Operation Walk Canada (Operation Walks) was a private not-for-profit orthopaedic surgical mission organization based in London, Ontario. Its purpose was to provide total hip and knee replacement surgeries to patients in low- and middle-income countries, such as Guatemala. who had little or no access to orthopaedic care due to social, political, and economic factors. For two years, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the mission to temporarily pause its work, leaving behind an ever-growing waiting list of patients who needed life-changing surgical care. However, the tremendous burden of the pandemic, coupled with existing gaps in the health care services in Canada, resulted in an overwhelming need for support that went beyond the organization's capacity. For the organization to meet this demand, the team members needed an effective and sustainable strategy that would maximize its ability to meet the orthopaedic health care needs of the population. Operation Walk must now consider key challenges before returning to Antigua, Guatemala, in the spring of 2022.
The blockchain revolution has taken longer than expected to pick up steam. But now, says Ravi Sarathy, author of Enterprise Strategy for Blockchain, it has reached a maturity level that merits the attention of large incumbent companies. In this interview, Sarathy explains what has held blockchain back and why the time is right to start using it. He explores blockchain's most promising applications and explains how companies can develop and deploy it as a capability.
This case presents the unique approach to philanthropy of the Ahlstrom family. A group of 25 fifth-generation female Ahlstrom family members founded the Eva Ahlstrom foundation in 2010, in the name of the family matriarch Eva Ahlstrom (1848-1920), who was a big contributor to society in her time. This led to the establishment of the Ahlstrom Collective Impact in 2020. The uniqueness of the Ahlstrom Collective Impact lies in the power that comes from bringing all entities together under one umbrella, and letting purpose and values be the guiding principles that unite the Ahlstrom network. The core mission is to inspire, engage and involve everyone - employees and shareholders alike - to create a better understanding of what rights children have, and why and how their realization affects our businesses, our societies and our future.
This case provides an overview of a sales transformation in the industrial automation division at Belden, a hardware manufacturer. While Belden historically sold products such as cables, wires, and other networking devices, EVP of Industrial Automation Ashish Chand recognized that IT vendors were threatening to enter the hardware market. Thus, Chand initiated Enhanced Solutions Delivery (ESD), which pivoted Belden from selling products to selling solutions to optimize customers' networks. ESD required Belden to change its sales cycle, its approach to hiring, pricing model, and compensation structure. The case explores how Belden's leadership team implemented these changes, and how Belden navigated its changing relationship with channel partners and distribution partners.
The case discusses the relatively low technology approach used by Russia to influence the U.S. Presidential Election in 2016. Although political parties manipulating the media was not a new phenomenon, the Russians ran a broad, well-financed, and sophisticated social media campaign that started in 2014 and grew each year. Russia's IRA (Internet Research Agency) managed messages, and posted links and content across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Like any disciplined marketer, they tested content on a few sites and doubled down on messages that worked. Messages relied heavily on sharable memes tailored to the identity of each target group based on political affiliation, religion, ethnicity, and geography. The IRA initially focused on building trust and group identity by creating a sense of belonging. Over time, these morphed into messages that were external threats to the group identity with an aim to sway behavior. Russia's ability to meddle with the Presidential election was partly the result of systemic weaknesses in the U.S. governance of social media platforms. The leaders of social media platforms admitted that state actors had gamed their platforms to influence politics. However, underlining the misinformation campaign were opaque, influential algorithms that determined what content was viewed by billions of internet users. In a quest to capture attention and maximize engagement, these had fractured social norms necessary for a healthy democracy -- leaving populations vulnerable to online misinformation.
The signs say the global economy is headed for a recession, but downturns are not destiny. Companies that bolster their resilience, local agility, and portfolio agility now can improve their competitive position and enhance their future performance during the next recession. This article describes practical, evidence-based steps that leaders can take to help their companies capture the upside of the next downturn.
