Barbie's dark days of controversy were behind her? In a fast-changing, turbulent industry, Mattel executives need to decide how to sustain Barbie's positive momentum, and whether the strategy can be replicated across other brands in Mattel's portfolio.
In March 2022, Jack Jelinek and Mikey Woolfson, co-founders and co-owners of CRANK Lite Bev Corp (Crank), were considering whether they should sell their beer (Crank Lite Lager) at the Northern Heat Rib Series (Ribfest). As an Oakville, Ontario-based brewery startup that launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, Crank had already taken on a large amount of risk, and Jelinek and Woolfson were unsure of whether they could afford to take on additional risk. However, they wished to continue growing their business to eventually get acquired by another company. Jelinek and Woolfson wanted to determine whether the Ribfest opportunity made sense from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.
In 2010, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India, had been working for several months on an initiative to catalyze cleantech start-ups in India. This required multi-point intervention, including mentoring, acceleration, and funding. Substantially funded by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), this policy experiment aimed to address both market and government failures in developing countries like India by unlocking venture capital to clean-energy start-ups. As the project required CIIE to raise additional funding from other sources and there had so far been no venture capital funding of clean energy projects in India, the CEO wondered who he could approach for such funding, how to approach them, and how to structure the resulting fund to ensure the greatest potential support for innovative cleantech solutions.
Trina Wolfson incorporated her business, Tartan Loungewear (Tartan), on June 1, 2022. The business sold trendy loungewear with tartan accents. After Tartan’s first year of operations, she and her friend, an accountant, were working together to record all accounting transactions and prepare financial statements for the year.
In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), data and algorithms have been increasingly incorporated into organizations’ talent management in general and recruitment processes in particular. The case discusses the experience of the China-based technology giant Baidu Inc. (Baidu) during its implementation and incorporation of AI in its recruitment process. It introduces the new trend of intelligent recruitment, addressing the transformation toward it, its technical functions, and the operational model and value creation it enables. It also explores the challenges and future opportunities in the use of AI for talent management.
In 2022, the SEEMA Center for Training and Protection of Women and Children’s Rights, a non-profit organization in Khartoum, Sudan, was focused on eradicating the practice of female genital mutilation. The organization was facing cultural, educational, and political challenges in Sudan, as well as tensions from decades of civil unrest, which created barriers for the founder’s fight to eradicate FGM. Her work was also greatly challenged by the deep cultural roots of the practice that existed within the country and in the surrounding regions. Female genital mutilation was a traditional ritual that generated a culture of illegal procedures and groups of extremists. These groups countered the work of the organization and made the founder’s job all the more difficult. She had to find effective strategies and partnerships to help her achieve her organization’s goal of eradicating female genital mutilation.
RiQian Motor was a Chinese company focusing on the development of wheel motors for mining machinery. Its long-term track record with providing high-quality products and service had won the trust and favour of its many clients. In 2016, the mining machinery industry began to focus on the production of electric vehicles. RiQian Motor invested in this new direction, but as of 2018, it was suffering losses in this new area. RiQian Motor was faced with a difficult choice: Should it discontinue its efforts at diversification and go back to the specialized strategy it excelled at? Or should it take a risk and continue the diversification strategy?
As managers face a flood of data, it is very important that they effectively analyze and interpret the available data to make decisions. Plotting data will help them in their analysis and interpretation of raw data. The same is true for students in business programs. However, students in business programs (and managers) often do not see the importance of plotting data. This exercise presents a typical classroom scenario in which the professor of data visualization quotes statistician John W. Tukey to his students and tries to drive home the importance of plotting data. A representative student understands about presenting summary statistics and running some statistical tests, but questions the usefulness of plotting points as well. The professor must decide how to teach the class about the merits of plotting data. The professor gives the student an assignment with data and instructions, and tells the student to report the class the next day. The student is unaware that he has been given the Anscombe quartet, and he becomes convinced of the benefits of plotting data.
