At EY, Jeff Wong served as chief innovation officer beginning in 2015. In this role, he was responsible for driving innovation and inoculating EY against potential threats to its $45 billion revenue global business. Wong's role advanced and grew with his success in launching initiatives for EY around artificial intelligence, blockchain, Web3, and automation among others. Through it all, Wong built the Global Innovation team at EY from a $5 million budget to hundreds of millions of dollars, returning $5 to $6 to EY for every $1 invested-within a year from when the investment was made.
Shantanu Bhattacharya, Professor of Operations Management at Singapore Management University (SMU), observed how waste in Singapore was incinerated before it was poured into the country's only landfill. The government wanted to maximise the country's limited land resources by using waste-to-energy (WTE) plants that would decrease the volume of waste that was deposited in landfills. Additionally, the heat generated could be used to generate electricity. In 2005, Keppel Seghers was awarded a public-private partnership (PPP) contract to develop the country's fifth WTE plant. This would be the first incineration plant in Singapore to employ technology from a local company. The PPP structure would allow the government to save on the capital outlay and capitalise on private sector expertise. Keppel Seghers would have to ensure that it would be able to provide sufficient incineration capacity. Bhattacharya supported the waste management strategy but knew the landfill had a limited lifespan. He hoped to study more innovative waste management solutions in the future.
During an Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) board meeting held in early 2019, Allianz’s chief financier officer (CFO) had a profound discussion with Allianz’s chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) on improving the company’s profit and loss (P&L) statement by targeting problematic cases among disability claims related to Allianz’s life insurance product. It appeared that certain claims had very long durations, leading to recurrent payouts surpassing the total amount of premiums. Consequently, there were too many claims that could translate into future losses. If this phenomenon persisted, Allianz could lose millions of dollars in revenues. Therefore, the CFO contacted the CDAO and his data office and requested that the team identify the client segments in which the most problematic cases of disability claims occurred. Additionally, the CFO wanted the data office to build a predictive model that could estimate the duration of a claim, to adapt the premium coverage to specific customer segments.
Although Mary Barra, chief executive officer (CEO) of General Motors Company (GM), had faced her fair share of challenges while leading GM, Tesla Inc. (Tesla) posed a tougher competitive challenge than anything that had come before. Despite groundbreaking progress with electric vehicles (EVs), autonomous driving, and sustainable development, GM was now living in the shadow of Tesla, which, to some extent, had leapfrogged industry incumbents to become the most valuable car manufacturer in the United States. Further, major EV developments from old rivals from Detroit, Europe, and Asia, as well as blooming EV start-ups—some backed by technology giants—only compounded Barra’s worries. GM had achieved significant success in adapting to the coming age of EVs, but it also faced a number of questions: Was GM’s current strategy sufficient to sustain the company’s success? What technologies, capabilities, or products would be needed for GM to thrive in the new era of global mobility?
Who doesn't feel some anxiety when faced with making a presentation to an audience of practitioners and executives? Presentations are often the most stressful part of a job in business or consulting. Yet anyone can learn to write and present better than they think. As with almost everything in business, there is a process. Based on interviews with practitioners and professors, this note will teach students to engage data, formulate a story, and use key tools to create powerful and compelling presentations. From descriptive statistics to regression to structural equation modeling to machine learning, quantitative analysis requires critical thinking and analytical rigor when it is being synthesized for presentation. Three main elements important to anyone preparing to build a presentation are (1) listening closely to clients, (2) understanding audiences, and (3) storyboarding. Thus an effective process includes asking clients the right questions, understanding how to tell stories, and being open to experimenting and learning to use technical tools efficiently.
This note works best when paired with two other Darden technical notes: ""The IS/LM Model"" (UVA-GEM-0126), and a note that directly supports this one, ""Determinants of Economic Growth"" (UVA-GEM-0202). This note provides a formal mathematical derivation to address recurring questions about the Solow model (see GEM-0202 for details). Using a detailed derivation that starts from the investment equation used in UVA-GEM-0126, it shows why population growth decreases capital per capita. Finally, it argues that productivity growth is the only path for a country to exhibit long-run output growth in per capita terms. Because this note uses mathematical tools to derive the Solow model, it is well beyond what is needed in an MBA program. It simply provides step-by-step derivations of the Solow model for interested readers.