This background note discusses the evolution, use, and prevalence of staggered boards. By comparison with unitary boards whose members are all elected annually for one-year terms, staggered boards are divided into subsets of directors, with one subset up for election each year, typically for three year terms. While 61% of the S&P 500 had staggered boards in 2002, the practice largely fell out of favor in ensuing decades, and only 12% had one in 2022. This note discusses what staggered boards are and how they evolved; arguments for and against them from critics and proponents; developments leading to their decline; the academic research on their potential effects broadly and on certain types of firms; and the legal approaches to staggered boards in the United States as well as the diverse approaches to staggered boards internationally.
In early June 2021, an independent investigation team released its report into the way Japan-based Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba) had conducted its 2020 annual shareholder meeting, finding that the company had mishandled the annual general meeting with respect to shareholder rights. As a result, Toshiba had to deal with the immediate problem of putting up a new slate of nominee board directors to be put to a vote at the next annual shareholder meeting to be held on June 25, 2021. Toshiba also had to deal with the long-term problem of improving the company’s corporate governance and re-establish trust in the way the company was run. The board had one week in which to prepare a plan to present at the annual general meeting that would restore trust in the company.
Paytm was India’s first digital wallet service provider. It revolutionized the country’s digital payments landscape, but it was slow to adopt Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments. The entry of WhatsApp into the digital payments industry on November 6, 2020 intensified the competition in the UPI segment of the market that Google Pay and PhonePe already dominated by focusing on person-to-person (P2P) transactions. With a strong 400-million user base, WhatsApp threatened to be a formidable competitor in the P2P segment. Paytm was in third position in the UPI-based payments market, but maintained a firm hold on the person-to merchant (P2M) segment. Should Paytm continue to focus on that segment or should it expand to P2P, which was a larger market with big competitors?
A former investment banking professional had her eureka moment when she noticed instances of assaults on single women travelling alone in taxi cabs at odd times of the day. The prevalence of these instances led her to begin a safe cab service run by women for women—Taxshe Services Pvt. Ltd. (Taxshe), located in Bengaluru, India. In March 2020, the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic began in India, and a lockdown was announced as a preventive measure. Taxshe, whose customers mainly comprised working women and school-going children, faced a significant challenge, as the sudden changes and stringent restrictions brought on by the lockdown precipitated a substantial drop in the need for cab services. Taxshe’s founder contemplated the company’s dilemma and consulted people from across her wide network of personal and professional acquaintances. How could she keep Taxshe up and running in spite of the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic? What value-added specialty services could Taxshe offer as a cab service during the pandemic that would benefit society at large?
In June 2021, a strategist in the Canadian offices of Summit Consulting’s products strategy group was contemplating how to improve her recognition and standing within the professional services organization. However, she believed that her ability to advance was hampered by a conflict in the relationship between her direct manager and her coach. The strategist wanted to strengthen her own relationship with her direct manager, which seemed to be suffering due to her close relationship with her coach. The products strategy group was expected to grow significantly over the next year, during which time the strategist hoped to be promoted to the position of manager. However, she worried that the conflict between her two managers would stand in her way.
In August 2021, Singapore Airlines Group (SIA) was at a critical juncture in its history. Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced commercial travel to almost a standstill, requiring SIA to idle most of its fleet. The group’s overall revenues had declined by 76 per cent in the 2020/21 financial year, resulting in a loss of S$4.27 billion. The massive cash bleed forced the group to issue new capital, thus diluting the stake of its existing shareholders. Although SIA’s results had improved for the quarter ended June 30, 2021, the emergence of new virus variants and continued travel restrictions meant that the group needed to make critical decisions that would have implications for both its short-term survival and its long-term performance.
In January 2021, the co-founder of Mystery Books Co. (Mystery Books) was evaluating the company’s 2020 performance under the leadership of his daughter as the new chief executive officer. His daughter had ambitions of securing Walmart Inc. as a key client, so the co-founder had promised her an additional performance bonus of 5 per cent of his 30 per cent ownership of common stock if she grew the company’s net income by 20 per cent over the previous year. Throughout his thirty years of managing the company as chief executive officer, the co-founder had maintained very conservative accounting policies, some of which had been modified under his daughter's management. After reviewing the 2020 financial information, the co-founder harboured several concerns: Should he have specified more conditions for his daughter's performance incentive? Would the accounting policy changes pass the scrutiny of the company’s external auditors? And how should he proceed with regard to the suspicious sales activity he noticed? With these questions at the front of his mind, the co-founder of Mystery Books thought that perhaps he should have somehow left more reporting guidance for the company prior to leaving.