Happiness Capital is a global venture capital firm within the hundred-year-old Lee Kum Kee Group with a mission to bring happiness to the community and the world through venture investments. As the founding Lee family progressed into the fifth generation, it wanted to diversify into a business that would also benefit the society, and impact investing emerged as an answer as it was a cause that resonated across different generations of the family. Happiness Capital undertook the pioneering initiative to co-create the "Happiness Return Framework" together with industry experts, addressing the issue of impact measurements often encountered in impact investing. The case examines how Happiness Capital defines and measures happiness with its proprietary "Happiness Return Framework," as well as examining its investment strategies, process, performance, risk management, organization and governance.
Zhongke Xinke (Beijing) Technology Co. Ltd. (Zhongke Xinke), founded in November 2016, enjoyed a high reputation in China’s makerspace industry. Miao Jinsheng, the founder of Zhongke Xinke, sensed the changing environment and the development challenges of the enterprise and created the Foreseeing Unicorns Project. Jointly launched with the Jiangxi provincial government, the project supported the success of entrepreneurs and helped Jiangxi Province to discover and cultivate unicorn enterprises, creating shared value economically and socially. However, its commitment and close ties with the local government limited Zhongke Xinke’s future growth to a certain extent. How could the project grow by balancing its commitment to Jiangxi Province with its need to grow outside the province (national)?
Brandix Group (Brandix), an apparel manufacturing firm with facilities in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, began its sustainability journey in the early 2000s, much before there were established practices in the apparel manufacturing industry, in an effort to combat and adapt to the challenges of climate change. The company had worked across all of the group’s establishments to ensure waste minimization, material efficiency, energy efficiency, and eco-efficiency in operations. Ashroff Omar, chief executive officer of Brandix, felt the time had come for Brandix to review its sustainability efforts and assess whether its sustainability strategy could be continued. He was planning to expand the scope of sustainability practices beyond firm boundaries, and explore the impact of possible changes in regulations, technology, and challenges from competitors.
Day after day, we observe people doing the same things in the same ways. As a result, we expect people to wear shoes on their feet and gloves on their hands; to eat ice cream with a spoon, not a fork; and to sit at the front when they drive and the back when they don't. When we observe things over and over, our mind stops register¬ing the action and responding. There is no 'surprise' signal to make us think, 'Hey, maybe we could do things differently?' The author argues that even minor changes have the power to trigger 'dishabituation' by signaling that a new situation needs to be navigated. As a result, people are more likely to rethink the status quo. He provides insights for increasing creative thinking in organizations by inducing small changes to routines and environments.
There is one thing that virtually every organization-whether it's a bank, a tech start-up or a hospital-has in common: a desire to reach its full innovative potential. The question is, how is this achieved? In this article-an excerpt from his book, The Management of Innovation-the author shares eight of the most important elements and principles for leaders to consider when aiming to optimize innovation for their organization. The first four relate to the use of intellectual property (IP) for effective management of the technologies developed by an organization; while the other four focus on the drivers of innovation both inside and outside of a firm.
Too often, efforts to innovate fall short within organizations. The good news is that, whether the focus is on new products, services, processes or business models, Generative AI (GenAI) can enhance and challenge the work of teams across all phases of the innovation cycle. GenAI's most obvious contribution thus far has been in idea generation and validation-the divergence and convergence phases of innovation. Yet the authors show that it can play an even more important role in helping leaders confront and update the strategic assumptions at the foundation of their strategies-what they call the 'doubt phase' of the cycle. They show that GenAI's role in innovation is not to take humans out of the creative process, just to make them better at it by pointing out old assumptions that box them in and stymie the quest for true innovation.
Historically, organizations have viewed exploration and exploitation as two distinct paths to innovation. But in our digital-driven era, this view is outdated. They describe recent research showing that some companies are working together to invent innovations further from the customer and compete on activities closer to the customer. They call the amalgamation of these two approaches coopetition. In this article they show that to succeed in the digital era, both digital and legacy incumbents must practice 'innovation ambidexterity,' refining existing competencies while exploring new avenues. By embedding coopetition into their DNA, companies can leverage both digital technologies and strategic partnerships.