This case is a study of the initial discovery of penicillin and how it came to be a mass-market product. The discovery of penicillin is fascinating first and foremost because of its direct, life-saving benefits and because of the context of World War II that surrounded its rise. Throughout the case, an argument is made for the importance of this invention not only for the society of the 1940s, but for our society today. Students are introduced to a handful of the individuals and institutions involved in the discovery and development of the technology, providing them with the information necessary to consider the people, institutions, and other factors that led to the drug's success. Students consider especially the role of intellectual property during penicillin's rise to success, as well as the cultural and legal differences between Britain and the United States related to the patenting of medical discoveries.
During an Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) board meeting held in early 2019, Allianz's chief financier officer (CFO) had a profound discussion with Allianz's chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) on improving the company's profit and loss (P&L) statement by targeting problematic cases among disability claims related to Allianz's life insurance product. It appeared that certain claims had very long durations, leading to recurrent payouts surpassing the total amount of premiums. Consequently, there were too many claims that could translate into future losses. If this phenomenon persisted, Allianz could lose millions of dollars in revenues. Therefore, the CFO contacted the CDAO and his data office and requested that the team identify the client segments in which the most problematic cases of disability claims occurred. Additionally, the CFO wanted the data office to build a predictive model that could estimate the duration of a claim, to adapt the premium coverage to specific customer segments.
Although Mary Barra, chief executive officer (CEO) of General Motors Company (GM), had faced her fair share of challenges while leading GM, Tesla Inc. (Tesla) posed a tougher competitive challenge than anything that had come before. Despite groundbreaking progress with electric vehicles (EVs), autonomous driving, and sustainable development, GM was now living in the shadow of Tesla, which, to some extent, had leapfrogged industry incumbents to become the most valuable car manufacturer in the United States. Further, major EV developments from old rivals from Detroit, Europe, and Asia, as well as blooming EV start-ups-some backed by technology giants-only compounded Barra's worries. GM had achieved significant success in adapting to the coming age of EVs, but it also faced a number of questions: Was GM's current strategy sufficient to sustain the company's success? What technologies, capabilities, or products would be needed for GM to thrive in the new era of global mobility?
This case set describes the gale of creative destruction that came with the rise of refrigeration and the creation of a globalized food supply chain, examined through the life of Charles Tellier, a French entrepreneur and inventor of the refrigerated ship that completed the first successful transoceanic shipment of fresh meat. It takes place largely during the mid- to late 19th century, a time of increasing globalization and disruptive social change. Tellier was a visionary inventor who saw refrigeration's potential to transform the world's food supply and improve nutrition and quality of life for the growing middle classes through improved year-round access to high-quality, perishable animal protein. While he was a dedicated and ultimately successful inventor, he struggled to fund his pursuits and manage stakeholders in his endeavors. The A case rests on a pivotal moment when Tellier's refrigerated transport technology showed early promise, but Tellier and the owners of the company disagreed on the appropriate next steps to verify and capitalize on this early success.
This case set describes the gale of creative destruction that came with the rise of refrigeration and the creation of a globalized food supply chain, examined through the life of Charles Tellier, a French entrepreneur and inventor of the refrigerated ship that completed the first successful transoceanic shipment of fresh meat. It takes place largely during the mid- to late 19th century, a time of increasing globalization and disruptive social change. Tellier was a visionary inventor who saw refrigeration's potential to transform the world's food supply and improve nutrition and quality of life for the growing middle classes through improved year-round access to high-quality, perishable animal protein. While he was a dedicated and ultimately successful inventor, he struggled to fund his pursuits and manage stakeholders in his endeavors. The A case rests on a pivotal moment when Tellier's refrigerated transport technology showed early promise, but Tellier and the owners of the company disagreed on the appropriate next steps to verify and capitalize on this early success. This B case offers an epilogue.