Organizations that aim to develop and deploy responsible AI systems must begin by considering what implicit and systemic biases reside in a technological system itself. Not doing so can result in catastrophic failures resulting from unintended consequences of the system's normal operations. The authors advise managers on how to mitigate the risk that algorithmic systems can cause organizational or social harm if left unchecked.
Webtoon Entertainment, a subsidiary of Korea's dominant search engine, Naver, with over 60% of the market share, is a prime example of how a company creates and captures new market opportunities in the era of digital transformation. With its humble beginning as a free service to increase user traffic to the portal site by providing digitized comics for web surfers, Webtoon Entertainment reinvented the comic book industry by changing the way comics are created, distributed, and consumed. Briefly, Webtoon Entertainment is a platform that connects creators and users of digital comic content in the form of a vertical layout that is optimized for PC and mobile browsing. The company now boasts 82 million monthly active users on its digital comic platform across the globe. The case explores the key milestones of Webtoon Entertainment to show how the company transformed the comic industry and became the largest storytelling platform in the world. More specifically, it describes how the company unlocked new creative talents and built an ecosystem for webtoon business based on a platform economy, monetized the once-free content into a billion-dollar business, and then rolled it out globally despite cultural and language barriers. Finally, the case describes the challenges ahead that Webtoon Entertainment faces in the lucrative yet competitive comics industry. Interestingly, the case has multimedia materials, including first-hand interviews and infographics, directly embedded between the written content. Students are able to access these materials via QR codes and are visually stimulated while elevating their comprehension of the case. This will be a whole new reading experience for students that immerses them in the evolution of Webtoon Entertainment at a different level, ensuring an active and rich class discussion. The case is suitable for teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, platform strategy, and globalization strategy.
The case tells the story of a strategic change and cultural shift at Innolume a start-up focused on unique laser production. George Gogolev, who represents the company's investors, is attempting to move the company away from customized productions for niche applications to mass production for the datacom market. Innolume won the Prism award - the "Oscar" of the photonics industry - for a laser dedicated to data transmission. However, the company lacked clear market vision, financing, production methods, quality controls and product readiness level. Although George convinced the investors to support the turnaround, it became apparent that the company's main challenge were cultural in nature. The Germany-based Innolume team consisted mainly of Russian scientists who were highly focused on R&D and technological excellence. At the same time, they lacked business development and were not customer-centric. The team was not supportive of the investors' initiative and sabotaged the changes, triggering open conflict between the staff and the new management. It took a comprehensive change management process to bring the new strategy and the company culture into alignment, and get the team on board. Finally, the company got on the right track for mass production. However, there were still some challenges related to product readiness. The issue of time becomes critical, and Innolume needs to speed up to benefit from the window of opportunity for entering the datacom market.
Benny Chung-Ying Zee was a professor at a prestigious university in Hong Kong and founder of Health View Bioanalytic Limited (Health View). Health View offered fast, inexpensive, non-invasive assessments of the risk of stroke and Alzheimer's disease by using artificial intelligence and automatic retinal image analysis (ARIA) of pictures of patients' retinas using fundus cameras. While Health View was breaking even, Zee realized that it was not yet a success. Thus, Zee was considering how to scale up the company to realize the impact of its technology. Zee had to assess the current business model-its value proposition, target market, sales channels, and strategic partners-and determine how he could scale up and redirect Health View.
In May 2019, ByteIQ Analytics was formed in India, with the idea to revolutionize finance through the potential of data. In the beginning, ByteIQ offered data science and analytics capabilities in the form of various services. But the founders aspired to make ByteIQ a product company so they created their first product, BankStorii, in December 2021. BankStorii was designed to aid financial customers to select the best banking products. ByteIQ's chief executive officer had two choices in selecting a suitable business model for BankStorii: make BankStorii available to the country's masses free of charge through a website platform or make BankStorii a proprietary software and license it to banks.