Jarsh Safety received an order of 500 units of its Model S helmet. However, the order must be delivered within 15 days. Jarsh Safety was founded by three engineering college peers, who conceptualized air-conditioned, industrial safety helmets. This innovative revolutionary product offered industrial workers not only safety but aesthetics and comfort. The founders hoped that the product could change the perception of safety helmets from mandatory wear to desired wear. The case details the production process, staffing, raw material required and procurement lead time.
The Akooda case describes the challenges confronting founder and CEO Yuval Gonczarowski (MBA '17) in 2022 as he attempts to boost sales. Launched in November 2020, Akooda was an AI company that mined 20 different sources of digital data, from tools like Slack, Google Drive, Jira, and Salesforce. Akooda's interfaces helped companies with knowledge management, process tracking, and onboarding employees by allowing managers to display real-time topics that teams and individuals engaged in during their actual work. Gonczarowski's company had begun to develop a reputation for helping companies generate insights previously obscured by the disparate software technologies used in day-to-day work. Despite strong growth, a large prospective client wanted Gonczarowski to use Akooda's artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to surveil, monitor, and measure the performance of individual employees. But Akooda's category was nascent, and Gonczarowski feared that providing companies with invasive monitoring tools would cause employees to distrust Akooda, hindering its ability to generate insights from employees' public-facing data. The case describes how Akooda impacts managers' roles in information-abundant but physically disconnected environments and Gonczarowski's needed to walk a tightrope between providing insights about company operations and monitoring previously private communications and activities.
Over the past decade, Asian companies have been launching accelerated and wide-ranging digital transformation initiatives. This has enabled some of them to become leading national and even international players, as well as digital pioneers in their respective industries. This case examines the successful digital transformation undertaken by the Chinese company Midea, one of the world's leading home appliance manufacturers. By digitally transforming the company, Midea improved its financial performance and reshaped its business on a wider scale. While many cases that address digital transformation focus on the early phases of the process, Midea's case illustrates a successfully completed digital business transformation. This allows participants to have an overview of the entire digital transformation journey and see what the potential outcomes might be.
Runza National, Inc. (Runza), an iconic Nebraskan quick-service restaurant chain had saturated its home Nebraskan market, with eighty-two stores across the state. A proud, family-run business, the Nebraskan chain was named after a mouth-watering regional specialty: the Runza sandwich. Also known as a bierock, this savoury bread pocket of Russian and German origins was adapted from a family recipe into the flagship offering. To foster further growth, the Runza team sought to expand the chain across the Midwest and beyond, through options such as company-owned stores, franchising, and ghost kitchens. Equally crucial were the areas in which to expand, with possible markets in nearby Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, and Missouri. Canadian communities also presented opportunities for international expansion. In determining the optimal markets and modes of entry, the company had to consider the effect of local factors on the company’s appeal. Its Nebraskan roots had made it a local icon with a devoted customer base, but the next steps beyond its home state would shape its future. Which states of the United States should they expand into, and was Canadian expansion viable? What market types—larger cities or smaller towns—were the most desirable, and which mode of entry was most feasible?
Artificial intelligence has been applied successfully in thousands of ways, but one of the less visible and less dramatic ones is improving data management. The authors describe five common areas of data management classifying, cataloging, quality, security, and data integration where they see AI playing important roles. They also discuss the vendor landscape and the ways that humans are essential to data management.
The mobile phone industry is notorious for its lack of sustainability. Fairphone started as a campaign to draw attention to 'conflict minerals' and the plight of tantalum miners. It became a social enterprise by launching its first 'fair phone', the FP1, with conflict-free tantalum. The FP2 was more broadly sustainable, with a five-year lifespan, replaceable parts, and recycling of old handsets, but it was expensive and appealed mostly to die-hard 'dark greens' who valued sustainable living over functionality. When Eva Gouwens joined as CEO in 2017, she was charged with making Fairphone more commercially oriented, while staying true to its ESG mission. The case describes the changes made and the make-or-break product launch of the FP3. Despite positive initial results, Fairphone had some way to go to turn the FP3 not only into a commercial success but an example to the rest of the industry. https://publishing.insead.edu/case/fairphone-3-commercializing-radical-sustainability